Couplets, Previously Unpublished [from "The Two Davids," Shapiro and Lehman]

In February 2003, David Shapiro and I corresponded by couplets. Here's a sample from our exchanges. - DL

Re: love and the stickerist redesigns his heroes,       
Date:   2/8/2003 7:46:41 PM Eastern Standard Time
From:   DaJoShap       
To:       DCLEHMAN

Lover

He wanted to be one of the many keys she carried.
Her face was a blow which he could never have parried.

He was not even one of the keys she carried.
He wasn't Prince Hamlet. He was already married.

He took out the garbage and let in the laundry.
He sculpted hysterical misery like a foundry.

He put green snakes on Arthur Rimbaud's blue eyes.
He launched Stealth planes out of Baudelaire's thighs.

He burst James Joyce with gifts he could not give.
He surrounded Franz Kafka's with hearts, pigs and jive.

He bit the flowers of Mondrian under quarantine.
And General Buster Keaton resigned from the Green.

His presents floated above the white birch lake.
The silk on Rimbaud's eyes began to shake . >>     DS, 2 / 8 / 03

 

Re: Agamemnon’s concubine after Achilleus left Priam’s tent
From:   DCLEHMAN    
To:       DaJoShap

She wished she could believe what he had said.
She feared the words he didn’t say in bed.

She went to bed with a flower, not with a gun.
She posed for Picasso in the evning, for Matisse in the morning sun.

She played piano.for an audience of one, Ulysses in a beard.
When he was strapped to the mast, this is what he heard.

She sang beyond the sea as the Florida fat man
Transcribed, and shone like the moon on an ash can.

She was willing to accept her role in the play
if he agreed to take her to Denmark and Norway..

She was elected. She was not rejected. She came to the game.
She mastered the rules of the game and redefined fame.

She was asked what her son would get her for Mother's Day.
"A hard time," she said. Flowers surrounded her all day.

– DL, 2 / 9 / 03

 Agamemnon's concubine after Achilleus left Priam's tent   
Date:   2/9/2003 3:11:17 PM Eastern Standard Time
From:   DaJoShap       
To:       DCLEHMAN

Who doesn't sulk in his tent like Mondrian.
When you sulk in Holland, it's spelled Mondriaan.

Who doesn't hope slaves be treated like tripods.
But some of them will be able to remove their kneepads.

I was embarrassed that the President undressed.
But, after all, he was brilliant to have confessed.

Agammenon shook, and all the siftings shook.
Whatever he saw he wanted, as in a book.

The old men wavered behind Helen's hook.
They said, "The war was worth it" and awoke.

Suddenly, in Egypt, Helen felt safer and slicker.
Her smooth “escape” couldn't have been more like a sticker.

The heroes sulked, and all their ankles broke.
Paris caressed the ghostly skin like a crook..   – DS, 2 / 9 / 03

 

Five Games of Blindfold Chess (Rimbaud,Fisher,Cage.Koch,duchamp)          

Date:   2/10/2003 5:52:32 PM Eastern Standard Time         
From:   DaJoShap
To:       DCLEHMAN

End Game

And someone said, Commuting is the fun part
Like Beckett's impotence, a cry of done art.

And dun art where the brown is excremental.
And I try the heroes' cloaks on‑‑in my tent lull.

The quiet stops. Hamlet walks with Pasternak.
The tiger is sheepish and the goat emits a quack.

Rimbaud and Kenneth Koch play chess at once.
Kenneth is the only one to treat Him like a dunce.

Bobby Fischer kibbitzes, says: Sacrifice queen!
Kenneth: That's near infinitude! What can you mean?!

Then sacrifice your sound, laughs old John Cage.
And Kenneth, more responsive, shouts: Oh, Act your age!

The game divorces all of them from their smirks.
They lost at chess, but we know them for their works.  – DS, 2 / 10 / 03

 

Re: The Hero's Horse and the Tyger, Mate in Three

from DCLEHMAN
to DaJoShap

Mate

What a clever fellow was our Kenny.
So sang the muses for whom he sang for pennies.

When I think of you, David Shapiro, I
Walk with ghosts on Riverside under a melting sky.

The tiger is brilliant and wiser than the didactic horse
Who stares straight ahead and never changes course.

We were wrathful young geniuses on a mission
Which ended as all movies do, with a couple kissing.

Thank you I said to him and he said thank you to me
And then we played more chess and drank more tea.  DL, 2 / 11/ 03

Comments

[jim c]

The "Ready for Priam Time Players"?

[David Lehman]

Priam I am,
said Creon. Nor is it a crime.
No, I am not a crook.
Put it in the books!