Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LETTERS TO YESENIN: 21, by JAMES HARRISON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LETTERS TO YESENIN: 21, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: To answer some of the questions you might ask were you alive and
Last Line: Like it and should I put it off for a while?
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Desire; Imaginary Conversations; Poetry & Poets; Yesenin, Sergei (1895-1925)


To answer some of the questions you might ask were you alive and had we become
friends but what do poets ask one another after long absence? How have you been
other than dead and how have I been dying on earth without naming the average
string of complaints which is only worrying aloud, naming the dreaded motes that
float around the brain, those pink balloons calling themselves poverty, failure,
sickness, lust, and envy. To mention a very few. But you want particulars, not
the human condition or a letter to the editor on why when I'm at my worst I
think I've been fucked over. So here's this Spring's news: now that the grass
is taller I walk in some fear of snakes. Feeling melancholy I watched my wife
plant the garden row on row while the baby tried to catch frogs. It's hard not
to eat too much when you deeply love food but I've limited myself to a half
gallon of Burgundy a day. On long walks my eyes are so sunk back in my brain
they see nothing, then move forward again toward the light and see a high meadow
turning pale green and swimming in the fog with crows tracing perceptible and
geometrical paths just above the fog but audible. At the shore I cast for fish,
some of them large with deliquescing smelt and alewives in their bellies. Other
than marriage I haven't been in love for years; close calls over the world I
mentioned to you before, but it's not love if it isn't a surprise. I look at
women and know deeply they are from another planet and sometimes even lightly
touching a girl's arm I know I am touching a lovely though alien creature. We
don't get back those days we don't caress, don't make love. If I could get you
out in the backcountry down in Key West and get some psilocybin into you you
would cut your legendary vodka consumption. Naturally I still believe in
miracles and the holy fate of the imagination. How is it being dead and would I
like it and should I put it off for a while?





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