Mark Strand (born April 11, 1934 – November 29, 2014 was a Canadian-born American poet, essayist, and translator.
He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1990.
THE COUPLE
Mark Strand
The scene is a midtown station.
The time is 3 a.m.
Jane is alone on the platform,
Humming a requiem.
She leans against the tiles.
She rummages in her purse
For something to ease a headache
That just keeps getting worse.
She went to a boring party,
And left without her date,
Now she’s alone on the platform,
And the train is running late.
The subway station is empty,
Seedy, sinister, gray.
Enter a well-dressed man
Slowly heading Jane’s way.
The man comes up beside her:
“Excuse me, my name is John,
I hope I haven’t disturbed you.
If I have, I’ll be gone.
‘I had a dream last night
That I would meet somebody new.
After twenty-four hours of waiting,
I’m glad she turned out to be you.”
Oh where are the winds of morning?
Oh where is love at first sight?
A man comes out of nowhere.
Maybe he’s Mr. Right.
How does one find the answer,
If one has waited so long?
A man comes out of nowhere,
He’s probably Mr. Wrong.
Jane imagines the future,
And almost loses heart.
She sees herself as Europe
And John as Bonaparte.
They walk to the end of the platform.
They stumble down to the tracks.
They stand among the wrappers
And empty cigarette packs.
The wind blows through the tunnel.
They listen to the sound.
The way it growls and whistles
Holds them both spellbound.
Jane stares into the dark:
“It’s a wonder sex can be good
When most of the time it comes down to
Whether one shouldn’t or should.”
John looks down at his watch:
“I couldn’t agree with you more,
And often it raises the question —
‘What are you saying it for?'”
They kneel beside each other
As if they were in a trance,
Then Jane lifts up her dress
And John pulls down his pants.
Everyone knows what happens,
Or what two people do
When one is on top of the other
Making a great to-do.
The wind blows through the tunnel
Trying to find the sky.
Jane is breathing her hardest,
And John begins to sigh:
‘I’m a Princeton professor
God knows what drove me to this.
I have a wife and family;
I’ve known marital bliss.
‘But things were turning humdrum,
And I felt I was being false.
Every night in our bedroom
I wished I were someplace else.”
What is the weather outside?
What is the weather within
That drives these two to excess
And into the arms of sin?
They are the children of Eros.
They move, but not too fast.
They want to extend their pleasure,
They want the moment to last.
Too bad they cannot hear us.
too bad we can’t advise.
Fate that brought them together
Has yet another surprise.
Just as they reach the utmost
Peak of their endeavor,
An empty downtown local
Separates them forever.
An empty downtown local
Screams through the grimy air
A couple dies in the subway;
Couples die everywhere.
=======
A PIECE OF THE STORM
Mark Strand
From the shadow of domes in the city of domes,
A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room
And made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up
From your book, saw it the moment it landed. That’s all
There was to it. No more than a solemn waking
To brevity, to the lifting and falling away of attention, swiftly,
A time between times, a flowerless funeral. No more than that
Except for the feeling that this piece of the storm,
Which turned into nothing before your eyes, would come back,
That someone years hence, sitting as you are now, might say:
“It’s time. The air is ready. The sky has an opening.”
===========
EATING POETRY
Mark Strand
Ink runs the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.
The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.
Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.
She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.
I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.
==========
KEEPING THINGS WHOLE
Mark Strand
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
=========
MAN AND CAMEL
Mark Strand
On the eve of my fortieth birthday
I sat on the porch having a smoke
when out of the blue a man and a camel
happened by. Neither uttered a sound
at first, but as they drifted up the street
and out of town the two of them began to sing.
Yet what they sang is still a mystery to me—
the words were indistinct and the tune
too ornamental to recall. Into the desert
they went and as they went their voices
rose as one above the sifting sound
of windblown sand. The wonder of their singing,
its elusive blend of man and camel, seemed
an ideal image for all uncommon couples.
Was this the night that I had waited for
so long? I wanted to believe it was,
but just as they were vanishing, the man
and camel ceased to sing, and galloped
back to town. They stood before my porch,
staring up at me with beady eyes, and said:
“You ruined it. You ruined it forever.”