LOVING

The Power of Poetry

Salvador Dali, (1904-1989)
Apparition of the Face of Aphrodite of Cnidus in a Landscape, 1981
Oil on Canvas, 140 x 96 cm
The Salvador Dali Foundation, Figueres
Surrealist Master

My very dear, very brilliant friend, Dave, recited this poem to me the other night when we were discussing the omnipotent power of poetry and how words can cause the marrow of your bones to quiver with knowing.

I was so moved, I felt you all should feel the same. (If you really want to feel it though, have someone read it out loud to you, or read it out loud to yourself. I got lucky for two reasons: one, because Dave has a photographic memory, so he remembered the piece perfectly, and two, his interpretive delivery was spot on.) It is by Anne Sexton, one of my absolute favorite poets of all time, because of her unrelenting, searing honesty, delivered on gleaming silver platters. This particular work was written on March 24, 1974, seven months before her death.

ADMONITIONS TO A SPECIAL PERSON

Watch out for power,
for its avalanche can bury you,
snow, snow, snow, smothering your mountain.

Watch out for hate,
it can open its mouth and you’ll fling yourself out
to eat off your own leg, an instant leper.

Watch out for friends,
because when you betray them,
as you will,
they will bury their heads in the toilet
and flush themselves away.

Watch out for intellect,
because it knows so much it knows nothing
and leaves you hanging upside down,
mouthing knowledge as your heart
falls out of your mouth.

Watch out for games, the actor’s part,
the speech planned, known, given,
for they will give you away
and you will stand like a naked little boy,
pissing on your own child-bed.

Watch out for love
(unless it is true,
and every part of you says yes including your toes),
it will wrap you up like a mummy,
and your scream won’t be heard
and none of your running will run.

Love? Be it man. Be it woman.
It must be a wave you want to glide in on,
give your body to it, give your laugh to it,
give, when the gravelly sand takes you,
your tears to the land. To love another is something
like prayer and can’t be planned, you just fall
into its arms because your belief undoes your disbelief.

Special person,
if I were you I’d pay no attention
to admonitions from me,
made somewhat out of your words
and somewhat out of mine.
A collaboration.

I do not believe a word I have said,
except some, except I think of you like a young tree
with pasted on leaves and know you’ll root
and the real green thing will come.

Let go. Let go.

Oh special person,
possible leaves,
this typewriter likes you on the way to them,
but I want to break crystal glasses
in celebration,
for you,
when the dark crust is thrown off
and you float around
like a happened balloon.

-Anne Sexton, from The Complete Poems

October 7th, 2009 — 9:16 am

1 comment | add comment

	1 comment
Jim Blake says May 4, 2010 - 3:26 pm	powerful poem almost too wise but not quite – the power part is so true – all power disguises the clammiest, smelliest, wormiest, decayed weakness so truly it’s odd to see power announced so brashly so often – beware of smart power that has all of the above mentioned goop but creeps in on little cat feet – Remember: “To serve is to rule”
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