THE ARGUMENT

BY

JOSEPH COOPER

“In whose sight all things joy, with ravishment

Attracted by thy beauty still to gaze.

I rose as at thy call, but found thee not;

To find thee I directed then my walk…”

                   (Tr. Roy Flannagan, The Riverside Milton 477)

for love

There are so many things I shouldn’t tell you,

to keep light from passing through,

so many starving thoughts

left naked and unattended.

I wanted to tell you, without having to say you were

an afterthought, and that I am just a writer.

I wanted to fall through the fire covered sky

glittering everywhere like stars,

a naked hostage chasing desperation.

I no longer wish to scratch at the wrong wrists. 

I want to close my eyes and hold my mouth shut

until all my thoughts become caskets

so I can climb over them

and invent new ways of being born.

There’s no easy way to say

that much of me was already

gone when we met

and that I was only a small glass room

divided by fists,

and that nothing you said or did

would replace each individual fraction of a kiss.

We bang on each other’s throats

so that we might be beautiful

once again, so that our hands

become the ugly bedspread

of a broken faucet love affair,

and so that we can say

once and for all

that we might never get used to it,

used to words forgotten and reinvented,

used to the resourcefulness of a literary plot,

used to believing in great escapes,

wishbones, and the lonely road home.

I know that this is only poetry

and that this introduction is inconsolable,

that if we touch with our eyes closed, the cold window

frosted with street lights and lullabies

we might leave the doorframes of dreams

holding our breath listening

to the roar of the freeway, confusing

it with the voice of God.

There are so many things I shouldn’t tell you,

Finding myself sleepless and wanting

to be wanted, knowing that my roots will end

somewhere, knowing that my bones

will run out of footprints.

There is no way to make this story beautiful. 

I only wanted a white room without mystery,

a mouthful of ash, a better story for you

poor, sad, thing, yet here we are

without navigation in astronomical

light, the floor crumbling under us,

desperate violins trilling inside our bellies.

I want more seats reserved for the images of

destroyed lovers so that this story might think

of compassion, not the endless lamplights of

lonesome nights strayed

under the sputtering engine of beaten hearts.

Turn in your chairs and tongue the blades of cold

shoulders, mouths breathing fire in slow

motion young and beautiful.

What could you tell me?

What could you possibly say to conciliate the damned

dog burrowing in our words?

That tonight in bed you will use

my body like a matchbox

striking me with intentional music,

that our prayers will once again

run blind, stripped,

and screaming into the held

breath of a promising melody,

that tonight in bed I should let you

cradle my head

between your breasts

and rest my hand

between your thighs drunk

under the dock of pointless surrender.

I didn’t want to see you this way, profoundly wicked

using my cock as a gear shift asleep

at the wheel, reassuring me

that we’ll shake dreams

from the window seat of the next dull moment.

It would have been nice to hear once more the

immediate mathematics of broken glass,

another argument arrested by cruelty,

and to say that your love

was once mine, intentional,

wandering, wandering in slow motion.

I want to be born into new laughter,

larger than the usual romantic

love, more hysterical than panties

on the bathroom floor, legs

kicking with long division

to translate our dreams,

to have something to call our own.

Tell us life happens every minute,

orange juice and toast, alarm clocks

and punch clocks, and television dreams,

noise in the heating vent like a chainsaw

in the bathtub, and believe me

the speaker has his strategies

and a sink to wash away the blood. 

We want to bend our heads

recklessly into each chapter,

shameful and half-remembered,

leaning against windowpanes in still-

life like the hands of thieves,

singing lullabies in confessionals.

Tell them that our hands are tied

and that pressing our

genitals into the moonlit riverbed

draws instead a lesson from anger

than suspense,

that we will make noise

and dance across the water

lilies of time so we always remember

clichés about karma and regret.

Our bodies possessed by the running

horses of lucid dreams

are among the dirtiest

thoughts you have,

wet as an uncomfortable silence

dismissed under another pretext.

The mystery is not in the sunlight

pouring across your skin

but the feeling of your breath against

my belt buckle. 

I know where those bruises came from,

and I know you cried each time.

I was on the phone with you, sweetheart,

hurtling the unstoppable syntax

of frantic lists, and like you,

I am now eating my tongue on the

university lawn, confessing everything

to ephemeral divination.

If only we held our breath

a moment longer, radios

yearning for transmission,

first words coming

into mouth,

we could have burned down

straw houses

in lieu of something

invariable, unrepeatable

secrets called out

behind our backs.

