Dana Gioia - 99 Poems

each moment of his life entirely—

every touch and taste, no detail lost.

The past would shine forth, not in blinding flashes

but meaningfully the way that music moves,

making a pattern out of every note.

The price was that he had a single year

to contemplate the secrets of his life

before the memories vanished utterly.

“It’s a fair deal,” the Devil said. “A life

in payment for a life. You won’t want more.

Trust me — for most lives, twice is once too often.”

“My friend, I’d have your soul in any case.

I’ve made this offer for my own amusement.

The artist is my favorite customer.”

Oddly enough, he did believe the demon.

What point was there revisiting the past?

Why enter that gray Garden of Medusa

To wander through its mute memorials?

Better to let the rain pit, and the years

Erode those granite visages. And yet …

He hungered for the stones of memory.

It was the pain itself that he was after

not to alleviate but to perfect—

The delectation of his own damnation—

to earn the blessings of oblivion.

Smiling at Lucifer, he signed his name.

When his beloved Sophie died, Novalis

Lay by her grave and wept himself to sleep.

On the third night she met him in a dream.

He woke transformed, longing for the last trance,

“When sleep shall be without waking.” Therein,

Observed one critic, “lies his originality”—

Death was not tragedy but a romance.

Where are we going? Home, always back home.

He rarely finished any piece of writing—

“The urge toward perfection is a disease.”

Whether through genius or incompetence,

His fragments blur together — but into what?

Not quite philosophy or even art,

But the disclosure of some primal secret.

“Love is the final purpose of the world.”

Where are we going? Home, always back home.

“Our life is not a dream but must become one.”

He left philosophy to study mining

And prospered in the work. He wrote at night

Drafting out stories that refused to end.

He died at twenty-eight. Schelling kept watch

Beside the poet’s sickbed, marveling

How joyfully he contemplated death.

Where are we going? Home, always back home.

Against Immortality, 3

Assignation in the Aerodrome, 11

Ballade of Bad Sandwiches, 16

Chief Holidays of Hell, 9

Chimera Sightings, 32

Clowns in the Cancer Clinic, 25

Depression in an Elevator, 13

Dysfunctional Sestina, 20

Envy as an Art Form, 53

Forgetting Veronika, 44

Great Colas of Our Childhood, 6

Harp Repair in Heaven, 8

Leaving Veronika, 43

Life as a Limited Time Offer, 65

Long Walk off a Short Pier, 57

Meeting Veronika, 41

More Fun in Stalingrad, 30

Necronyms Anonymous, 51

Nightmares of the Gynecologist, 54

No Bison in Buffalo, 27

No Secrets in Saskatchawan, 29

Our Longeurs, 4

Pantoum of Intimate Body Tattoos, 17

Phoning Veronika, 45

Postcards from an Off Season Resort, 56

Recyclable Romantics, 64

Sphinx’s Smile, Lion’s Claw, 55

Sturm and Drang in a Thong, 22

Txting Vrnka, 46

Thirty-Six Varieties of Despondency, 18

Urgent Business with a Bee, 67

Vanity Deserves More Attention, 33

Winning Veronika, 47

Wise and Foolish Virginians, 36

Notes on the Poems 69

Come over to the window for a moment—

I want to show you something. Do you see

The one hill without trees? The dust-brown one

Above the highway? That’s how it all looked

When I first came — no watered lawns or trees,

Just open desert, pale green in the winter,

Then brown and empty till the end of fall.

I never look in mirrors anymore,

Or if I do, I just stare at the tie

I’m knotting, and it’s easy to pretend

I haven’t changed. But how can I ignore

The way these hills were cut up into houses?

I always thought the desert would outlive me.

How did I get started on this subject?

I’m really not as morbid as I sound.

We hardly know each other, but I think

You’ll like it here — the college isn’t far,

And this old house, like me, still has its charms.

I chose the site myself and drew the plans—

A modern house, all open glass and stone,

The rooms squared off and cleared of memory.

No wonder Mother hated the idea.

I had to wait until she died to build.

It was her money after all.

No,

I never married, never had the time

Or inclination to. Still, getting older,

One wonders … not so much about a wife—

No mystery there — but about a son.

I always looked for one among my students

And found too many. Never look for what

You truly want. It comes too easily,

And then you never value it enough—

Until it’s gone — gone like these empty hills

And all the years I spent ignoring them.

There was a boy who lived here years ago—

Named David — a clever, handsome boy

Who thought he was a poet. That was back

When I still dreamed of writing. We were both

So full of dreams. He was a student here—

In those rare moments when he chose to study—

But climbing was the only thing he cared for.

It’s strange how clearly I remember him.

He lived here off and on almost two years—

In the same room that you are moving into.

You’ll like the room. David always did.

Once during a vacation he went off

With friends to climb El Capitan. They took

A girl with them. But it’s no easy thing

To climb three thousand feet of granite,

And halfway up, she froze, balanced on a ledge.

They nearly killed themselves to get her down.

At one point David had to wedge himself

Into a crevice, tie down to a rock,

And lower her by rope to another ledge.

When it was over, they were furious.

They drove her back, and he

Surprised me, coming here instead of home.

His clothes were torn, his hands and face cut up.

I went upstairs for bandages, but he

Wanted to shower first. When he called me in,

I watched him standing in the steamy bathroom—

His naked body shining from the water—

Carefully drying himself with a towel.

Then suddenly he threw it down and showed me

Where the ropes had cut into his skin.

It looked as if he had been branded,

Wounds deep enough to hide your fingers in.

I felt like holding him but couldn’t bear it.

I helped him into bed and spent the night

Sitting in this room, too upset to sleep.

And on the morning after he drove home.

He graduated just a few months later,

And then went off to Europe where he wrote me

Mainly about beer halls and mountain trips.

I wrote that they would be the death of him.

That spring his mother phoned me when he fell.

I wonder if you know how strange it feels

When someone so much younger than you dies?

And, if I tell you something, will you not

Repeat it? It is something I don’t understand.

The night he died I had a dream. I dreamt

That suddenly the room was filled with light,

Not blinding but the soft whiteness that you see