Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LETTERS TO YESENIN: 14, by JAMES HARRISON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LETTERS TO YESENIN: 14, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Imagine being a dog and never knowing what you're doing. You're
Last Line: Groin hopes. You pray not to see her again.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Animals; Desire; Dogs; Refuse & Refuse Disposal; Yesenin, Sergei (1895-1925)


Imagine being a dog and never knowing what you're doing. You're simply
doing: eating garbage, fawning, mounting in public with terrible energy.
But let's not be romantic. Those curs, however sweet, don't have souls. For
all of the horrors at least some of us have better lives than dogs. Show me a
dog that ever printed a book of poems read by no one in particular before he
died at seventeen, old age for a dog. No dog ever equaled Rimbaud for grace or
greatness, for rum running, gun running, slave trading and buggery. The current
phrase, "anything that gets you off," includes dogs but they lack our
catholicity. Still, Sergei, we never wanted to be dogs. Maybe indians or
princes, Caesars or Mongolian chieftains, women in expensive undergarments. But
if women, lesbians to satisfy our ordinary tastes for women. In a fantasy if
you become a woman you quickly are caressing your girlfriend. That pervert. I
never thought she would. Be like that. When she's away from me. Back to
consciousness, the room smells like a locker room. Out the window it's barely
May in Moscow and the girls have shed their winter coats. One watches a group
of fishermen. She has green eyes and is recent from the bath. If you were
close enough which you'll never be you could catch her scent of lemon and the
clear softness of her nape where it meets her hair. She'll probably die of flu
next year or marry an engineer. The same things really as far as you're
concerned. And it's the same in this country. A fine wife and farm, children,
animals, three good reviews. Then a foggy day in late March with dozens of crows
in the air and a girl on a horse passes you in the woods. Your dog barks. The
girl stops, laughing. She has green eyes. Your heart is off and running. Your
groin hopes. You pray not to see her again.





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