from PICC (A Poet in Center City): #16

The night of the 2000 election is a strange one. I’m working a closing shift at B & N, and a call comes in for me from Elizabeth Yankel, editor of a regional print journal based in Philadelphia called American Writing. American Writing is ranked high enough (Christopher endorses it too, and they carry it at Borders) that this call from Elizabeth (to inform me that one of my poems, “Icarus in New York,” would be published in the next issue) gives me an almost unbearable sense of exhilaration. Like the rest of America, I’m up all night waiting for an election verdict. It never happens. But my ass is kicked into gear by what American Writing is, and the new task is to jump into poetry head-first. I want to be thorough— rather than sticking to the texts I know (Beats, Bukowski, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, etc), I want to learn the right histories and ground myself in them. I start with a vengeance— Pound’s Cantos, the Greek tragedians, Eliot’s Four Quartets. But the most profound breakthrough occurs one night at B & N, as I’m goofing off— on impulse, I pick up the Collected Poems of John Keats. I flip straight to “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” and when I hit “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard/ are sweeter…” my brain turns on its axis. This proves to be the most important moment of my poetry life— discovering the English Romantics. Discovering the Romantics wasn’t just discovering a group of poets— it was my entrée into a world of high-level formality in in art. This is a world the enterprise of which had always been undercooked in the United States. But Keats and Wordsworth drew me in and, as it were, sucker-punched me into an acknowledgement that formality didn’t have to mean sterile stuffiness— it could be warm, it could be human. How I related to Keats’ Odes, in particular, was as a challenge to develop and maintain a new form of consciousness, which made American poetry look like child’s play. That’s what was missing from New York art— a sense that a work of art could, or should be, beautiful. Also, that serious work should live up to a serious standard, rather than taking short-cuts and acting as a bellwether of degeneracy and trans-aesthetic mania. This was the ultimate irony for me— that when formality in art laid down a gauntlet and forced a response in my life, it opened the door for Trish and Tobi to walk through, and ushered in the most warm, most human era I had ever known. It didn’t lock me in an Ivory tower or force me to lose myself in narcissism. Rather, Trish and I, in about a year’s time, would start working on a relationship so all-over-the-place, so rich in fruitful contradictions, that I would have to spend the rest of my life recovering my wits. Trish was like N, but to the Nth. N-isimus. Including concupiscence. It all manifested because I saw in Keats and Wordsworth what she saw in Renaissance painting. As it stands, on this night I’m still ensconced with Lisa, who is tolerant but not shot through with electricity regarding these issues. Trish, before the fun starts, approves instantly. “John was like Lord Byron,” she says. 

 © Adam Fieled 2012-2023

Argotist Online e-book: Mother Earth

The new Argotist Online e-book by Adam Fieled is Mother Earth. 

“Normal people tend to figure out what (and who) they want through relationships. Poetry in 2011 doesn’t always need to deal with the exalted, the archetypal, or (as is the case with post-modern poetry) the conditions and contexts of language itself. Poetry that configures the extraordinary through the normal is useful because it has utility value for an audience, largely middle and working class, that is being challenged by threatening external conditions, economic and otherwise. Mother Earth is an ordinary story with some pertinent implications; if it is read with understanding, it can function as allegory and its relationships stand as representations of the larger trends currently shaping our world.”

Apparition Poem #508

#508

O life, O time, dark dark dark
& all that, that bit, where you
confront all that won’t submit,
it’s nobody’s favorite bit, it’s
a bloody miracle we ever get
anything else, yet you never
hear talk of it except in art, &
it’s gone out of fashion, right
from Milton’s front page into
the dark dark dark, but it’s still
dark as a mudslide, & as dense


Here are some more Apparition Poems in Blazevox 11. 

Trish: A Romance, Pt. 7

VII.

All through intervening years, Trish
never fully left my mind. Many
encounters I lived through were
pointless— one-night stands, flings,
some felt, some not felt at all.
When Trish reentered my life, she
did so directly. Simply, we wanted
each other again. Trish now lived in
an apartment building, with roommates,
on 49th off of Baltimore. The apartment
had a fire escape large enough on which
to sit, and smoke. I was in the process
of beginning to publish seriously, and would
often devise new strategies as I stared

off over the clotheslines and windows.
We were older, less demonstrative— but
we still made love almost every night.
The problem was, this was interspersed with
consumption of cannabis. I am soon to
learn (again) that mutual intoxication cuts off
intimacy. What used to be sparks between
us were now ashes. There were even times
when the “little death” was a bore. So that
for six months we’re in a holding pattern.
This time, it’s Trish’s turn to do a sudden
break. Moreover, she has an older man
waiting in the background. I see them
together in Rittenhouse Square. I’m numb;

I believe (as is the case) that Trish
is now mostly frigid. She uses her sex to
ensnare and bind. But making love to
a semi-frigid woman does eventually wear
thin. Still, my attitude is that Trish
and I could still work something out.
This time, Trish never gives me a reason.
The next summer there’s a fresh confrontation—
Trish is very wary, and I’m more
perfunctory than I seem to be. We’re
buried in each other as something to
express. This time, I eventually realize,
Trish is gone for good. But I make
a conscious decision to still love her, and Tob.

