Poetry By Deborah Bogen: America's most influential popular poet

Deborah Bogen

Cantilevered Bedtime Story by Deborah Bogen

Wallpaper farm, the girl

with the ducks, the friendly

farmer’s father-work,

the moony mother’s queer

stare and the bee-hivey

haystacks, the pitchforks,

the curly cows by the pond.

Elsewhere, a window frames

green light. Elsewhere,

the dark-hall-doorway,

the long walk to the kitchen’s

grown-up talking. The Singer 

in the corner, electric

and shiny and under the bed,

and under the bed...

Oh, happy wallpaper girl,

the cow wants to give you

her milk. The father’s pitchfork

is strong and serene, but what

can be done for the woman

in the fluttering apron

whose gaze is seaward, and

elsewhere, and gone?

Angels by Deborah Bogen

One leg over the motorcycle, I regret the impulse. It’s

1968. What we have in common is his brother’s suicide

And I know what’s running me – enthusiasm, that variant

of fear. The I Ching says enthusiasm in service of the self

is a bad thing. That’s the kind of warning I take seriously,

but Roger’s dead — and I don’t want to start smoking

again. No stars tonight, just dark shapes rising against 

darker headlands and part of me aches to be on that bike,

silhouetted against the sky. Soon we’re on the slope that 

takes us past Olema and Point Reyes, past cryptic horses,

head-down and mellow, stygian banks of nasturtiums and

the rich folks’ dogs straining on their chains. The bike’s 

come wholly to life and the boy directs it. I try to sink into

him so there’s no fleshy argument distracting the machine.

The engine’s agony drowns out thought as we slide down 

to blackness, the sex of wind on our arms and necks. I did 

not attend the funeral. I still sing, but not as well as this

bike which tonight is keening. There is something I’m 

trying to master. There’s no reason to trust the boy whose

bike heads down this mountain.

Ghost Images by Deborah Bogen

1/

The mind’s a mad cupboard, blackened silver, cups and thimbles.

The mind’s a jerky focusing machine still stuck on the girl

who hung by her knees.

And within the camera [opening : closing] — fireworks.

I mean within the empty box the light’s frantic,

Grappling with the monk, the match, the gasoline.

The mind is likewise occupied, its light piteously stark, distorted—

but which of us can ever look away?

2/

Into the angular cranium the levers lift cold light,

but how dark and small the box.

And hands must hold the camera still, so stop your breath.

                   [so stop your breath].

That’s how you coax something into the box, something bloody or blood-lit,

a headless rooster or snipe. Your attention’s split.

Seeing the two worlds.

Sin by Deborah Bogen

This is the dream: you are the girl,

you are the girl gone now to the

creek, swinging the bucket to and fro,

listening to men who circle the fire.

Mother meant you to go to church,

to wear white gloves and bow your 

head. Your body moves on its own,

it flows. It worships fear for you are

the girl, the difficult daughter smeared

with red who ate the fruit they said

would poison — you never listened,

you wouldn’t hear, you took the bucket

down to the water, let the cruel cold 

cut your feet, this is a dream, you’re

deep in the dream, your ankles ache.

You live in the dream of the men

and the dark. You love it here and you

dread the waking.

Rue Saint-Severin by Deborah Bogen

Dirt and hunger. Foreheads burnt, no — branded by the heat.

Backpacks. Paper cups. Bundles that are everything we own.

Beneath the gargoyles, our babies sleep.

We used to have houses. Once we had windows. Now we

live at the edge of the world where sometimes at night the

Shade lifts his blade. Still, we must rest. We must sleep.

We turn away, tucking ourselves into our skin, ignoring 

The feet that pass.

And no one stops. No one says these stones are not pillows.

What prophecy hides in the blur of our breathing? Something

Is here. And something is coming.

Bodies by Deborah Bogen

I’ve been thinking about your body. And the

box they put it in. Wondering if you’re still in

there. If a hand under the lip of that box might

be a way of climbing in, of being in there with

you —

because once we were sisters. We thought our

bodies were eternal. And, sweetheart, isn’t that

every girl’s mistake? My hands ache to touch

your face, to brush the bangs from your eyes.

When they took you, when they closed the lid

on the box, I wished I was a button on your

blouse.

Reconstructing the Crime by Deborah Bogen

If you remember anything — it’s the drone-whine,

that omen of conflagration and crumbling. Of snakes

gliding through rubble like new forms of water. Dust

curtained the air, but there was no sound. Just a void

where there should have been roofs falling, bones 

breaking, bloodied bodies crying out. A hell-shaped

silence. The village dogs pantomimed barking.

What you remember is your own fucked-up focus. The 

way you sat. Drone-struck. Stupid. The way your 

mind wouldn’t work. Your mind became a river that 

slid snake-like out of that scene. You didn’t notice the

scratched-cornea vision or the bits of broken glass that

filled your mouth. None of that mattered. A great fatigue

had arrived. And it sat you down.

Reticence by Deborah Bogen

I went into the small room and took off all

my clothes — the red sweater, the ink-black

slip, the creased and folded letter, even the memory 

of Agnes Martin’s paintings. Then I waited. 

Naked. In the cold. Listening to the purr of

someone else’s printer.

I was lonely. And shivering, but I still dreaded

The knock on the door. It might be the man

with the speculum. Or the man with the hundred

dollar bill. It might be the woman who measured

my breasts, the one who recommended figure-

flattering swimwear. Or it might be the priest

with his dark-grey eyes. He was always hungry

for my secrets.

Remembrance Day by Deborah Bogen

(for Marc Chagall and The Falling Angel 1923-1947)

I took the photo from the box and looked at

what seemed to be a camp. And six shapes near the

edge of a forest. I was hunting details that told a 

story — don’t we all want the narrative? And those

shadow-drenched shapes could be prisoners. Or 

soldiers. Or even small trees. As my eyes tired

the shapes seemed smudged. They wavered like

smoke. Were they becoming angels? No, it wasn’t that.

But I think I understand now why Chagall kept re-

working The Fallen Angel. Versions of Heaven give way 

to versions of Hell. And then these are painted over

by a personal momentary bliss. This is not, I know the

official version. But it’s the truth.

Speak Now This Charm by Deborah Bogen

Lastly, we are all summer grass, so it’s hard to say.

Were you in the box? Were you a box? Did you 

settle into the earth or fly up to the trees?

At the chapel there was a window where I pressed

my mouth to the glass to get close to you one

last time. But there was no getting at you. No

getting past the body-fault, the broken box, no 

was to even place a leaf on your face.