I want you more than the story

of where the road goes,

the ripped up shirt and

the chain linked fence. 

That is to say, don’t walk away

with clothes clinging to

nipples and groins,

laughing at the unlit map

of my naked chest,

don’t finger the flat, white wall

as if you are waiting for yesterday,

for an hour ago, for this very moment

as if to avert some impact,

some deadly connection with sheer,

manic improvisation,

names savagely shouted from basements,

swerving and crushed under panic,

becoming erotic and life-threatening

until poetry serves the awful

bondage of another disillusioned truth.

NUDE DRAWING #4

AT THE OFFICE

It is impolite to prod the back of a coworker with a green banana. 

She will not be as likely to let you dip your finger into her muffin and today is pumpkin cream

cheese.

Rather, wait until your banana is speckled with sweet spots, and then rub it against the backs of her

knees; it will be well received.  

When she asks to borrow your stapler do not reply, “I would sooner staple your asshole shut.” 

Simply hand it over, but watch her as she walks away to make sure she passes Nelson’s cubicle

without stapling his tongue to his forehead.  That is, and always has been, your aspiration. 

If your boss asks you to make photocopies for his presentation do not instead photocopy your gaping

asshole to prove a point.  Knowing his interest in David Bowie he will likely ask for a closer look.

Do not masturbate in the employee restroom during your lunch hour.  You will be contending with

the groans of your coworkers.   

Even though you have a crush on the secretary, it is unwise to wait for her in the employee lounge

and leap out of the broom closet with your cock in your hand while she is waiting for her toast.

Every Friday when you visit payroll, the hefty woman with a tacky dolphin pendant takes her time

finding your paycheck.  Avoid telling her how many ways you’ve imagined her death. 

Simply smile and then stare at her intern who is licking envelopes, while thinking it a terrible waist

of an admirable dexterity. 

NUDE DRAWINGS #3

IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR

It would be wise to purchase a bitch before smearing peanut butter and jelly all over your cock and

balls, otherwise you will be responsible for cleanup, and fucking your teddy bear will only cause

more ruckus.     

If mother and father find out you will be sucking off a bar of soap for dinner.

If the neighbors catch you, you will be eating out the lawnmower on Saturdays.

If your brothers notice it will be as compromising as cuddling with hydrangeas.

It is better to beat off in front of the mirror listening to Chopin imagining a nude drawing of yourself

as you begin changing Autumn to Winter, the remaining leaves receding from your shoulders,

another dream siphoned and deranged.

NUDE DRAWINGS #2

AT THE CONVENIENCE STORE

She will be reaching for a package of edamame beans, but will have been standing there long

enough for condensation to have faded, so when you approach her  she will see you coming.

Her eyes will widen and her breath will momentarily fog the glass. 

You will put your hand inside your pocket and pull out ChapStick and smear it over your lips,

puckering them, only feet before her.

You will ask her if she needs any help.

She will say, she doesn’t need any help.

Then you will run your fingers through your hair and look at her in a way that says, “I’m going to

bend you over the counter  while smoking a cigarette and watch you in the security mirror.” 

Then you will light a cigarette and stare into the security camera and bend over to get a closer look

at an elderly woman stealing Snickers in aisle three.

NUDE DRAWINGS #1

ON THE ROAD

When you find a woman on roadside dressed lasciviously, drag her through gravel and blood,

through thick hedges grieving in sunlight and briefly attempt her revival so as to avoid suspicion.

Finger her braids and penetrate her mouth with your index finger, gliding it along her teeth and gums

and then spread her jaws to watch her tongue glisten. 

Then place your hand on her stomach and imagine she is dying, giving birth to your first child.  Lift

her shirt awfully and rest your ear against her navel. 

Listen for screaming, for the subtle trembling of ignition.

Lift her skirt.  Pull her frayed panties to one side. 

Push, you will say.  Push. 

Underneath her is a rock drenched in sweat, blood, and piss.

Carefully raise it to your chest.  Love it as if it were your own.

Pittsburgh police said a detective shot at his own reflection in a mirror while chasing a drug suspect in a dimly lit house in Pittsburgh's North Side.

Tell me the dream about two kinds of decay

                        you leading me

                        through tall stalks of language,

                        the density of a memoir,

                                    each word pretending to be a smokestack

                                    or a lamp, whispering, “dead, dead,

                                    dead,” each word repeating.

