A Hot Stagnant Evening

It is a definite possibility that more of  William Jay Smith’s poetry will be featured on Poet Verse.  His style is exciting and I love the intricate yet unusual images he weaves into his works.  I chose this poem since I will be moving out further west–again.  I once lived in Las Vegas and hated the evenings because, unlike southern evenings, the air remained dry.  Evenings out west lack the dewy wetness of a southern evening.  In the south, evenings are a reward for braving the sweltering heat.  Out west–the landscape as well as the air is intolerant of human life, or rather, the life of amphibious humans.

Enjoy:

A HOT STAGNANT EVENING

Apres-diner torride et stagnante

     One’s feet are baking, one can feel the arteries throbbing in one’s ankles, under one’s chin, in the heart, the wrists;one raises up hands that are already swollen and wet, the least little meal weighs one down, one must undo one’s necktie, one breathes so deeply that the cigarette stuck to the corner of one’s mouth is consumed in twelve puffs, one’s skin is wringing wet…How unhappy I would be if I had breasts and were a nurse!  Or if I were one of those military musicians laced tight in a uniform, and had to blow into a trombone in some bandstand.  Ah, to be a fly on the wet tile floor of some provincial kitchen!  Or rather a passive sponge, a branch of coral encrusted at the bottom of the sea, watching the parade of submarine nature, or a blue cornflower on a piece of deft china perched above a pile of stoles, in the cool, dark back room of an antique shop on the banks of the Sequana!  Or a flower in the chintz of the bare prim parlor of an old maid in Quimper. . . or a heron. . .

–William Jay Smith

My favorite passage is highlighted.