Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LETTERS TO YESENIN: 24, by JAMES HARRISON



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LETTERS TO YESENIN: 24, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Dear friend. It rained long and hard after a hot week and when I
Last Line: Getting brainy and sad, to avoid leaving this physical world.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Food & Eating; Imaginary Conversations; Sickness; Yesenin, Sergei (1895-1925); Illness


Dear friend. It rained long and hard after a hot week and when I awoke the
world was green and leafy again, or as J.D. says, everything was new like a warm
rain after a movie. And I said enough of death and its obvious health hazards,
it's a white-on-white jigsaw puzzle in one piece. An hour with the doctor
yesterday when he said my blood pressure was so high I might explode as if I had
just swallowed an especially tasty grenade. I must warn my friends not to stand
too close. Blood can be poisonous; the Kikuyu in Kenya are often infected when
they burrow hacking away in the gut of an elephant. Some don't come back. But
doctors don't say such things, except W.C. Williams. Just like your doctor when
you were going batty, mine said, "You must be distressed, you eat and drink and
smoke far too much. Cut out these things. The lab found lilacs and part of the
backbone of a garter snake or garter in your stool sample, and the remnants of a
hair ball. Do you chew your comb? We are checking to see if it's your hair as
there are possible criminal questions here. Meanwhile get this thatch of
expensive prescriptions filled and I advise extensive psychiatric care. I heard
your barking when I left the room. How did you manage gout at your age?" My
eyes misted and I heard fiddle music and I looked up from page 86 in the June
Vogue where my old nemesis Lauren Hutton was staring at me in a doctor's
office in northern Michigan. This is Paul Bunyan country Lauren. And how did I
get gout? All of that fried salt and side pork as a child. Humble fare.
Quintuple heaps of caviar and decanters of vodka at the Hotel Europa in
Leningrad. Tete de veau, the brains, tongue and cheeks of a calf. Side
orders of tripe a la mode de Caen sweetbreads with morels. Stewed kidneys
and heart. Three-pound steaks as snacks, five dozen oysters and three lobsters
in Boston. A barrel of nice gravy. Wild boar. Venison. Duck. Partridge.
Pig's feet. But you know, Sergei, I must eat these magical trifles to keep from
getting brainy and sad, to avoid leaving this physical world.





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