524
PARTISAN REVIEW
His drunken mother comes and goes in him- he has a readi–
ness for visits from phantoms- his body is slowed by air, by reality–
as if by cottonlike batting in a chute- a long flinch of suffocation–
but his head persists in its swiftness-its eyeliddedness. His fretful
and combative love for things present in the moment is pitted by a
civilized, drunken hatred for the same things .
His packed eyes shift- or hold- a topic less
educatedly
than
when I last saw him and more personally, more maddenedly–
drunkenly- he is an optical and ethical and careless device of fame
and self-destruction at the same time- he is in a light he
knows
is
local and brief- he is calculatedly boyish at moments still: "I will live
forever."
"Forever in common usage means until one's death, don't you
think?"
"I'm an
American
poet- I don't have to think."
He means to correct my style . .. to make his dominant . The
pitch of his voice is set by the mannerisms for his style of The Retort.
At dinner, I'd said I intended to live in this country and that meant
one did not have to think in any even half-profound manner: what
he says refers to that but that doesn't mean that you have to remem–
ber the earlier stuff but only that an explanation of sorts is in your
head.
He and I compete- but we show off for one another,
too . . . (I am much, much more famous uptown than he is.)
"You work by other methods."
He ignored what I said.
Sneakers and sweater, brown, straight hair, bare throat, 'in–
telligent' but eery look of youth, naked ankles, fingery, taut hands–
and his drunken- maybe lecherous- mother in his eyes-
He doesn't mind it that the first person pronoun is boundless.
His life is autobiography- I talked him into it- arguing that for
anyone smart, the autobiographical is an ironic tone. Ideas set up
earlier between us shape how we talk to each other now-
He wrote me when I was in college:
In my dreams it is often Cleve–
land- uncanny Lake Erie. I see myself: it is not what you say it is, it is NOT
intellect pretending to be physical presence in some sort ofmodel ofthe day- it is
me, the cocksucker. Art has taught me how to see. You saidyou feel yourface as
a watery nothing. Well, tant pis
if
you want. That's up to you . I am the middle
point of everything. I AM everything possible. This is very serious.
He was younger then .
I won't quote from a poem but I'll say that for me the governing