                        One professes not to know its gender.

                        One becomes a makeshift laboratory.

                        One is a picture of water running out.

                        Every other one is in enormous pain

because the army is filled

with little boys.

            At the curtain: I am ready to accept the mouth of

                        another customer, diddling his shape

                        that grows impossibly against a model universe.

            At the curtain: I am ready for a complex series of dots

                        and dashes, pleasing back and forth

                        the bare sound of naked

                        feet on canvas.

For the censure of the last two scenes

                        I cross half the distance of the remaining stage

                                    and without turning your head from

                                    the audience

you speak.

                         

"Paper Mill Playhouse is excited to provide patrons with a brand new, interactive website. The imaginative design pays homage to the innate creativity of our theatre," says Mark S. Hoebee, Producing Artistic Director of Paper Mill Playhouse. "The focus of the website is to help visitors get what they need more efficiently."

Tell me about the dream where we wake in between notebook

pages you and I, the two kinds of decay,

synchronous with a deserving narrative.

            It begins with you kneeling over the creek behind my childhood

home flicking water with your middle finger

            reassuring me that it was alright to go back,

            and to say things reminiscent of regret

like,

            “His spirit told me to keep it a secret,” and that “Her body

told a short

                        short

story.”

            In the backyard by the unhinged screen door you kissed me

                        and squeezed my fatty triceps

                        and said, “I think I’ll stay the night, for you.”

            I said, “I thought that would be alright,” and that

                        I’d make up the sofa.

            I had been living alone so long that

            later I pissed with the door open

                        and you walked through the hallway to the kitchen

                        nearly spattering your original Yoplait

                        all over the picture of my mother standing

                                                              behind my father resting

                                    her hands nervously sweet

                                    over his cocked shoulders.

           

“You bastard!” she screamed. “You’re trying to mar my beauty!”

My Catholic grandmother once told me that experience was a   

                            punishment from God.  She believed a lot of things,

some crazy, some not so crazy.  We argued often and for many reasons,

two being because she believed

                                               chicken was not meat, and that "colored" was

           an appropriate term to describe people.  However, a St. Anthony

                                  pendant

                                                still hangs from my rear

               view because she believes I need him. 

She would often tell me, over flat lemon lime soda and store bought

                                         shortbread cookies,

                         that God was angry with us,

that he'd been so from the very beginnng.  By merely living we were

                                         putrefying our innocence.  She said these

experiences

                                               recoiled back to the very moment of birth, and that every breath

                                thereafter was direct

                                     negation of incorruptibility and virtue.  From each

idyllic kiss seeks

                                                derision and virulence. 

Little murders, she called them. 

                          For every experience

we murder innocence, and once

                                                          depleted comes specious light,

                         knowing no boundaries

                                         or repose.

My boyfriend "Chucky" and I have been together for a while and things are starting to get serious. I'm 15 and he's almost 18. I'm falling in love with him, which has never happened with any other guy. I really think he's "The One." Chucky proposed, but it isn't official yet. I still have no ring, but I'm thinking of accepting. Now he says he wants a baby.

The other night I rode a cucumber across the kitchen floor crashing against her thighs as she beheaded red peppers. 

She laughed and slapped my hands as it passed between them.

Gradually she clenched the cucumber and then turned slowly until she faced me holding the paring knife in a striking pose.  “I could do it you know?” 

With the cucumber between her legs she lit a cigarette still holding the paring knife and tapped ash into the sink, and simply whispered, “I would.”

Carving off red pepper heads over the trashcan, she began talking about a book she read in college.

It had something to do with a white horse whipped with tiger lilies, a white waterfall dragged over screams of small children, and fireflies rallying against the night.

I told her I didn’t care and then reached for wine glasses in the cupboard above her head.

She flattened the paring knife against my chest and slid the cucumber more comfortably between her thighs. 

After dragging her cigarette she placed it between my lips and said, “What would you do if I suddenly sprouted wings and flew out of here?

           What would you remember first?”

"It did pass through my mind that someday, is he going to say, 'Mom, why'd you let me do this?' But we talked about it for a long time, and it's something he never changed his mind on," she said.

The other night Andy talks to me about reflection. 

He says that sometimes in writing you have to perceive the image’s reflection in order to completely digest the exchange. 

It makes me wonder if you’ve ever really been in love with me, when you hold me desperately from behind, grappling for entrance.

