Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LETTERS TO YESENIN: 12, by JAMES HARRISON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LETTERS TO YESENIN: 12, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I was proud at four that my father called me little turd of misery
Last Line: And builds a noose. It works too well.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Excrement; Memory; Yesenin, Sergei (1895-1925)


I was proud at four that my father called me Little Turd of Misery. A special
name somehow connected to all the cows and horses in the perpetual mire of the
barnyard. It has a resonance to it unknown to president senator poet septic-
tank cleaner critic butcher hack or baker liberal or snot, rightist and faker
and faggot and cunt hound. A child was brought forth and he was named Little
Turd of Misery and like you was thrown into the lake to learn how to swim, owned
dogs that died stupidly but without grief. Why does the dog chase his broken
legs in a circle? He almost catches them like we almost catch our unruly poems.
And our fathers and uncles had ordinary pursuits, hunted and fished, smelled of
tobacco and liquor, grew crops, made sauerkraut and wine, wept in the dark,
chased stray cows, mended fences, were hounded as they say by creditors. Barns
burned. Cabbages rotted. Corn died of drought before its holy ears were
formed, wheat flattened by hail and wind and the soup grew only one potato and a
piece of salt pork from its center. Generations of slavery. All so we could
fuck neurotically and begin the day rather than end it drinking and dreaming of
dead dogs, swollen creeks with small bridges, ponds where cows are caught and
drown, sucked in by the muck. But the wary boy catches fish there, steals a
chicken for his dog's monthly birthday, learns to smoke, sees his first dirty
picture and sings his first dirty song, goes away, becomes deaf with song,
becomes blinded by love, gets letters from home but never returns. And his
nights become less black and holy, less moon-blown and sweet. His brain burns
away like gray paraffin. He's tired. His parents are dead or he is dead to his
parents. He smells the smell of a horse. The room is cold. He dims the light
and builds a noose. It works too well.





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