This room has
multiple personalities. This morning
it was the
bright sun on the quilt, the radio announcer
muttering something about beurre
blanc sauce and
the Weimar Republic. And then in the
afternoon, the rain blowing against the windows.
A fat spider
marching along the plaster mark on the wall.
Now, the sound of an open palm
smacking raw
flesh can be heard. A lonely
man's agony fills the courtyard. I can hear it
through the
oboes and strings, a Spanish
dance, an Argentinian tango. I can hear it even when
it's not there. When I am depleted,
and feel I'm
low on love, incapable of giving
anyone
any happily ever
after, or enough of myself. The fat spider
returns on schedule, marches up the plaster.
The evening
shadows darken into voids
and more voids and sometimes
vines grow. Suffering is
the soul bearing fruit.
M.P. Powers lives in Berlin, Germany. His
poems have been published in The New York Quarterly, Rosebud, Existere,
Main Street Rag, Third Wednesday, A Cappella Zoo and many other fine
places.
This poem was written when I was living in
a flat on Rosenthalerstrasse in Berlin. My room, along with twelve
others, looked out over a tiny courtyard. There was an Italian
restaurant down below, and when I left my window open, I could hear
dishes clanging, people talking. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted
up, and sometimes, from somewhere else - usually on Sunday afternoons -
I would hear a sudden grunt, or a scream. It was a man's voice. I would
go to the window, look out, but I could never figure out where it had
come from. And it never happened while I was looking. In the end, I
started thinking it was my own imagination.
