THINKING OF POET JACK GILBERT

I was thinking of poet Jack Gilbert (1925-2012) the other day, and his death, aged 87, from Alzheimer's: a curse for a writer as gifted as he was. My friend and fellow poet Daniel Abdul Hayy Moore, who died swiftly of second-bout cancer in April 2016, told me that the disease left him a "complete scarecrow"—hounded, haunted by a total lack of memory and absence of any knowledge. It reminded me of the Alzheimer's that devoured a photographer friend. His wife told me, "He used to watch TV. Now he just stares at it,"

Jack won the prestigious Yale Younger Poets Prize in 1962 and the next year was asked to read at the University of Pittsburgh, an event he enjoyed because Pittsburgh was his hometown. A small group of the university's young poets, including me, spent an evening with him. During a night of conversation, he temporarily detoured discussion to admit that he was worried because he had received a big advance for a novel he found himself unable to write. He plied us for remedies, but we had none. I think he even asked us to help him twist some plots. But again we couldn’t be of help. We resumed talking about poetry.

That memory of his writer's block returns every time I think of his death from the worst block--if not blankness--imaginable. Indeed, I wrote a memorial poem to him over the past few days, "Next To Never," and tried to fit him into a composite sketch of all the people I have known to suffer from this existential holocaust of memory. I'm affixing it after I print out the kind of Pittsburgh poem that a man destined for such dreadful permanent amnesia might write.

I remember Jack as a very direct, laconic, almost self-effacing man who seemed happier to talk about the poets for whom we shared mutual admiration than himself. Like Creeley, he told us there was nothing more to say about his poems than what they said. It was as if he was trying to tell us: Once a poem is written, the reader knows as much about it--or is entitled to--as the writer.

Trying To Have Something Left Over by Jack Gilbert (1925-2012)

There was a great tenderness to the sadness
when I would go there. She knew how much
I loved my wife and that we had no future.
We were like casualties helping each other
as we waited for the end. Now I wonder
if we understood how happy those Danish
afternoons were. Most of the time we did not talk.
Often I took care of the baby while she did
housework. Changing him and making him laugh.
I would say Pittsburgh softly each time before
throwing him up. Whisper Pittsburgh with
my mouth against the tiny ear and throw
him higher. Pittsburgh and happiness high up.
The only way to leave even the smallest trace.
So that all his life her son would feel gladness
unaccountably when anyone spoke of the ruined
city of steel in America. Each time almost
remembering something maybe important that got lost.

NEXT TO NEVER
For poet Jack Gilbert who died of Alzheimer’s

1
I remember
Enough about Time
To watch the sun rise and set
And wait
During interminable
Sleepless nights
For it to rise again.
I also know
I won’t keep such watch
Much longer.
There is an approaching point
Of no return
To any purpose
For waiting.
Then all life will be clutched
In one fell swoop
Of anonymity.


2
Imagine gazing
Driven by a reason.
Imagine a steady stare
At snowy peaks
That remind of
“Friends living and dead.”
Imagine tracking
Long distances
Where birds seem to dis-
Appear
But never cease
To be
Near.
Imagine gratitude for
Thoughts of people
You still know by name.
Imagine the habitual comfort
Of being someone to talk to.
Call me Jack
And I’ll call you Dave.
Oh! this ecstasy
Of exchange.


3
Sometimes America still stands for red wheelbarrows
And drinks at the Pink Parrot.
Then I can afford to squander
My remaining inheritance
On the shrinking multitude of things
I remember
Loving
With an intimate intensity
That re-
Minds of love.


4
No man should ever face
The false Nothingness
That stems
From incapacity
To know or acknowledge
People, places and things by name.
To know names
By recurrence and heart
Is to find Heaven on earth.
‘Hell' is to lose the stamina
For premeditated perceptions.
You feel damned to a nostalgia
For the time
When you could take things for granted.
Now you face a blankness so pervasive
That even sordid thoughts
Of broken commandments
Would be welcome
To restore you to a life
That is distinctly your own
And worth living.


5
The memory of Time
Begins to weaken
In a vagueness
That no longer divulges
Significant differences between
Day and Night.
Gradually, I will be left
No choice
But to dwell in Limbo
Like prolonged solitary confinement.
No pardon or parole
When days no longer count
Nor can be
Counted.


6
By the time
All names are gone
Mine will be among the missing, too.
I wonder if I will recall them
In my dreams
Which come from a deeper
Still un-
Stricken
Place.


7
Two names are still vouchsafed
At all times:
Mom and Dad.
Not their real names, of course,
But the dearest names
For the twins
Of lifelong deepest need
For respites from howling doubt
About a life of meaning


8
I fear having to relinquish
Any hope of feeling
At home
With this person
Staring back from the mirror.
Although the two of us look alike

All we have

In common

Is a stare

Of helplessness.

9
What is this drift
Of moments all about
Beyond a seethe of silence?
It sounds like surf.
A surf
That seems the surface
Of things?


10
Things go bump
In the light as well as night
Trying to jar
A sense of themselves
From growing more faint and foreign.
I want to weep
Each time I fail
To attract words for things
That summon attention.
It is then that seen and seer
Are both nameless
Objects.


11
I hear the word “shortage” from the radio
While out for a drive by the ocean.
I see a motel sign
That reads “Vacancy.”
I can’t help but wonder if the words
Have double meaning
Related to the life
I know more and more of
Yet less and less
About.


12
I am a superhero
Of tenuousness.
My sworn enemy
Is forsworn
To make me become invisible--
But only to myself.
To everyone else
I am a laughing stock
Of incompetent visibility.


13
I am identity-impaired.
Soon there will be
No ‘Me’
To love or hate.
I live with a trapped bumblebee’s
Fury to escape enclosure
For which there is
No escape.


14
Count as blessing each thing
With which you remain
On familiar terms—
Even if it turns
Hot stove and burns you
Back to remembrance.
Just to curse it by name
Seems a miracle cure
For erasure.


15
In recent antiquity
Things mattered
Beyond the moment
At hand.
Now forget-
Fullness
Seems out of hand.
When did so much
Slip beyond
Grasp?
When did things cease
To matter
And succumb
To ceaseless
Intangibility?


16
"And what do you want
From Santa Claus little boy?"
I prepare a list:
1) An impingement
Greater than pangs
Of fear or hunger.
2) A weighty worry
About politics or war.
3) An intricate memory
That holds a key to understanding
A life larger than the one I am living.
Santa shrugs, hands me back to my mother.
"For those you must sit
On the lap of God, son.
Only he is equipped
To feed such hungers."


17
Are you now 
Or have you ever been
A practicing poet?
Yes I tell the communion.
Are you ready to name names
Of fellow poets 
From your days as such?
Creeley, Spicer, Welch
Are last and lasting names
My heart strings
Together with what mind
I have left.
Then I add,
Olson, Whalen, O'Hara
to stretch this rare moment's
Clemency
Of coherence.

—David Federman, Ardmore, PA, June 11-14, 2019