John Levy


Notes to Allyson Levy (March 11, 2023)


Lena, in the next yard over to our south, barked
after I typed the title up there, which

is a coincidence since she couldn’t hear my fingers
on the keyboard. Sometimes Bunny

does, if he is outside the closed door, and he
barks, probably scared

by the incomprehensible clicks (some creature
with claws

walking on an odd noisy surface
and perhaps the beast will wield its

claws ferociously if the door opens
& maybe it has fangs too?). I imagine

Bunny finds the world less predictable
than Jade, Jade with her relatively calm

and relatively trusting
and much quieter

outward manner, which I’d guess
resembles her interior

cognitive and emotional states, states
that form a sort of United States of Jade

whereas Bunny doesn’t seem to be as unified
inside his earthly mass. If Jade

were to quote two lines from James Schuyler’s
poems, she might choose

“Silver day
how shall I polish you?”

           ***

Bunny, reading Schuyler, might
find and seize upon

“’So long, old man,’” looking up at me
with something less than love. Bunny

may wish for any device that would
launch me into deep space so he’d

have your mother, Leslie, more
for himself, she

who rises above him like a goddess
and feeds him twice a day (okay, sure, she

feeds Jade too, but
Bunny would say that is mere duty

and not the divine nurturing that he richly
and regularly deserves). To some literary critics, such as

Harold Bloom, all poetry is about poetry;
Bunny would like to inform you

and me and Leslie and everyone else that
the world revolves around him, he is

The One. "Look," he’d say, “your own father
thought at the beginning of this poem

he was not going to talk to you about me,
but he had to! All poems are about me!”



Self-Portrait #217


“I yam what I yam an’ thas all I yam.” I was

a boy who watched Popeye. The plot lines easy
to follow. Winning, finally. Confusions? Laugh

them off. Don’t think so much. Keep moving. Figure out

a little, more or less: forget the past.
First thought, best thought. No thoughts? That’s fine.



Note to Anna Matysiak, 3/22/23 and 3/26/23


Welcome to these words
in English. I’d write this in Polish if I could.

My high school in Phoenix didn’t offer
a Polish language class. If it had, I would visit

my younger self and tell him, “Learn
Polish because later you’ll love Polish poetry.”

He wouldn’t have recognized me, but

I could’ve convinced him quickly (revealing
secrets no one else could tell) and then he

would’ve believed me because back then
I knew time machines would be invented soon.

My young self would have been sad

to see who he’d become, so ordinary and ancient.
Though also, it would be a relief because he was sure

he’d never live that long. After I left the boy, he’d
be happy to realize that even

when he was grey-haired and nothing much
to see, his love of poems kept filling his mind.

John Levy lives in Tucson. In 2023 Shearsman Books will publish his 54 poems: selected & new.

 
 

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