The Novel by Richard Jones

I know that most people (besides me and a few of my MFA friends) don't really care about poems, but this one is very interesting. I love the way it's written, in such a colloquial style.


The Novel by Richard Jones


1.

For two days I’ve been crying,
from Paris to Rome, from Rome to Palermo,
weeping and sobbing here on the train
over a nineteenth-century novel.
Some paragraphs are so beautiful
I lean my head against the window
while villages fly past
like books I’ll never open.
When I come to the last few sentences
of an exquisitely painful chapter,
I drop the novel in my lap
or crush it to my chest
and cover my face with my hands,
trembling and shaking.

People on the train
don’t know what to do with me
or why I rock back and forth
clutching my book and sniffling.
From Paris to Rome,
the French hated me for crying.
They blew smoke in my face
and cursed me in their beautiful language.
But now, along the Amalfi Coast,
beside blue waters and grottos,
the great hearts of the Italians
take pity—
they offer me water,
offer me wine.
We open the window and smoke together
until I compose myself.
These are my five angels—
a baker from Napoli,
a nun,
young Rafael the fisherman,
and an old married couple,
young lovers once,
now shrunk to the size of children.
The baker from Napoli speaks for them all,
asking what troubles me.
The five Italians lean forward.
For a long moment I’m silent,
looking down at the novel
that is the story of my life,
a secret between the author and me.
I am the hero,
and though I am brave,
indefatigable, loyal, intrepid,
I cannot bear to hear it all again.
My story is blessed with moments of joy,
but they are brief
and flicker like distant stars.
The author knows
truth is tragic.
Relentless, tireless, devoid of sympathy,
he talks and talks
like the heartbeat of time
while I grow weaker and weaker,
no longer a hero,
but a boy again,
weeping when my mother falls ill in the castle,
weeping when Fabiana, my little sister,
is abducted by thieves and gypsies
and forced to dance naked
before a fire in the camp of the Hussars.

The Italians are waiting.
I look up at the luggage rack,
suitcases and plastic bags
piled precariously over their heads.
I look out the window at blue doors and green doors
of whitewashed houses built on the edges of cliffs
here at the foot of the famous volcano.
When I finally lean forward, I whisper,
slowly, so they will understand,
“My wife died,
and my child,
horribly,
in an accident,
in America, America,
an accident in America,
my wife and child,
morto, morto.”
The Italians lean back,
overcome, delighted,
crossing themselves,
everyone talking at once.
My confession makes them happy,
makes them hungry.
They bring out sandwiches,
pears, olives, and cheese.
We feast all afternoon
until sated and sleepy,
until they all lean back in their worn red seats
and the baker, with his hands, asks,
“And now?”
I tell them I’ll retreat
to an island to rest,
recover, renew my life
again. I tell this
in broken Italian
and simple French,
using only the present tense and infinitives.
I employ words I remember
from German and Spanish,
I speak English when the story
becomes complex and difficult
though the words themselves
are plain and simple.
My five angels understand best
when I make wild and mysterious gestures
with my hands, when I beat my fist
against the coffin of my heart
or fall silent,
and they have only to look in my face
to see how far I’ve come,
to see my heart is broken.

2.

As the sun goes down,
I tell them a story,
make them swear never to repeat it,
telling the story only in English
to emphasize feeling over fact.
“I saw something very strange
today in Rome,” I tell them.
“I was passing the time between trains
in the gardens of the Villa Borghese,
sitting on a bench, eating ice cream.
A man walked toward me down the gravel path
near the stalls of the carabinieri.
Smartly dressed, handsome, he seemed
carefree, tossing keys in his left hand
and humming under the linden trees.
A moment later a woman rushed through the gate,
running toward him,
awkwardly carrying her coat
as her shoulder bag bounced and knocked against her.
She was screaming; he ignored her
and kept walking.
I thought perhaps that he had said something to her
on the street before entering the garden
or had been forward on a crowded bus,
that she came now for revenge,
to defend her honor,
that he would feign innocence,
swear he’d never touched her.
When the woman caught the man,
she dropped her coat and bag,
spun him around
and beat him with her fists,
scratching his face,
clawing his eyes.
And the man did nothing
except close his eyes
and hold on to his broken glasses,
absorbing the blows like a saint,
like a martyr.
It was then I realized
he loved her,
she was his wife,
that she too must have loved him very much
to attack him this way in a public park.
She beat him until there was no good in it,
until he turned away
and, his back to her, began to weep.
She stepped back, yelling,
hurling questions at the wall of his back.
He turned. Unable to meet her eyes,
he said something so softly
only she could hear.
Then she took a step forward,
wanting to hit him again,
raised her fists,
but fury had left her
and the man walked away
down the path in sorrow.
She followed,
but not before she bent to pick up
the keys he had dropped in the dirt,
the keys he would have forgotten
and lost
had she not been there.”

