The Best American Poetry

Rhode Island is Famous for You [for Denise Duhamel, on her birthday]

Rhode Island is Famous for You
By David Lehman

for Denise Duhamel

The blue forest, chilled and blue, like the lips of the dead,
show life when brought to the public eye in June,
the month of twins who divide their lives in two
or spend hours pursuing the ghost of a lover. Stacey
and I drive to the swimming pool and Blossom Dearie
sings “Rhode Island is Famous For You,” which always
makes Stacey think of Denise Duhamel, born this day
in Woonsocket, R. I.  Other children of June 13 include
Yeats, Pessoa, and Tony Towle, each of whom is a cousin
of yours, Denise, pursuing the arrow of greatness, but of none
of them is it true that Rhode Island, smallest
and possibly most underrated state, is famous for you.
And the lips that were cold and blue when this poem
began have the warmth of June and the charm of a kiss.

6/13/23

from The Common, March 2024

"June 11": Poem 076 in "Poems 180" ed. by Billy Collins for the Library of Congress

 

June 11

It's my birthday I've got an empty
stomach and the desire to be
lazy in the hammock and maybe
go for a cool swim on a hot day
with the trombone in Sinatra's
"I've Got You Under My Skin"
in my head and then to break for
lunch a corned-beef sandwich and Pepsi
with plenty of ice cubes unlike France
where they put one measly ice cube
in your expensive Coke and when
you ask for more they argue with
you they say this way you get more
Coke for the money showing they
completely misunderstand the nature of
American soft drinks which are an
excuse for ice cubes still I wouldn't
mind being there for a couple of
days Philip Larkin's attitude
toward China comes to mind when
asked if he'd like to go there he said
yes if he could return the same day

—David Lehman

David Lehman (1948- ) is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Yeshiva Boys (2009), When a Woman Loves a Man (2005), The Evening Sun (2002), and The Daily Mirror: A Journal in Poetry (1998). Photo from 1997, the year after the poem was written.

"Lining-Up (for Charles North)" [by David Lehman]

"Lining-Up (for Charles North)" [by David Lehman]

This poem was inspired by a dream I had in which Amy Gerstler and I were on the same softball team, with her in lead-off position playing shortstop. Charles North has written many great “line ups” – for example, an all-philosopher team as well as teams consisting exclusively of diseases, vegetables, and famous couples – so I thought I would dedicate the poem to him, a confirmed Gemini, born on June 9. Charles tells me he is happy to be in the lineup, though he has reservations about the wisdom of playing him at first base. “I’m a righty,” he points out. But so were Gil Hodges and Steve Garvey, no?  But we took his reservations seriously, and are (as you will see) swirtching him to right field and Tony Towle to first base for game two of the series..

Lining Up
for Charles North 

SS Amy Gerstler
2B David Lehman
3B David Shapiro (L) 
LF David Trinidad
IB Tony Towle
RF Charles North *
CF Elaine Equi
C Ted Berrigan
P Ron Padgett (L)
Relief pitcher Vincent Katz (ROY)**
PH NL / DH AL Jerome Sala ****

General manager: Harry Mathews
Front office wise men: Bob Hershon, Mitch Sisskind
Scouts: Edwin Denby, Tim Dlugos, Maxine Chernoff, Paul Hoover, Angela Ball

Manager: Paul Violi
Bench coach: John Ashbery
First base Koch: Kenneth Coach
Third base coach: Frank O'Hara
Trainer: James Schuyler
Pitching coach: Joseph Ceravolo
Batting coach: Larry Fagin
Bullpen coach: Bernadette Mayer
Press Relations: Terence Winch
TV announcers: Paul Auster (and a former player to be named later)
Radio play-by-play persons: Phillip Lopate, Andrei Codrescu, Anne Waldman
Broadway adaptation: Lehman Engel, Kenward Elmslie

Uniform design: Joe Brainard
Critic: Tom Clark

L  Left-hander
* To be played by Chris Noth in the TV version.
** Winner, rookie of the year award.
*** Switch hitter; to be deployed as a pinch hitter in the National League and as a designated hitter in the American League.

Posted by The Best American Poetry on June 09, 2020 at 12:01 PM in Adventures of Lehman, Birthday Poems, Feature | Permalink

From the archive; first posted June 09, 2020

"Doubting the Doubts" [in honor of Jasper Johns; by David Shapiro]

David Shapiro wishes Jasper Johns a happy birthday (May 15)!

Doubting the Doubts

A map dropped from my hands
And a voice cried, From now on
You will proceed in darkness.
Alas, he laughed, that is true.

Was it a black map?
I do not remember.

