2 poems
By David Kirby
Angel Tears
When you tell somebody a secret and make them promise
not to tell anyone else, do you know how many people
they’re going to end up telling it to? You’re probably think
it’s a dozen or twenty, but experts say the average number
is one. Of course, that’s all it has to be, since this next person,
who has also been sworn to secrecy, will now tell your secret
to one person who will tell it to one more and so on until
the whole town knows, which explains why the men are
giving you knowing winks and the women are scowling
or the other way around, depending on your gender
and level of acquaintance with the winkers and scowlers
as well as the particulars of the no-longer-secret secret.
The best secret I know was told to me by a guy
who pulled off only one dope deal in his whole life,
but it was a big one, and he used the proceeds to finance
a PhD in Religious Studies and got a teaching job
at a community college and spent the rest of his days
happily discussing Aquinas and St. Teresa of Avila
with eager young people. When people tell me
their secrets, I don’t tell anyone, because that way
they’ll tell me even more secrets, and I can make
poems out of them. Note that I’m not telling you
my friend’s secret as I am not revealing
his name or where he went to school or ended up
working. There are enough secrets in the world
already. Remember high school? There was Mr. Deetz
with his pocket protector and pencil-thin mustache,
Mrs. Thorndike with her ample bosom and pearls,
rumored to be real. Nobody knew his first name or hers.
We could have found out, but why would you want to?
And then we grew up. The older we got, the more
secrets there were. There is in each life one great teacher,
friend, enemy, and love, but they’re disguised,
and we won’t know who they are until we’ve learned from,
caroused with, fought, and embraced them. Why,
if there were no secrets, there would be no Hagomoro chalk,
said by mathematicians the world over to be the Rolls Royce
of chalk, the Steinway of writing utensils. Never heard
of Hagomoro chalk? That’s probably because you
are neither a six-year-old or a mathematician. Whereas
college administrators prefer interactive whiteboards,
little kids and mathematicians still like the blackboard,
which, according to one of the latter, “is like a window
into the inner workings of the subject, so going to the board
is like going to the magic window,” preferably with a piece
of Hagomoro chalk in hand, because it . . . well, it just
feels right. According to mathematicians. “Someone
told me it contains clam shells,” said a second, while
a third said, "I assume the special ingredient in Hagoromo
is angel tears.” The best secrets are the ones we don’t
know about, because if no one knows what you’re up to,
you don’t have to lie or evade. It’s said that the aim
of the British secret services is to be as boring as possible,
that a profound silence is often the echo of a secret event
that is seismic. Then there’s this theater director
who says when she’s struggling in rehearsal, she’ll get up
from her seat in the last row of the theater and say,
“I have an idea” and begin a long slow walk toward the stage,
and by the time she gets there, she better have an idea.
The best secrets are the ones we keep from ourselves.
Fabulous and Awful
do you want to write your own obituary I do
the ones in the newspaper are so blah
everybody goes home to their Heavenly Father
or is welcomed into the arms of the Lord
which is fine I guess
only Our Creator is going to have to have a big wing span
since half a dozen people on today’s obituary page
got some version of that same celestial greeting
and yes the world is a better place
because you loved gardening and playing with your cats
and cheering for your city’s baseball team despite its 19-41 record last year
but everybody else did that too
when I read your obituary I want to be able to say yes yes that’s her exactly
but before you begin to write it
remember that Shakespeare said
the web of our life is of a mingled yarn
good and ill together
like lasagna
or the Beatles
it’s November 9 1961
Brian Epstein and his assistant Alistair Taylor are making their way
into the Cavern Club
to hear four young musicians he knows from the record shop he manages
the ones who lounge around the booths
listening to the latest discs and chatting up the girls
with no intention whatsoever of buying a record
the music is too loud
the three men with guitars yell and swear
and turn their backs to the audience
and pretend to hit each other
Alistair Taylor feel as though he’s undergoing
the worst experience of his life
and is pretty sure Brian Epstein feels the same
so after the show he says they’re just awful
and Brian Epstein says they are awful
but I also think they’re fabulous
let’s just go and say hello
that’s your life
tell it that way
say you loved teaching but hated salads
say you volunteered at the shelter and loved that too
but saw a car hit a dog one day and didn’t stop to help
say you did your best
but you weren’t the girlfriend or wife or mother you should have been
everyone will like that
because who was
don’t forget to say you were lucky
nobody ever mentions luck in their obituary
luck’s the most important thing
George Harrison is the first of the Beatles
to spot the man from the record shop approaching
hello there he says what brings Mr Epstein here today
David Kirby
David Kirby teaches at Florida State University. His collection The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems was a finalist for both the National Book Award and Canada’s Griffin Poetry Prize. He is the author of Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, which the Times Literary Supplement of London called “a hymn of praise to the emancipatory power of nonsense” and was named one of Booklist’s Top 10 Black History Non-Fiction Books of 2010. His latest books are a poetry collection, Help Me, Information, and a textbook modestly entitled The Knowledge: Where Poems Come From and How to Write Them.