Hard Work

Tricky work sometimes not to smell yourself,

ferment being constant—constant as carnival sweat

(a non-stock phrase I palmed from a girl from Canada,

a land where I once saw this graffiti: life is great).

And I have tasted myself, especially when I spilled

sinigang all down my arm in a Pinoy workers' caff

in Little Manila. I drank sinigang (is soup drunk?)

in Big Manila too, with all its dead skyscrapers.

Seen myself? In looking glasses or, looking down,

stocky as a shift working cop, maybe a Mexican cop

full of beans (frijoles, I mean, not vim), paunch full

of sopa de vigilia, pulling over a sozzled bus driver.

Heard myself speak fluently in my own language,

have heard myself too described as hard work

(as hard to get through as Scotch broth), though once

someone rather bladdered told me I was magnetic.

And I may as well admit that I have touched myself

(who hasn't?). In a forest, on a train, in New York

and Paris with unparalleled handiwork, sinning

as I go, merry as an office boy spooning onion soup.

Voltaire at Ferney

Perfectly happy now, he looked at his estate.
An exile making watches glanced up as he passed
And went on working; where a hospital was rising fast,
A joiner touched his cap; an agent came to tell
Some of the trees he'd planted were progressing well.
The white alps glittered. It was summer. He was very great.

Far off in Paris where his enemies
Whsipered that he was wicked, in an upright chair
A blind old woman longed for death and letters. He would write,
"Nothing is better than life." But was it? Yes, the fight
Against the false and the unfair
Was always worth it. So was gardening. Civilize.

Cajoling, scolding, screaming, cleverest of them all,
He'd had the other children in a holy war
Against the infamous grown-ups; and, like a child, been sly
And humble, when there was occassion for
The two-faced answer or the plain protective lie,
But, patient like a peasant, waited for their fall.

And never doubted, like D'Alembert, he would win:
Only Pascal was a great enemy, the rest
Were rats already poisoned; there was much, though, to be done,
And only himself to count upon.
Dear Diderot was dull but did his best;
Rousseau, he'd always known, would blubber and give in.

Night fell and made him think of women: Lust
Was one of the great teachers; Pascal was a fool.
How Emilie had loved astronomy and bed;
Pimpette had loved him too, like scandal; he was glad.
He'd done his share of weeping for Jerusalem: As a rule,
It was the pleasure-haters who became unjust.

Yet, like a sentinel, he could not sleep. The night was full of wrong,
Earthquakes and executions: soon he would be dead,
And still all over Europe stood the horrible nurses
Itching to boil their children. Only his verses
Perhaps could stop them: He must go on working: Overhead,
The uncomplaining stars composed their lucid song.