Letters to WS Merwin: String Theor(y/ies): part of my screen is missing. Thus I am b-ing blocked from tagging: TWERPS!t

Letter 53/ fifty-three/ quinz trois/




Behavioral Modification



March 20/20 13



Dear Merwin,



Once upon a time our mother, my sister’s and my mother- thus our mother gave us small books of poems. To my sister she gave Robert Frost and to me Emily Dickenson. As you know I have great respect for Emily and I really, really like Robert Frost. Robert was my first pla(y)giarism



I’ve been reading you Merwin and for the most part your work is really dark.



However I very much like some of your poetry in Bears. I didn’t care for anything I came across in the Mask of Janus and thus skipped ahead to Bears finding a wonderful poem about poetry as well as a poem I am looking forward reading regarding a Greek character- perhaps Prometheus again?



In one of your poems there was/is an ending line about charity, a blade of grass and a stone. I have seen charity like that and receive some of it now.



I have also received and seen the other kind of charity, the kind that isn’t a stone being set upon a new blade of grass.



In your work it tends to be individual sentences that I find appealing and not the entire package. Merwin you are better in those sentences than anyone I’ve ever read- including all the usual-big-name-in-poetry-suspects but you are so damn dark; it is as if you’re lurking around the corner of nearly all of your own sentences.



So-



Thus I have decided I will be seeing Robert instead.



So-



“Let’s still be friends”



- given the parameters of our relationship that shouldn’t be difficult. Plus I like Robert‘s- poetry, it is also a decent restaurant and I have had largely positive associations with that name…though I am now very, very fond of the phrase “Dear Merwin”.



I was able to do two of the things that - well actually I’d hoped one only …



As you know one of the things I decided as I endeavor to get my skills back I will also make sure things left unsaid get said and those things left undone get done. Two of those today: one a matter of gratitude- the other a matter of conscience.



One of the two “left unsaids” today was easy, good memories of the woman and news updates as to the old neighborhood. I didn’t get very specific in my thank youz because every time I tried I started crying because those feelings are so very, very tender and what she did often without even knowing meant and mean so much.



She was glad to hear that she’d had a positive impact? Meaning? - something. She phrased it for me- she did one more thing for me, having already done more than I know she could ever know. I’m going to try and write some of it to her, the specifics. But would that, in a way, be a burdening?



I was able to manage to tell her one specific: how grateful I was for knowing that in some houses, in some families the kids (in particular) and the wife and everyone are glad when “Daddy’s home”. I don’t know that I would’ve known places like that existed. Her kids would actually run out to meet their father, they missed him, liked being around him but of course he liked them as well. They loved him- but of course he loved them. He was capable of love.



“All the time they spent in the garden together,” said this old point of gratitude. I couldn’t imagine such a thing then and can barely conceive it now and never would have known people can and do live that way.



My sister once said, rightly, many years ago while I was living with -behold the mustard-: “when he comes home its just like Dad“.



Yeah- didn’t want to be around him, near him and he wore me down and there I was, there she and I eventually were sitting on the couch when again a big angry malcontent walked in the door. But hey- mustard had his proxy captive: moi. Meanwhile my sister was entirely correct on that point not that I ever told her.



But that is not why I’m writing you Merwin, there’s something I want to get down while its fresh.



I had an interaction with someone today, several actually, but there was one in particular…



I had made a phone call- hoping as I always do that the other person- that that’s not ‘really’ who they are. (A.k.a denial). I had made prior attempts to find out just one thing: are two children knowingly being put in harm’s way by their parents.



Unfortunately yes.



I of course did not want to believe this because that would be too awful and thus I still maintained a glint of hope until I received a phone call late in the day. I had been doing yoga.



I also started the day doing yoga having had a bad morning but finally when whatever ‘broke’ I was able to get some tasks done, one of them was calling a particular office. I made an inquiry about someone I indeed had gone to high school with though she never spoke to me at our high school, not once. Which hurt a lot because she and I lived in the same house. This astounding and daily slight was noted by friends - some of which I didn’t even know I had (Thanks Gee-Gee wherever you are)



This person, I’ve always lost the bet on what they were capable of but now midway through life I‘ve accepted that she is capable of anything. Let’s call her So-N-Such. When I was growing up I’d ever say “oh- So-And-Such- wouldn’t do that”, - But it would always turn out that So-And-Such not only would do that but had done that. It would- always - turn out that way in the end. Ever I was the one saying “no-they-wouldn‘t“ because whatever it was so often so mean or conscienceless it would literally blow my mind.



But hey I’m one of those idiots who used to believe the world is mostly populated by people trying to do their best at being truthful and decent. But of course as you know Merwin that is not the case.



I called the So-And-Such’s office, asked a few questions, noted the price difference in some things and having told myself, having hoped (as usual) that “No So-And-Such wouldn’t do that”- but par usual So-And- Such had and is putting her children in harms way.



Of course there was still a chance because I had only spoken to a receptionist and thus there was still a chance.



Previously I had asked a question, received no reply and thus hadn’t heard from So-And-Such or their partner and thus they are: The So-And-Such-es. Thus I had called their office today to see if perhaps, hopefully “ So-And-Such wouldn’t do that”- not that because then she’d be a monster.