We all love clarity.
But you love darkness.
But darkness is clear.

We do not know now and we will never know.
White night, perilous night.

– David Shapiro (5/15/08)

David Shapiro wishes Jasper Johns a happy birthday (May 15)!

Doubting the Doubts

A map dropped from my hands
And a voice cried, From now on
You will proceed in darkness.
Alas, he laughed, that is true.

Was it a black map?
I do not remember.

We all love clarity.
But you love darkness.
But darkness is clear.

We do not know now and we will never know.
White night, perilous night.

– David Shapiro (5/15/08)

On Archie [Ammons] on His Birthday [Feb 18]

Archie 

I’m listening to Eric Dolphy without understanding a word

there are no words but I know what you mean

on the drive back to Hamilton College

after visiting Archie for the first time

in Goldwin Smith Hall in 1976 I brought my hardcover copy

of Diversification he signed it and took me

to Epoch headquarters we took a walk

around the Cornell arts quad he showed me

the one building on campus he liked (was it Barnes Hall?)

because it “has some diversity to go with its unity”

he complained of bad health bad teeth bad skin

well, I said, you look good

well, he said, I fuck a lol

11 / 19 / 17

from Playlist by David Lehman (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019). Photo of A. R. (Archie) Ammons.

On Schubert's Birthday (January 31, 2025)

On Schubert’s Birthday 

Even the dog is asleep
on the last day of January,
Franz Schubert’s birthday.
The classical station
will surely play his string quartets
and songs, and if I have to drive,
the electrons of my mind can
escape into the orbit of Franz Schubert.
The effect of sun on snow
is bright yellow light, but then
the white stuff comes down
with the grace of butterflies
on my windshield, and Schubert’s
Octet in F major on satellite radio.

-- David Lehman

Or even better: the Rosamunde Overture

also listen to Schubert's second Piano Trio in E-flat major

"Like a White Blouse": Couplets from "The Two Davids" [by David Shapiro and David Lehman]

Happy birthday, David Shapiro  (born January 2, 1947)

These poems are from February 2003, when David Shapiro and I collaborated daily in couplets. - DL

Re: Like a white blouse, or like red crowds in a face 
Date:   2/17/2003 10:28:38 AM Eastern Standard Time       
From:   DaJoShap       
To:       DCLEHMAN

The apparition of those snowflakes in a crowd:
Petals on a wet white black bough.

The apparition of some poison in a crowd:
Petals on a white black and blackened shroud.

The apparition of those crowds inside a crowd:
Crowds of petals on a wet white black snow‑plow.

The apparition of these apparitions in a wheelbarrow.
Yellow yellow yellow on a white black bough.

The apparition of these umbrellas meeting machines:
Faces on a white wet black blue‑green.

The apparition of our couplets in a crowd:
Metal on a wet white blue‑green black bough unbowed.

The chance encounter in a beautiful crowd:
Pages reduced to a white wet black blouse.  ‑‑ DS, 2 / 17 / 03

from: DCLEHMAN
to: DaJoShap

The apparition of these buds in the dark:
The eyes of a teenage American Jeanne d'Arc.

The petals of a crowd of strangers in the ground:
The buds in the blouse are pink on a white mound.

The apparition of snow as a black bird circles overhead:
The cars wait. The lights don't change from yellow to red.

The chance encounter of a mustache and a tear:
The accidental beauty of a desultory cheer.

Nothing's an accident, nothing's left to chance.
One girl sits in the corner while two others dance.

A blizzard of sparks from the sky and tomorrow
The white of the snow will blot out your sorrow.

Whatever you do, don't forget your gun.
And teach your son not to fly too close to the sun.   -- DL, 2 / 17 / 03

 

Re: Heroically incorrect, David Lehman receives the melancholy Couplet award  

Date:   2/19/2003 10:38:27 AM Eastern Standard Time       
From:   DaJoShap       
To:       DCLEHMAN

The proper study of mankind is a crowd:
Duct tape on a white wet black shroud.

The chance encounter of convulsive love and chance:
Petals on David's first evening in Paris, France..

Says surgeon: I have stitched you and you're mine.
Umbrella squeaks. Sewing faints.  5 of 9.

Says Breton: I'm ship's doctor! What a chance!
Sewing Machine to Umbrella: Oh well, let's dance!

Says Artaud: You're cruel to pull wool over a crowd:
Says petal to petal: Let's come coming through aloud.

Says Edward Lear Umbrella: I'm not proud.
I've only stopped  rain falling on your shroud.

