Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LETTERS TO YESENIN: 25, by JAMES HARRISON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LETTERS TO YESENIN: 25, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: An afterthought to my previous note; we must closely watch any self-pity
Last Line: Those others.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Death; Imaginary Conversations; Memory; Yesenin, Sergei (1895-1925); Dead, The


An afterthought to my previous note; we must closely watch any self-pity and
whining. It simply isn't manly. Better by far to be a cowboy drinking rusty
water, surviving on the maggots that unwittingly ate the pemmican in the
saddlebags. I would be the Lone and I don't need no one said the cowpoke. Just
a man and his horse against everything else on earth and horses are so dumb they
run all day from flies never learning that flies are everywhere. Though in
their violent motion they avoid the flies for a few moments. It's time again
not to push a metaphor too far. But back again to the successful farmer who has
his original hoe bronzed like baby shoes above the Formica mantelpiece - I
earned what I got, nobody give me nothing he says. Pasternak said you probably
didn't think death was the end of it all. Maybe you were only checking it out
for something new to write about. We thieves of fire are capable of such
arrogance when not otherwise occupied as real people pretending to be poet
farmers, important writers, capable lovers, sports fops, regular guys, rock
stars with tiny nonetheless appreciative audiences. But the self-pity and
whining must stop. I forgot to add that at the doctor's an old woman called in
to say that her legs had turned blue and she couldn't walk or hold her urine and
she was alone. Try that one on. Thirty years ago I remember my mother singing
Hello Central, give me heaven, I think my daddy is there about the usual
little boy in a wartime situation. We forget about those actual people,
certainly our ancestors and neighbors, who die in earnest. They called my dad,
the county agent, and his friend a poor farmer was swinging like you only from a
rafter in the barn from a hay rope. What to do with his strange children -
their thin bodies, low brows and narrow eyes - who were my schoolmates. They're
working in auto factories now and still voiceless. We are different in that we
suffer and love, are bored, with our mouths open and must speak on occasion for
those others.





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