On 24th and South, Philadelphia (by Philip Metres)
Philip Metres - poet, translator, educator
[photo taken by Jesus Crisis at Cleveland's Literary Cafe on 9/11/2008]
On 24th and South, Philadelphia
We need to envision utopia,
I read today, just before we heard
the crash outside.
We need to envision utopia
but tonight, love, we gape
at the wind-blasted craters and cliffs
of Arctic ice
filmed in Nanook of the North. Nanook, nearly
on all fours, gnaws
the frozen leather of his boots—
just to walk outside. His wife cuts an igloo window
out of ice. Today, we saw a woman’s face
sculpted into windshield.
She stumbled from the car, holding her head
like a bell. Someone brought her a blanket,
lay her down. Broken,
the traffic light closed its eye. We stood,
the whole street still
crowded, quiet, someone sweeping glass,
red lights pulsing over everything.
I can’t help but admire
Smailović, dressed in full concert attire,
carefully stepping to the bottom
of a Sarajevo bomb crater, pulling the bow
across his cello
twenty-two days, one day for each one dead—
too often, I long for another’s life.
But sometimes, you call me out
of myself so completely, I cease
turning from what’s right
in front of me. Some kids craned out a third story window,
Bomb Pops dripping to the street. Together
we watched the woman’s boyfriend
pound on the ambulance door
where the world lay, shaken, amnesiac, wanting him.
This piece appears in Metres' prize-winning collection To See the Earth
(Cleveland State University Press, 2008)
and is included in the Crisis Chronicles Library by permission
All rights remain with Philip Metres
Visit Philip Metres online at www.philipmetres.com
Follow his blog at http://www.behindthelinespoetry.blogspot.com/
Drop him a line at pmetres@jcu.edu
Order To See the Earth and other fine books by Philip Metres from Amazon:
Categories: Cleveland,Metres (Philip),Poetry,2000s,American
I was on South Street in Philadelpha briefly in 2006 and thought it was the coolest - an easy place to imagine utopia. From a tour bus it's easy to see only the pleasant side of reality. Problem is, too many of us stay on the bus, unwilling to get the soles of our feet dirty with a more complete picture of reality -- until, in some cases, the unpleasant side forces itself onto the bus (or us off the bus). This poem knocks my utopian vision of South Street off the bus, so to speak. But in a larger sense, I think it can knock more than just me off our bus full of tendencies toward complacency. Read and let the rose-colored glasses fly off your head. Perhaps it's most effective if you're familiar with South Street - a place that left me with a totally good impression, a place I've looked forward to re-visiting. Interesting to view reality from an alternate angle... and I think we need to do more of that.
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Thanks, JC JB, still a bit stunned about the election last night. I didn't think we had it in us.... The poem above takes place down the street a bit from what is widely considered the "Haight-Ashbury" of Philly, where we lived for a year, on the edge of Center City and South Philly, the very dividing line between white and black neighborhoods. It doesn't really come up in this poem, but that sense of dividing lines today, after this election, feel less hardened, less abyssal.
Thanks also for sharing your prison diaries; it must be a powerful experience to go over those words and worlds, and to recall things again that the notebooks only glancingly broach.
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Thank you, Philip. I appreciate your comments immensely.
As for the election, I must say I'm a bit stunned, too.
And thanks again for allowing me to feature some of your poetry here.
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