After kissing my shoulders you put your head on my chest running your finger in circles around my nipple.  

You feel around for my zipper and when you cannot find it, you begin nervously tapping your fingers against my lower back, whispering passwords into my ears. 

You have a remarkable appetite for disdain.

My mouth parts as your breath heats every sound. 

When it opens your hands carefully glide up my back and over my shoulders, pausing momentarily under my jaw before abruptly reaching in and snapping it back. 

You reach your right arm inside rifling it underneath my shoulder bone, helplessly toward my fingertips. 

When you cannot reach them, you turn, confronting true cosmos as your left hand reaches in grazing my molars. 

With one enormous leap you curl your feet and legs inside and I swallow you down. 

Your feet burst through my hamstrings and you become four-legged. 

Two flabby arms hang lifelessly at my wrists. 

When you finally sit back onto my calves we are sharing a calm and constant river. 

My head drops backward and you follow my lead, never quite wrapping my mouth completely over yours. 

Curling inside me you fall asleep under the wet mess of my remaining flesh. 

I have no reason to believe you’ve ever been more comfortable.

"One wonders what Lincoln thought when reports floated back to Springfield of the harrowing Donner Party debacle," Holst wrote. "We can imagine him reading the newspaper's lurid accounts of deep snow, exhaustion, exposure and starvation, and shaking his head to think that the man with whom he'd gone to war and gone to trial would one day come to such hardship," she added.

We’re watching Texas roll over the Devil Rays and Greg tells me that my writing is less about love and beauty these days, and frequently borders on misogyny. 

Last time I read your blog, he tells me, I hoped you didn’t really feel this way.  Even your last book, he says, was horrifyingly brutal. 

It makes me wonder if you’ve ever really loved a woman.

I imagine love, I tell him, is never without cuts and bruises, and there is no such thing as love without consequence. 

In my stories, when I love a woman I want to know her entirely, to be completely inside her.  

I want to hold her desperately from behind, as she bends her neck invitingly, inhaling deeply as I reach for her zipper.

After fingering her atlas I unzip her spine and her head falls forward in agreement. 

Crawling inside just above her tailbone, I stuff my feet one at a time into her thighs, calves, feet, and then toes, careful so as not to break a nail. 

I slip my groin into hers and pull her belly to mine, holding her ass firmly with my free hand before pressing it against my own. 

When I pull her arms over mine I realize how much smoother they are than my own and when I touch them with her fingers they remind me of dried candle wax and falling asleep in buttercups. 

There is a tattoo between her forefinger and thumb that says *L*O*V*E*. 

Using her hands I tuck her neck up against mine and feel the remarkable weight of her chest drawing me forward.

Her shoulders stretch tightly over the bone.

Finally, I take a deep breath and slide her head over mine, hearing her sigh for the first time, our eyes staring inside out. 

When our mouths touch we eat my lips right off her face and our tongues wrestle indiscriminately from roof to floor.

I want to know what she’s thinking when we look at our self in the mirror, examining what’s changed and what remains.

But I know for certain that we love each other by the way we lean into the mirror and gently kiss the glass, and mouth just the right words, before closing our bedroom door.

"That video was so much fun," Pepa says. "People wanna know what it means. 'Shoop' is whatever you want it to mean. You just shooping around. Just shoop!"

Let’s talk about mix tapes. 

Salt n’ Peppa’s “Let’s Talk About Sex” gives me an erection every time I hear it.  It comes on the radio, on MTV, and at school dances.  I can’t believe they play it at school dances.  But they do, and then we dance, and they we actually talk about sex.  Christ it is so exciting to talk about sex.  There are so many mysteries under frill and lace, the new protrusion of breasts and erections, and the perplexing, exhilarated desire to touch.  

My best friend lives across the street and is close family friends with three young girls from North Buffalo.  Their mothers are best friends so dinner and drinks are common.  Every time they come over he invites me and we listen to Blacks’ Magic over and over again.

The oldest one, the one with only one hand, always insists on playing truth or dare, inevitably leading to heated conversations. 

What’s the farthest you’ve ever gone?  I dare you to go into the closet together.  I dare you to show me yours. 

The youngest girl always leaves, angry at the one with one hand because she goes too far. 

Inevitably my father calls me home as I close in on the one with one hand.  I beg to stay and he usually refuses. 

When it comes to sex at a young age, you never know what is going to happen next.  The only certainty is that your worst tube sock is going to by crusted shut by morning.