After Koch (by Mitch Sisskind)

                  "It's very difficult to criticize my French, 
                  since I speak perfectly."
                                          -- Kenneth Koch, in conversation

It’s very difficult for me to write this poem
     After I’ve been dead for eighteen years
Or maybe even longer depending on when
      You’re reading it but it’s very difficult
For me to know exactly when that might be
      Since keeping track of time is very difficult
For the dead with one day much like another but
       Not writing this poem would also be very difficult
Because I started writing poems at a young age
        And it’s one of the things I got used to without
Ever getting completely used to it like making love
         Is something else I never exactly got used to
Since it’s very difficult to make love perfectly
         Like I could speak French perfectly.

It’s very difficult to write about my future at this point
          Since I don’t have one but I can draw inspiration
From John’s lines in Civilization and Its Discontents,
          “I could only gaze into the distance at my life like
“A saint’s with each day distinct” and in fact each day
          Is so distinct that even long-forgotten remarks
Flit into one’s consciousness like the randomness
          Of a hummingbird’s flight across a table set for
A charming breakfast in the backyard of the parents
          Of a beautiful and brilliant girl you want to marry
Despite a rather obvious age differential and suddenly you
           Hear yourself saying, “Rubens married Helene Fourment
“When she was just sixteen and they even had five children.”
          Wait a minute, where was I?

You see, it’s very difficult to manage a train of thought when
          The tracking mechanisms of time and space are
Removed but I was about to say that slapdash reminiscences              
          Now crop up like bumblebees not entirely unwelcome
But somewhat alarming all the same and in particular I had
          In mind the first year I taught writing at Columbia when
Apropos of who knows what I observed to the startled class,
          “When you’re twenty you think you will never die but when
“You’re forty you know you will.” Funilly enough (funnily enough!)
          I was only thirty-nine so I was kind of looking into the future
Except not like when you meet a beautiful girl and you know you
          Will make love with her without knowing exactly when
But more like you’re speaking French with her and she speaks
          Perfectly and then she uses a word you’ve still got to learn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[The Best American Poetry]

Though I don't know the word
in even five languages
I will guess it's la vie
et la morte life and death
lebend und tod: pouvez-me dire
si j'ai raison?
-- Sidney Luckman