Larry Levis: My Story in a Late Style of Fire
If you're an AL regular you know that the late Larry Levis is in our opinion one of the rare & great American poets of the last fifty years or so. Nothing particularly vehicular about this poem, which appeared in Winter Stars, but I've been reading and rereading it for 30 years, and each time finding something strange, hard, new.
My Story in a Late Style of Fire
Whenever I listen to Billie Holiday, I am remindedThat I, too, was once banished from New York City.Not because of drugs or because I was interesting enoughFor any wan, overworked patrolman to worry about—His expression usually a great, gauzy spiderweb of bewildermentOver his face—I was banished from New York City by a woman.Sometimes, after we had stopped laughing, I would look At her & see a cold note of sorrow or puzzlement goOver her face as if someone else were there, behind it,Not laughing at all. We were, I think, “in love.” No, I’m sure.If my house burned down tomorrow morning, & if I and my wifeAnd son stood looking on at the flames, & if, then,Someone stepped out of the crowd of bystandersAnd said to me: “Didn’t you once know…?” No. But ifOne of the flames, rising up in the scherzo of fire, turnedAll the windows blank with light, & if that flame could speak,And if it said to me: “You loved her, didn’t you?” I’d answer,Hands in my pockets, “Yes.” And then I’d let fire and misfortuneOverwhelm my life. Sometimes, remembering those days,I watch a warm dry wind bothering a whole line of elmsAnd maples along a street in this neighborhood untilThey’re all moving at once, until I feel just like them,Trembling and in unison. None of this matters now,But I never felt alone all that year, & if I had sorrows,I also had laughter, the affliction of angels & children.Which can set a whole house on fire if you’d let it. And even thenYou might still laugh to see all your belongings set you freeIn one long choiring of flame that sang only to you—Either because no one else could hear them, or becauseNo one else wanted to. And, mostly, because they know.They know such music cannot last, & that it wouldTear them apart if they listened. In those days,I was, in fact, already married, just as I am now, Although to another woman. And that day I could have stayedIn New York. I had friends there. I could have strayedUp Lexington Avenue, or down to Third, & caught a faintGlistening of the sea between the buildings. But all I wantedWas to hold her all morning, until her body was, again,A bright field, or until we both reached some thicketAs if at the end of a lane, or at the end of all desire,And where we could, therefore, be alone again, & makeSome dignity out of loneliness. As, mostly, people cannot do.Billie Holiday, whose life was shorter and more humiliating Than my own, would have understood all this, if onlyBecause even in her late addiction & her bloodstream’sHallelujahs, she, too, sang often of some affair, or someoneGone, & therefore permanent. And sometimes she sang forNothing, even then, & it isn’t anyone’s business if she did.That morning, when she asked me to leave, wearing onlyThat apricot tinted, fraying chemise, I wanted to stay.But I also wanted to go, to lose her suddenly, almost For no reason, & certainly without any explanation.I remember looking down at a pair of singular tracksMade in a light snow the night before, at how they wereGradually effacing themselves beneath the tiresOf the morning traffic, & thinking that my only other choiceWas fire, ashes, abandonment, solitude. All of which happenedAnyway, & soon after, & by divorce. I know this isn’t much.But I wanted to explain this life to you, even ifI had to become, over the years, someone else to do it.You have to think of me what you think of me. I hadTo live my life, even its late, florid style. BeforeYou judge this, think of her. Then think of fire,Its laughter, the music of splintering beams and glass,The flames reaching through the second story of a houseAlmost as if to—mistakenly—rescue someone whoLeft you years ago. It is so American, fire. So like us.Its desolation. And its eventual, brief triumph.
-Larry Levis
My Story in a Late Style of Fire
Whenever I listen to Billie Holiday, I am remindedThat I, too, was once banished from New York City.Not because of drugs or because I was interesting enoughFor any wan, overworked patrolman to worry about—His expression usually a great, gauzy spiderweb of bewildermentOver his face—I was banished from New York City by a woman.Sometimes, after we had stopped laughing, I would look At her & see a cold note of sorrow or puzzlement goOver her face as if someone else were there, behind it,Not laughing at all. We were, I think, “in love.” No, I’m sure.If my house burned down tomorrow morning, & if I and my wifeAnd son stood looking on at the flames, & if, then,Someone stepped out of the crowd of bystandersAnd said to me: “Didn’t you once know…?” No. But ifOne of the flames, rising up in the scherzo of fire, turnedAll the windows blank with light, & if that flame could speak,And if it said to me: “You loved her, didn’t you?” I’d answer,Hands in my pockets, “Yes.” And then I’d let fire and misfortuneOverwhelm my life. Sometimes, remembering those days,I watch a warm dry wind bothering a whole line of elmsAnd maples along a street in this neighborhood untilThey’re all moving at once, until I feel just like them,Trembling and in unison. None of this matters now,But I never felt alone all that year, & if I had sorrows,I also had laughter, the affliction of angels & children.Which can set a whole house on fire if you’d let it. And even thenYou might still laugh to see all your belongings set you freeIn one long choiring of flame that sang only to you—Either because no one else could hear them, or becauseNo one else wanted to. And, mostly, because they know.They know such music cannot last, & that it wouldTear them apart if they listened. In those days,I was, in fact, already married, just as I am now, Although to another woman. And that day I could have stayedIn New York. I had friends there. I could have strayedUp Lexington Avenue, or down to Third, & caught a faintGlistening of the sea between the buildings. But all I wantedWas to hold her all morning, until her body was, again,A bright field, or until we both reached some thicketAs if at the end of a lane, or at the end of all desire,And where we could, therefore, be alone again, & makeSome dignity out of loneliness. As, mostly, people cannot do.Billie Holiday, whose life was shorter and more humiliating Than my own, would have understood all this, if onlyBecause even in her late addiction & her bloodstream’sHallelujahs, she, too, sang often of some affair, or someoneGone, & therefore permanent. And sometimes she sang forNothing, even then, & it isn’t anyone’s business if she did.That morning, when she asked me to leave, wearing onlyThat apricot tinted, fraying chemise, I wanted to stay.But I also wanted to go, to lose her suddenly, almost For no reason, & certainly without any explanation.I remember looking down at a pair of singular tracksMade in a light snow the night before, at how they wereGradually effacing themselves beneath the tiresOf the morning traffic, & thinking that my only other choiceWas fire, ashes, abandonment, solitude. All of which happenedAnyway, & soon after, & by divorce. I know this isn’t much.But I wanted to explain this life to you, even ifI had to become, over the years, someone else to do it.You have to think of me what you think of me. I hadTo live my life, even its late, florid style. BeforeYou judge this, think of her. Then think of fire,Its laughter, the music of splintering beams and glass,The flames reaching through the second story of a houseAlmost as if to—mistakenly—rescue someone whoLeft you years ago. It is so American, fire. So like us.Its desolation. And its eventual, brief triumph.
-Larry Levis
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