Divorce Poems
 

I'd love to gather another of our Sphere mini-anthologies, this time of poets who have written memorably about divorce. Springing immediately to my mind are W.D. Snodgrass, Alan Shapiro and Tony Hecht, in See Naples and Die. I'd love for you guys to post your favorites; I'll post some Snodgrass when I get a chance. Thanks,

Chris

Oooo! Oooo! Teacher, pick me! I raised my hand first!

Julie Kane's "Particle Physics," on The Writer's Almanac two weeks ago:
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.or...ate=2009/09/16

Craig Raine's poem immediately jumps to mind. I really like it, and it always moves me when I get to the end:


The Onion, Memory

Divorced, but friends again at last,
we walk old ground together
in bright blue uncomplicated weather.
We laugh and pause
to hack to bits these tiny dinosaurs,
prehistoric, crenelated, cast
between the tractor ruts in mud.

On the green, a junior Douglas Fairbanks,
swinging on the chestnut's unlit chandelier,
defies the corporation spears -
a single rank around the bole,
rusty with blood.
Green, tacky phalluses curve up, romance
A gust - the old flag blazes on its pole.

In the village bakery
the pastry babies pass
from milky slump to crusty cadaver,
from crib to coffin - without palaver.
All's over in a flash,
too silently...

Tonight the arum lilies fold
back napkins monogrammed in gold,
crisp and laundered fresh.
Those crustaceous gladioli, on the sly,
reveal the crimson flower-flesh
inside their emerald armor plate.
The uncooked herrings blink a tearful eye.
The candles palpitate.
The Oistrakhs bow and scrape
in evening dress, on Emi-tape.

Outside the trees are bending over backwards
to please the wind: the shining sword
grass flattens on its belly.
The white-thorn's frillies offer no resistance.
In the fridge, a heart-shaped jelly
strives to keep a sense of balance.

I slice up the onions. You sew up a dress.
This is the quiet echo - flesh -
white muscle on white muscle,
intimately folded skin,
finished with a satin rustle.
One button only to undo, sewn up with shabby thread.
It is the onion, memory,
that makes me cry.

Because there's everything and nothing to be said,
the clock with hands held up before its face,
stammers softly on, trying to complete a phrase -
while we, together and apart,
repeat unfinished gestures got by heart.

And afterwards, I blunder with the washing on the line -
headless torsos, faceless lovers, friends of mine.
.
.

This was off to a flying start!

Petra, that was a terrific poem and I hadn't seen it. Thanks for posting.

And Julie Kane's poem is that rare thing--memorable. It will pop up in my mind at intervals in future days, I don't doubt it.

And W. D. Snodgrass to be brought to the fore--the poets of his day were important to me, a couple of small anthologies kept me in touch with poetry when I lived in an obscurey foreign village with three children under the age of four and not a library or bookstore with English books for miles and miles and miles.

Heart's Needle is the great one of the century, but I'll leave that to Chris. Berryman has some, but everyone will think of those.

So let's go to Dryden:

Why should a foolish marriage vow,
Which long ago was made,
Oblige us to each other now
When passion is decay'd?
We loved, and we loved, as long as we could,
Till our love was loved out in us both:
But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled:
'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.

If I have pleasures for a friend,
And farther love in store,
What wrong has he whose joys did end,
And who could give no more?
'Tis a madness that he should be jealous of me,
Or that I should bar him of another:
For all we can gain is to give our selves pain,
When neither can hinder the other.


Thanks,

Bill

Not Going to See the Movie About a Nuclear Holocaust's Aftermath
by Philip Dacey

Here. In the way
I turned away from my wife
is all the horror
I need to consider.

A great white light
blinded me
and I wandered for years
in a desert.

I would tell you how
eventually
the green place
came to meet me,

but that would be a lie.
This poem
is radioactive.
I am sorry.

There's George Meredith's sonnet sequence about the failure of a marriage, Modern Love. Here are the first and last of the sequence (they are 16-line sonnets, by the way):

1.
By this he knew she wept with waking eyes:
That, at his hand's light quiver by her head,
The strange low sobs that shook their common bed
Were called into her with a sharp surprise,
And strangely mute, like little gasping snakes,
Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay
Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away
With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes
Her giant heart of Memory and Tears
Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat
Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet
Were moveless, looking through their dead black years,
By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall.
Like sculptured effigies they might be seen
Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between;
Each wishing for the sword that severs all.

50.
Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:
The union of this ever-diverse pair!
These two were rapid falcons in a snare,
Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.
Lovers beneath the singing sky of May,
They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers:
But they fed not on the advancing hours:
Their hearts held cravings for the buried day.
Then each applied to each that fatal knife,
Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole.
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul
When hot for certainties in this our life! --
In tragic hints here see what evermore
Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force,
Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse,
To throw that faint thin line upon the shore!

I think Donne has a poem about an unhappy couple, maybe not actually divorced but on the verge. I can't find it, so in the absence of a good poem I'm going to post one of the worst C & W songs I've ever heard. Yes siree, it's Tammy Wynette whining out D-I-V-O-R-C-E:


Our little boy is four years old and quite a little man
So we spell out the words we don't want him to understand
Like T-O-Y or maybe S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E
But the words we're hiding from him now
Tear the heart right out of me.

Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final today
Me and little J-O-E will be goin' away
I love you both and it will be pure H-E double L for me
Oh, I wish that we could stop this D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

Watch him smile, he thinks it’s Christmas
Or his 5th Birthday
And he thinks C-U-S-T-O-D-Y spells fun or play
I spell out all the hurtin' words
And turn my head when I speak
'Cause I can't spell away this hurt
That's drippin' down my cheek.

Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final today
Me and little J-O-E will be goin' away
I love you both and it will be pure H-E double L for me
Oh, I wish that we could stop this D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
.
****
By Braddock & Putman

That Tammy Wynette song led off Bob Dylan's theme time radio hour on divorce. Here are the rest of the songs he played. You can hear them all for free on Rhapsody if you don't go over your 25-song free quota:

D.I.V.O.R.C.E. - Tammy Wynette - (1968)


The Grand Tour - George Jones - (1974)


Alimony - Tommy Tucker - (1965)


She Got The Goldmine (I Got The Shaft) - Jerry Reed - (1982)


Alimony Blues - T-Bone Walker - (1951)


(Pay Me) Alimony - The Maddox Brothers & Rose - (1946)


Alimony Blues - Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson & His Orchestra - (1947)


Divorce Decree - Doris Duke - (1981)


Married by the Bible, Divorced by the Law - Hank Snow - (1962)


Alimony - Huey "Piano" Smith & His Clowns - (1959)


Divorce Me C.O.D. - Merle Travis - (1946)


Mexican Divorce - The Drifters - (1962)


Will Your Lawyer Talk to God? - Kitty Wells - (1964)


Mr. & Mrs. Used To Be - Ernest Tubb & Loretta Lynn - (1965)


You Can't Divorce My Heart - Lefty Frizzell - (1951)


Love Doesn't Live Here Anymore - June Christy - (1953)

Thanks all for the fine poems; please, keep them coming! Bill has suggested that I post Heart's Needle; here's a link. Yes, it is a great poem.

I've promised you some Snodgrass; apparently he got divorced four times so he had plenty of inspiration from life. There's a great run of divorce / failed marriage poems in his 1987 Selected; here are a few:

A Valediction

......Since his sharp sight has taught you
To think your own thoughts and to see
What cramped horizons my arms brought you,
......Turn then and go free.

......Unlimited, your own
Forever. Let your vision be
In your own interests; you've outgrown
......All need for tyranny.

......May his clear views save you
From those shrewd, undermining powers
That hold you close just to enslave you
......In some such love as ours.

......May this new love leave you
Your own being; may your bright rebirth
Prove treacherous, change then and deceive you
......Never on this earth.

......Now that you've seen how mindless
Our long ties were, I pray you never
Find, all your life through, such a blindness
......As we two shared together.

......My dark design's exposed
Since his tongue opened up your eyelids;
May no one ever lip them closed
......So cunningly as I did.


Old Jewelry*

This Gypsy bodice of old coins
......From seven countries, woven fast
So that a silver braidwork joins
......The years and places their tribe passed;

This crown-shaped belt, cast in Souflí--
......Jeweled, enameling on silver-gilt--
A trothplight, then that surety
......On which a family would be built;

This Roman fibula, intact
......From the fourth century though bent;
This Berber fibula, once blacked
......With layers of thick tar to prevent

Theft but that, scoured and polished, shone
......As luminous as it ever was;
This lapis, Persian, the unfading stone
Gold-flecked and implicate with flaws;

Brass arm bands, rings, pins, bracelets, earrings--
Something from nearly every place
We'd been. Once more to see these dear things
Laid out for buyers in a locked showcase.

I'd known them, each one--weighed in hand,
......Rubbed, bargained, and then with my love,
Pinned each one on for her, to stand
In fickle times for emblems of

What lasts--just as they must have once
......For someone long dead. Love that dies
Can still be wrung out for quick funds;
......Someone, no doubt, would pay the price.

*In typing this poem out I have faithfully followed the indentation format in my 2006 Selected. However, it looks wrong, for obvious reasons. Does anybody have another edition of his poems, to see if this haphazard indentation is really what he intended? I'm beginning to suspect this is a rather shoddily-edited volume...

Love Lamp

There's our candle, on the bedstand still
That served, warm nights, for lovelight
And the rays of its glass panels played
On our entangled legs and shoulders
Like some sailor's red and blue tattoos
Or as cathedral stained glass alters
Congregated flesh to things less
Carnal, tinged by its enfolding glow.

What could that frail lamp seem
To prowlers outside--the fox, say, the owl,
Or to some smaller creature, shrieking,
Pierced in the clutch of tooth and claw
That interrupted love's enactments?
Our glancing flashlight, though, showed
Only scattered grey fur, some broken
Feathers, bloodstained, on the lawn.

Scuttling back to bed, a little
Chilled from the wet grass, we scratched
A match restoring our small gleam
To see there, sinking in soft wax,
The wings and swimming dark limbs
Of that moth--still there, hardened
By the years like amber. While I remember
The scathing fire-points of his eyes.