[R. S. Gwynn]

The Lost Pilot
BY JAMES TATE


for my father, 1922-1944

Your face did not rot
like the others—the co-pilot,
for example, I saw him

yesterday. His face is corn-
mush: his wife and daughter,
the poor ignorant people, stare

as if he will compose soon.
He was more wronged than Job.
But your face did not rot

like the others—it grew dark,
and hard like ebony;
the features progressed in their

distinction. If I could cajole
you to come back for an evening,
down from your compulsive

orbiting, I would touch you,
read your face as Dallas,
your hoodlum gunner, now,

with the blistered eyes, reads
his braille editions. I would
touch your face as a disinterested

scholar touches an original page.
However frightening, I would
discover you, and I would not

turn you in; I would not make
you face your wife, or Dallas,
or the co-pilot, Jim. You

could return to your crazy
orbiting, and I would not try
to fully understand what

it means to you. All I know
is this: when I see you,
as I have seen you at least

once every year of my life,
spin across the wilds of the sky
like a tiny, African god,

I feel dead. I feel as if I were
the residue of a stranger’s life,
that I should pursue you.

My head cocked toward the sky,
I cannot get off the ground,
and, you, passing over again,

fast, perfect, and unwilling
to tell me that you are doing
well, or that it was mistake

that placed you in that world,
and me in this; or that misfortune
placed these worlds in us.

[Siham Karami]

Thanks for posting this, Sam. But I think he died in 2015 and was not a time-traveler, except perhaps verbally. This is the same poem I would have chosen from his work, one of his best IMO . He certainly had a distinct style, this being for me one of the most meaningful.

[Roger Slater]

One of my favorites:

MY FELISBERTO
by James Tate

My felisberto is handsomer than your mergotroid,
although, admittedly, your mergotroid may be the wiser of the two.
Whereas your mergotroid never winces or quails,
my felisberto is a titan of inconsistencies.
For a night of wit and danger and temptation
my felisberto would be the obvious choice.
However, at dawn or dusk when serenity is desired
your mergotroid cannot be ignored.
Merely to sit near it in the garden
and watch the fabrications of the world swirl by,
the deep-sea's bathymetry wash your eyes,
not to mention the little fawns of the forest
and their flip-floppy gymnastics, ah, for this
and so much more your mergotroid is infinitely preferable.
But there is a place for darkness and obscurity
without which life can sometimes seem too much,
too frivolous and too profound simultaneously,
and that is when my felisberto is needed,
is longed for and loved, and then the sun can rise again.
The bee and the hummingbird drink of the world,
and your mergotroid elaborates the silent concert
that is always and always about to begin.

[R. S. Gwynn]

If he had used meter and rhyme he would have been close in spirit to John Whitworth. Sorry about the wrong year. Maybe an admin can change it.

[Janice D. Soderling]

So many fine poets are leaving. A loss.

http://www.theparisreview.org/interv...-92-james-tate

[Orwn Acra]

He's one of those prolific poets who never wrote a line that sticks to memory. My memory, at least. Others no doubt disagree.

[Rick Mullin]

I agree with ORWN. I dunno. Maybe he should have used rhyme and meter.

RM

[Orwn Acra]

I should say I don't dislike his poems. The two in this thread for instance are both enjoyable while being read. Afterwards it is the idea behind them and not the poems themselves that one remembers.

[Roger Slater]

I don't feel like arguing the point, but I do think that he is a LOT more comprehensible, say, than John Ashbery, and the humor and consistency of his voice even when he appears to be free associating is admirable. He manages to sound interesting almost all the time, even when he is being somewhat incomprehensible, and he has a way of expressing himself that is often copied but ultimately unique. Has? I should say "had."

Some years ago I had a limited email exchange with him when my wife was launching the original website for the Academy of American Poets, and I was somehow charged with obtaining some poems from him for the site. He was more than gracious at every step of the way. I caught a few small typos, for which he was very grateful, so I can now claim to have been one of his editors. Anyway, he seemed like a very nice guy, and he left his mark on poetry, so may he rest in peace.

[Siham Karami]

Fwiw, I think the reason one doesn't remember the poems themselves is the cacophony of images that the mind really could never parse. I find reading them enjoyable, some more than others.