The Mirror Thief(124)

Stuart and a couple of other guys have restarted what seems to be a favorite argument. One of the new faces—fleshy, fake-professorial, probably queer, sipping red wine from a coffeemug—has the floor now. Of course poems should be like paintings! the guy’s saying. Why wouldn’t they be? I mean, ut pictura poesis, man: that’s the whole history of the form in a phrase. It’s right there in Horace—and Horace was just quoting Simonides. The instant impact of the image, the negative space of the blank page, the depth of potential detail. That’s what we all want, right?

I’m not sold on that, the colored guy—Milton—says. How many of the poets in this room are painters, too? Just about all, unless I’m mistaken. If you’re satisfied with one, why bother with the other?

Tony, still standing by the door, motions Alex over, speaks quietly in his ear. He keeps looking at Stanley and Claudio, unhappy about something. Stanley can’t hear what he’s saying.

Stuart’s arguing with the tubby professor. You missed the scene at the Coastlines reading, Bruce, he says. If you’d caught it, there’s no way you’d still be trying to shovel this shit. Ginsberg ain’t no painter, man. You take the most massive painting you can think of—take the Sistine Chapel ceiling, for chrissakes—and you’re still nowhere near the thing he read. You’re hung up on some kind of museum-academy trip, man. You’re filling little jars with formaldehyde. I love paintings, but they don’t exist in time. Poems don’t happen on the page. They’re made from living breath.

Ginsberg? somebody says. He’s the striptease star, right?

—just theater, someone else mutters under his breath.

So what’s the matter with theater? Stuart says. Poetry needs more theater! It needs more music! Get it off the page, man, and onto the stage! Get some red blood pumping in those paper veins!

Oh, christ, Bruce says, refilling his cup from a gallon jug on the floor. Here we go again with the jazz canto jive.

Across the room, Alex has an avuncular hand on Tony’s shoulder, a raised finger in his face. Tony isn’t talking anymore.

Poets and painters gotta quit shadowboxing each other, Stuart says, and start aping jazz. Free up the forms! Smash the phony barriers between art and life! That’s how we’ll reach people, man. It’s guerrilla warfare. Nowadays everybody’s an image junkie, everybody’s hypnotized. The frontal attack is no good. You gotta get in through the ear, you gotta communicate with the inner eye, the eye that won’t be tricked by some subliminal projection.

Charlie speaks up, his voice a little too loud in the small room. Whoa, Trigger! he says. Now you’ve got me confused. Are we talking about poetry or advertising?

Stuart and Bruce shoot glares at him, exasperated, at a loss, knocked off their rhythm. In the sudden quiet, Tony’s low voice comes through the room: on top of being dope-peddling JDs, he says, they’re an illegal sex, to boot.

Let me let you guys in on a little trade secret, Charlie says. This is my area of expertise, dig? You know what’s even better than subliminal projections for selling stuff? Super-liminal projections, man! Just put it out there! You guys talk about people like they’re sheep, like they can’t think for themselves, like if they weren’t all such saps they’d be right here at the oceanfront with us, painting pictures, writing poems, sleeping on the sand, living off horsemeat from the pet shop. Truth is, they love to be fooled. They want to be told what to do, what to want, what to like. They love their illusions. Just like us, right? But we think our illusions are better. If you guys want to change the world, start paying attention to your Starch Ratings. Just like we used to say around the office: you can’t sell a man who isn’t listening!

A tide of grumbles wells up around Charlie; he’s smirking, pleased with himself. That’s a bunch of cynical crap, man, Milton says quietly.

C’mon, Charlie says. Just ’cause I don’t buy my own BS, that makes me a cynic? I’d love to be wrong about this, believe me. Am I wrong, Alex? What’s it that your left-wing deviationist friends say? Give people the choice between love and a garbage disposal, most of them choose the garbage disposal. Right?

Alex half-turns from Tony with a wan patronizing smile. I think you’ve made your point, Charlie, he says.

I’m not trying to make a point, Charlie says. Shrillness creeps into his voice, and he lifts his hands to his face: a little like Jack Benny, a little like a mortified child. His hands are trembling. I just want to know what I should do, he says. What I should write. I want to be honest, I want to renounce Moloch and all his works, I want to not make the world any worse. How do I go about that, Alex?

Alex leans against the wall, his arms crossed, his head cocked. Everybody looks at him except Claudio, who looks at Stanley. The people here all treat Alex like he’s famous or something, Stanley realizes. Maybe he is.

When Alex speaks, it’s less to Charlie than to the rest of the room. The writer’s task, he says, is to make a record of his times. To stand apart, and to bear witness.

Oh! Charlie says, snapping his fingers, then slapping his knees, rising to his feet. Well, that sure clears it up! Boy, do I feel like a dunce! All this time, I’ve been trying to create something. I guess I ought to take up painting if I want to do that. Huh, Stuart? Or maybe just go back to the ad firm. I could be very creative there. Hey, Alex, can I borrow my old john back for a minute? I need to take a crap.