I ask the Italians if they understand.
No one says a word. Now,
I tell them, I will finish the story,
this parable, this little novel,
reminding them of their vow
never to repeat it.
“The man and woman walked to the stables
where they studied the horses of the carabinieri.
The proud horses—usually aloof and haughty—
returned the lovers’ gaze with patient brown eyes,
tossing their heads sympathetically
like priests.

                        And though I had no right
to follow the lovers with my ice cream and notebook,
though the lovers’ novel was written in Italian,
I eavesdropped as the horses spoke,
as horses in Italian novels sometimes do,
forgiving the man his infidelity,
the woman her inability to forgive.
The horse-priests said,
La passione è difficile,
and offered themselves
as models of discipline.
The horses said their lives were a novel
full of grain and wind and sweat.
They told of men in blue uniforms
who arrive with the light each dawn
to wash and brush them,
bringing fresh straw.
The horses said they love each day,
galloping through the woods
or walking slowly by the villa’s open windows
so their riders can admire the lovely sculptures,
the horrible Rape of Persephone,
the terrible Apollo and Daphne.
The horses said they don’t understand
the human love
of stories in marble and bronze.
They understand only
that each day as they enter the woods
with light falling through trees,
with leaves under their hooves,
their hearts become so full they think
if they don’t die right then
they will surely live forever.
And when the horses fell silent
and bent their heads to the sweet water
flowing fresh down the long wooden trough,
the lovers turned away,
perhaps toward home,
where they would make love,
touching each other gently and with respect,
then with increasing passion and need,
healing one another simply
with their love.”

In the compartment,
the baker, nun, fisherman,
and tiny old couple
listen to each word,
leaning forward when I whisper,
nodding at a word they understand—
carabinieri, Bernini.
But I am finished talking;
I will say nothing more in English.
But they don’t know that yet,
and watch me and wait to see if the story continues.
When I finally lower my head,
open my book
and continue reading,
they don’t wait for my tears;
they argue over the meaning of my story,
yelling at one another,
waving hands, interpreting,
translating, revising, editing, embellishing,
digressing
into the mystery
of lives they have observed,
adding their own emotions
and personal histories
as if they’ve comprehended everything I’ve said
and no longer need to consult me,
talking among themselves now
as if I had disappeared.

3.

Just before midnight,
we take turns in the WC
with our toothbrushes and our washcloths.
When the coach lights go out,
the nun vows to watch over me
as I finish my book by flashlight,
but she’s a tired angel
and falls asleep in a minute.
The old couple curl
on their seat like two cats—
they’re that small.
The baker snorts and snores,
hands on his belly,
face white as flour in the moonlight.
But Rafael, the fisherman,
is too young to sleep.
He stands outside in the corridor,
admiring the moon and moonlit water,
thinking,

I will tell my friends
what I heard and saw on my journey.
I will sit in my uncle’s café
and my cousin will bring wine and glasses.
We’ll drink to the moon
bathing the rocky coast of our village
and to spells the moon casts on fish
we catch in our nets at dawn.
I will tell my friends about the strange American
and how fine it is to stay up all night
admiring the moon,
admiring the moonlit water.
And I will tell them how,
when the entire train was dreaming
except for the American
hidden behind his book and flashlight,
I saw an old man in the next compartment
sitting across from his daughter,
admiring her as she slept,
tenderly, secretly watching her,
biting his knuckle now and then,
so astonished was he by her beauty.