Little Kisses

Lloyd Schwartz

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780226458274
• eBook ISBN: 9780226458304
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

Called "the master of the poetic one-liner" by the New York Times, acclaimed poet and critic Lloyd Schwartz takes his characteristic tragicomic view of life to some unexpected and disturbing places in this, his fourth book of poetry. Here are poignant and comic poems about personal loss—the mysterious disappearance of his oldest friend, his mother's failing memory, a precious gold ring gone missing—along with uneasy love poems and poems about family, identity, travel, and art with all of its potentially recuperative power. Humane, deeply moving, and curiously hopeful, these poems are distinguished by their unsentimental but heartbreaking tenderness, pitch-perfect ear for dialogue, formal surprises, and exuberant sense of humor.

City of Dreams

1. Masquerade

Should I tell you about my dream? It’s a dream

about you . . .

your familiar disarray an overstuffed

Victorian elegance: antiques, bric-a-brac, dark horse-

hair sofa with swirling hand-carved arm-rests—plush

but uncomfortable;

you’re offering me a drink, and

showing me the score to your latest piece,

called Masquerade.

It’s charming—bubbling with flutes, piccolos, clarinets.

Fresh. Yet complex: sweet tunes you give a sly

rhythmic tilt; harmonies you save from the saccharine

with a razor-edge of dissonance.

I didn’t know you

wrote music—could write music. And though I can

barely follow a score, I’m actually

reading yours—listening to it in my head as I read.

I pick up one of the doodads from the marble coffee table

cluttered with precious objects: a piece of polished mahogany

carved into the shape of an arm.

The hand end

has shapely, arched fingers, with long hooked nails

like a bird’s claws;

perfect for cleaning under one’s nails?

(Isn’t everything here meant to be useful?)

You say: “Leonard Bernstein gave me that. He was so

helpful to me with Masquerade. Donna sang the premiere.”

Then Donna appears—her loose corn-silk hair; her white body

wrapped in a swirling silk peignoir, fluid greens and

tangerines, almost transparent.

I didn’t know you

‘d been living with her—with anyone. And to tell the truth,

I was still half in love with her myself.

She offers to refill my glass, and pours more of the chilled

Zinfandel. She’s charming, bubbly, fresh

from her recent triumph at the opera.

She seems pleased

to be pouring the wine. To be pouring my wine.

You beam. When did I last see you so productive?

So happy?

What am I doing here? It’s been a hundred years

since I visited you, since we saw each other

last—

since my pocket was picked, my wallet stolen,

in the crowd at your father’s funeral.

No—

that was a different dream . . .

What do I want? Some help? Approval? I’ve always needed

something from you (and you’ve always been more

than generous).

I steel myself to ask, when (KNOCK!

KNOCK!) a sudden pounding on the door (Who’s there?)

interrupts our masquerade.

2. The Book of Paintings

Of course, I can’t remember the artist’s name—I’d forgotten it

even before I woke up. But I certainly remember

the book of paintings.

I was visiting your house—an odd house, not at all like

your real one: much bigger, with narrow

curving staircases and a grassy meadow out back. I was

staying over, and coming downstairs late

to a sitting room, where you and some new visitors—

an older man and a young girl with long

dark braids (his daughter?), a thin

blond woman with large gray eyes, a pale man

in a dark suit (who were they? when had they arrived?),

and your lover (whose name I couldn’t remember)—

were having tea and drinks.

You were sliding a heavy book from a locked bookcase—a thick,

squarish, clothbound book: the cloth itself

grayish blue and roughly textured. I heard you say

my name as you opened it. The pages were thick

and stiff; you turned them slowly.

I sat down in a large armchair. You crossed the room,

and handed the open book to me.

The paintings were mostly abstractions—globs

and dribbles of paint swirling up

out of a dark, grayish-blue background:

dribbles of yellow, delicate dribbles of black,

little splotches of orange.

Full of atmosphere, I thought. Highly charged.

Suddenly, as I turned the pages, I began to make out

faces in the thick swirls of paint;

then all I could see were faces—the same face!—

all painted the same grayish blue, more gray

than blue. Each face had the texture of paint,

not skin (the reproductions were

so real, I could almost touch the pigment).

In each face, the eyes and mouth were wide open,

like holes in a mask, through which the darker background

showed through.

I turned each page slowly, often turning back

to a previous page. Each “...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Little Kisses
• My Other Grandmother
• Lost Causes
• The Conductor
• Goldring
• City of Dreams
• Dreams (Gatsby’s Beguine)
• Crossword
• Six Words
• Is Light Enough?
• New Name
• La Valse
• Howl
• Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna: Music for My Ashes
• Viktor Neborak: Fish
• Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna: Tehran Spring
• If You Lived Here You’d Be Home Now
• Small Airport in Brazil
• In Flight
• Cut-Up
• To My Oldest Friend, Whose Silence Is Like a Death
• Two Plays
• Jerry Garcia in a Somerville Parking Lot
• Notes