According to the office’s receptionist So-N-Such is a monster.



Later that day and during my second round of yoga I received a phone call from the same area code as So-And-Such’s office. I heard the voice of a very young child, still all gurgle-ly and nearly talking in the background - understanding so much and being able to say nothing. And too I heard the now strong southern accent of the mother: So-And-Such.



A child with a phone, of course it could have just been a coincidence but I knew Mrs. So-And-Such might be, probably was the voice in this background as the area code matched the office I’d called that day, today. For over two minutes I said “hello? Is there anyone there?” during which I heard all those cute sounds captured from cell phone but eventually hung up. Wanting to confirm what had just taken place I called the number back which I knew in likelihood was So-N-Such.



“Hello you just made a call to this number?”



“No you called me,” said Mrs. So-N-Such.



I paused knowing full well I had been on a mat doing yoga when I got up to answer an incoming call. I stood there amazed she’d lie this fast but this is what she does, this is who she is.



“No I didn’t,” I replied.



(Pause)



“Did you call (name of business withheld) today?”



“Yes,” I say.



I don’t remember what Mrs. So-N-Such said next, an inquiry of some sort and I suggested she speak again to her receptionist for enlightenment and then I hung up.



To talk with Mrs. So-N-Such-es is a dangerous undertaking as such creatures seek to confuse and put others off balance. Tactically when and if one knows a party is a So-N-Such it is best to limit their access as their first and constant order of business is to daze and confuse. It is what So-N-Such-es do for they are The People of the Lie.



In my usual hope against anything approaching sense…I hoped. But that was ever the nature of my many wrongs to Mrs. So-N-Such: I wouldn’t accept who she really was but instead kept wishing she was someone else, treating her thusly and then being surprised at the outcome because I hadn’t and wouldn’t accept her as herself rather than who I would have liked for her to have been. I’m over that.



Having answered So-N-Such’s and having hung up I receive(d) a phone call from Mrs. So-N-Such for I had cut off the exchange without a fight. So-N-Such loves fighting. There is nothing to fight about and only a single issue at hand.



I sent a single sentence text in the form of question. I would and did ask the same question 3 times- today -as opposed to the 3 times I’ve asked over the last three or four years. So-N-Such sent texts replies clearly not interested, still, in answering the question as well as well six or seven calls resulting in 3 voice mails which I know are poison I will never be putting in my ears. The question remains unanswered though now I have no doubts as to what the answer is.



The first time I asked the question, via text, I received a reply and what I glimpsed didn’t answer what is a very, very simple yes or no, true or false variety inquiry. Having obviously received a non-reply reply I asked the question again.



I asked Mrs. So-N-Such the same question again adding “Yes or No?” because perhaps she didn’t understand how simple this is and could be.



Again the beginnings of another reply text from Mrs. So-N-Such that didn’t appear, again, to address the question posed: the one and only thing that matters.



“Are you reading my messages?” Mrs. So-N-Such’s second or third text begins and asked.



“No” I replied, as there is only one issue at hand and those replies are off point.



I then received something new to me: an MMS. I had no idea what an MMS was/is but Mrs. So-N-Such did/does and thus Mrs. So-N-Such decided to send me something I would have to read. Finding a way to make people do things they don’t want to do was one of So-N-Such’s specialties, one of them.



I had never encountered an MMS before which, I learned today can function as receiving an unavoidable text. As an unavoidable text is and was a new experience for me I did read the first MMS from Mrs. So-N-Such “ Then you don’t really care…”



Though in a way Mrs. So-N-Such is right for I care not for Mrs. So-N-Such in this matter but the two children who have knowingly been put in harm’s way by Mrs. So-N-Such herself.



I decide to ask the question one more time and this time include Mr. So-N-Such in my phrasing of the inquiry as he too in the past has not replied to this question. And guess what?



Yep Mr. So-N-Such starts ringing me.



Or at least I presume it was Mr. So-N-Such as again the same foreign area code appears and it matches both the office and Mrs. So-N-Such-es‘ area code, so I presumed this to be Mr. So-N-Such.



I had no intention of speaking to Mr. So-N-Such as there is only one simple question that can and could have been answered with a “true” or “false. A “yes” or a “no”. Instead I’m receiving entirely different and unrelated replies.



I receive another MMS and look only for whether a simple answer to a simple question is there. It is not. I don’t read the MMS. I won’t. There is only one issue now and I will not be diverted.



So that was and is Mr. and Mrs. So-N-Such.



I sent one last message “I ask (the question) bcuz I care.”



Who do I care about though?



To Mrs. So-N-Such: if Mr. So-N-Such encouraged this putting of your children in a harm‘s way: get yourself and your children out of there.



To Mr. So-N-Such: if Mrs. So-N-Such encouraged this putting of your children in harm’s way: get yourself and your children out of there.



And lastly if Mr. and Mrs. So-N-Such readily and easily agreed on putting their children in harms way: God Help Those Children because though their parents won‘t kill them their parents will sacrifice them all the same.









…



……



……….So Merwin,



That was my day,



MCA