Says Umbrella to the Snark insider the park:
Spring's got nothing but Silence, and a Boojum's not a quark.   DS, 2 / 19 / 03

Fifteen Glorious Minutes (on Beethoven's Birthday)

Happy Birthday, Emily Dickinson

I am alive -- I guess --
The Branches on my Hand
Are full of Morning Glory --
And at my finger's end --

The Carmine -- tingles warm --
And if I hold a Glass
Across my Mouth -- it blurs it --
Physician's -- proof of Breath --

I am alive -- because
I am not in a Room --
The Parlor -- Commonly -- it is --
So Visitors may come --

And lean -- and view it sidewise --
And add "How cold -- it grew" --
And "Was it conscious -- when it stepped
In Immortality?"

I am alive -- because
I do not own a House --
Entitled to myself -- precise --
And fitting no one else --

And marked my Girlhood's name --
So Visitors may know
Which Door is mine -- and not

-- Emily Dickinson
(December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886)

A tip of the fedora to Ira Gershwin, born December 6

There are still two hours left before the sixth
of December gives way to the day of infamy
enough time to mark the birth of Ira,
George's older brother, and what better
way to honor the lad who wrote the words
than to quote some whch should I choose
"Embraceable You" (you irreplaceable you)
or "Someone to Watch over Me" or maybe
"But Not for Me" one of the greatest (for me)
a brainy boy who outlived his genius brother
born the same year as Yip Harburg
and Howard Dietz a very good year for lyricists
was 1896
well, Ira, no use complainin', the odds were
a hundred to one against you,
a stranger in the city,  yet
you're with her who wanted
to add your initial to her monogram

-- DL (frem the archives; December 6, 2009)

"Terence on the Terrace" [by David Lehman]

Terence on the Terrace

Sipping a dry martini, with a garlic-stuffed olive,
I am thinking how happy I am to be 
clinking glasses with you, my friend,
in this virtual universe where virtue is rare
and you've got it. “The valiant never taste 
of death but once,” may not be true but is
magnificent rhetoric, defined broadly
as an argument with everyone, which
the valorous will inevitably lose, though,
as in a chess game, one can always resign
rather than face the music if checkmate.
is inevitable. Writing a happy hour sonnet,
you aim at levity, but the levitation
cannot defeat the earth's gravitational pull.

David Lehman 11 / 1 / 24   [Happy birthday, TPW]

from "The Complete History of the Boy" [for Joe Lehman on 7/24/24]

from "The Complete History of the Boy"

The boy was mad at his mother who didn’t hang up
the phone right away when he fell and hurt his head.
He was indignant. “Hurts are more important than inventions.”

He dreamed his father died. “Mama told me in the car.”
When he woke up he climbed into bed with his father, happy.

He wanted to discuss the floor plan of the house:
“Is my room over the dining room?”

He wanted to know which was more important,
the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building.
The former is a symbol of liberty, the latter a symbol
of industry, his mother explained. That clinched things
for the boy. He unhesitatingly chose liberty.

“Which is more important, religion or God?”

He was still five years old.
They found a special school for him.
He took classes in Magical Thinking and excelled
in the making of weird predictions and dire threats
that scared you even though you knew
they wouldn’t come true.

He also learned how to walk and talk in his sleep.

Two years later he saw Hans Hofmann’s “Mirage”
only this time on the cover of a book
with his father’s name on it.
“Awesome,” the boy said.

The world was still a dance not a duel, with invisible swords.
And at the museum the Hofmann hadn’t changed a bit.

Joy in the house, laughter in the halls, the boy in pajamas:
There were still a few good boyhood years left.

-- David Lehman

A Quick Meditation on Gustave Mahler (born July 7)

Wittgenstein dismissed Mahler’s music, but he conceded
that "very rare talents [were needed] to produce this bad music.”
Leonard Bernstein as conductor of the New York Philharmonic
sparked the Mahler boom of the 1960s. In Visconti's Death in Venice,
you can hear the slow fourth movement of Mahler's fifth in C Sharp minor,
which Mahler conducted in Cologne in 1904. In the movie,
a heavily made-up Dirk Bogarde played himself as a repressed homosexual
with a death wish. Visconti cast Bogarde for the role because he had done so well
as a Nazi in a black shirt with a smirk and an SS symbol on his collar
in The Damned. So I, on a day dominated by Mahler’s Fifth,
thought of the composer who spoke Yiddish as a boy,
"a Bohemian in Austria, an Austrian among Germans,
and a Jew all over," on his birthday, July 7, 1860.

--  David Lehman

"Lana Turner has collapsed!" [by Frank O'Hara]

Poem

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up

-- Frank O'Hara

In Praise of Adam Zagajewski (1945-2021)

Mysticism for Beginners

 

The day was mild, the light was generous.

The German on the café terrace

held a small book on his lap.

I caught sight of the title:

Mysticism for Beginners.

Suddenly I understood that the swallows

patrolling the streets of Montepulciano

with their shrill whistles,

and the hushed talk of timid travelers

from Eastern, so-called Central Europe,

and the white herons standing—yesterday? the day before?—

like nuns in fields of rice,

and the dusk, slow and systematic,

erasing the outlines of medieval houses,

and olive trees on little hills,

abandoned to the wind and heat,

and the head of the Unknown Princess

that I saw and admired in the Louvre,

and stained-glass windows like butterfly wings

sprinkled with pollen,

and the little nightingale practicing

its speech beside the highway,

and any journey, any kind of trip,

are only mysticism for beginners,

the elementary course, prelude

to a test that's been

postponed.

 

-- Adam Zagajewski (born June 21, 1945)

trans. CLARE CAVANAGH

photo by Star Black. Copyright (c) 2008 by Star Black.

Happy birthday, Ron Padgett

In 1968 I didn't really know you though
Dick Gallup, who sat next to me
in Kenneth Koch's "Modern Poetry"
class, invited me to a party and
there you were and I went to hear
you read and went through old
copies of Columbia Review to read
your poems (including the one
signed "the sloth sloth") and why
am I telling you this? Because it's
your day of the year, and you're a gem
as well as a Gemini twin, and I
would tip my fedora to you if
I were wearing one as men used
to say when men wore fedoras.

-- David Lehman (June 17, 2013)

Dean Martin on His Birthday: Volare, On an Evening in Roma

“I can't stand an actor or actress who tells me acting is hard work. It's easy work. Anyone who says it isn't never had to stand on his feet all day dealing blackjack.”

Volare o o
cantare o o o o,
nel blu dipinto di blu
felice di stare lassù,
e volavo volavo
felice più in alto del sole
ed ancora più sù,
mentre il mondo
pian piano spariva laggiù,
una musica dolce suonava
soltanto per me. . .

 

"In 1976, When She Was Born" [by Molly Arden]

In 1976, When She Was Born

Life was dull in 1976.
Dad had to read "Ivanhoe" and write a report.
Sex was not yet Mom’s favorite sport.
The only rhyme that came to mind was "dicks."

Mom was somewhere north
of the Mass / NH border.
She was just following an order,
not calculating its moral worth.

She was on vacation
feeling unclever
and not happily after ever.

He promised to wait
for her return to the state
of eternal temptation.

-- Molly Arden. Painting by Duncan Hannah ("Honey Trap").  Poem published in Coconut.

Happy birthday, Artie Shaw [May 23, 1910]

Born May 23, 1910. Band leader and clarinetist whose versions of "Stardust," "Frenesi," "Begin the Beguine" "Moonglow," "Can't Get Started," "A Foggy Day," and others are sublime. He was a Gemini with huge sex appeal and a host of wives including Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, and Jerome Kern's daughter Betty. He had chutzpah. “Presumption is the mother of all fuck-ups,” he explained. He was also a sharpshooter with a rifle. He and Benny Goodman disagreed, Goodman saying ""We both play clarinet." Shaw said, "You play clarinet. I play music." He also said, "Jazz was born out of the whiskey bottle, was raised on marijuana, and will expire on cocaine." He was a good looking stud but it was the music that enchanted the fillies. "“You have no idea of the women I didn’t marry,” he said. He lived to be ninety.

And here are Helen Forrest's songs with the Artie Shaw band:

Artie: “Somebody asked me once, ‘Do you think that swing will ever come back?’ And I said, ‘Do you think the 1938 Ford will ever come back?’"

"Come to Baby, Do": happy birthday, Doris Day (w/ Les Brown & "his band of renown")

Also born today (April 3): Marlon Brando.

So We'll Go No More a Roving [on Lord Byron's birthday, Jan. 22nd]

So, we'll go no more a roving
   So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
   And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
   And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
   And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
   And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
   By the light of the moon.

Brevity and simplicity contribute to this poem's power. It seems also somehow to summarize the Byronic state: Wanderlust and Weltschmertz in equal measures. The poem makes me think of this tuneful ballad. DL 

In Plymouth town there lived a maid
Bless you fair maidens
In Plymouth town there lived a maid
Mind what I say
In Plymouth town there lived a maid
And she was mistress of her trade
I’ll go no more a-rovin’ with you fair maid

A-rovin’, a-rovin’, since rovin’s been my ruin
I’ll go no more a-rovin’ with you fair maid.