When I look back on the time
I spent with Trish, it occurs to me
that we never knew each other that
well. We were “mad for it,” the passion,
the romance, without being mad for
each other, exactly. What’s worth exploring is
what I know about her now. Like
this— that her aims were more strategic,
less organic, than mine. She wanted
to take me and mold me, and I
wouldn’t let her. But this was
buried beneath other imperatives. She
wasn’t strong enough to enforce her
strategies and I was too wild to tame.

The pressing question that follows is—
was it worth it? I’d say it was,
though it could’ve ended in two (or three)
corpses. We participated in these scenes
at a time during which there was little
surface-level romance in America. Bohemian
America had never been a particularly
well-populated locale, but we set up
camp there and in the process confounded
structures that we could’ve let crush us.
Our dreams weren’t especially original,
but our improvisations created a new
context for them. Neither of us came out
of Bohemia— it was a new realm for us.

Is it only because I can still sit
here, writing these lines, that our
escapades still seem like good ideas?
If we did end up corpses, who would
be the wiser? On this account, I
have no solid answers. I can only
say that for some reason, some humans
need the charm, the sparkle, the electricity
of romance, and will put their lives
on the line to attain it. So it was for
us. Those that are kith and kin to us
will understand. Those that aren’t may
choose to laugh at our foolishness. But
it must be dry, accursed laughter to us…

Trish: A Romance, Pt.6

VI.
Tobi begins to reveal her character. Her
painting style is not unlike Mary’s— she’s
a formalist. But Tobi has no taste for
mythology and loves quotidian objects,
dyke scenes. She paints with absolute
precision and commitment. Her personality
in life belies this— she has two frequent
faces, both of which are constantly bubbling
over onto the surface (Trish is reserved
in comparison, and a secret voluptuary).
Her moods dictate either kitchen-sink
humor or paranoid rage. Her tininess
often necessitates loudness. By this time
she has put on a good amount of

weight as well, so that her exquisite
cheekbones and startling eyes are offset
in a fulsome way. As is visible, Tobi
is jealous of Trish on a number of levels—
Trish has looks, academic distinction, and
me, while Tobi scurries among potential
lovers, never able to appease her conscience
and settle on anyone. Between that and
our amatory antics, Tobi becomes unsettled
with us. When Tobi throws little parties,
I act bullish— partly because I’m stoned,
partly because I feel a manly sense
of owning Trish and Tob. But when
I leave, Trish and Tob get in big fights.

Happier now are times when Trish
stays with me. Trish still enjoys
experimenting with chemicals, and when
she does, I oversee her. But our routines
are not that different than anyone else’s.
We makes plans to visit Montreal at the end
of the summer. By the time we get to
Montreal, I realize that letting Trish
plan the whole thing herself was a bad
idea. We’re trapped in a closet on Saint
Catherine Street. It’s hot. But I put on
a game face and we see the sights. Trish’s
tremendous breakdown has been documented
elsewhere. Suffice it to say it was a tense

time. Something began to break between
us. Trish’s freak-outs were spaced about
a week apart, and were regular. It became
more and more difficult to find energy with
which to cope. I was burned out on her
sexually as well. I dreaded having to
make love to her. I was repulsed. After a
certain point, I couldn’t take the strain of
dealing with her any longer. In late
November, I broke off with her in such
a way as to suggest that I needed to
be harsh. I did. Her fits had taken
something from me that would take some
time to repair. They imposed soul damage.

I had learned that Tobi liked to
bounce around. About a year after I
split with Trish for the first time, I
had occasion (finally) to know Tob the
way I’d always wanted to. I was
upstairs at the Khyber, doing my rounds
(I was in charge of an arts collective, the
Philly Free School, at the time), and Tob
was there with her girl posse. Me and Tob
were dancing and we started grinding. It
was intense and pleasurable and it had
been building for a long time. I took
her home and knew a few things at once—
this wouldn’t last, wouldn’t be a

marriage, and it might not even
be pretty (Tobi’s paranoia never being
far beneath the surface). We had traveled
the length of Center City and were cold, so
I drew a bath. What happened in the
bath and afterwards in bed was
half-terrible, half-great. It was done, for both
of us, just to have done it. I couldn’t
say, then or now, that I regretted it.
But Trish was still around, had taken
up with a new guy, and though I wasn’t
jealous (I had many lovers at the time)
I still loved her. I didn’t know if the
story was over or not— turns out it wasn’t.

Trish: A Romance, Pt. 5

V.
Still: fertilized, loved, I began
to write deeply again. Yet
I remembered what came
to seem like a curse: the
fear that I would not be
heard. Was I in the wrong
place at the wrong time?
So I spiraled into depression,
even as pieces tumbled out.
Midnight Blues, a dirge
in odal form, was the best,
written during witching
hour, snow coming down,
Trish dead asleep in bed.

At one point I even began
to consider suicide: I had
given so much time to my
art, why was I being
held back? How could I
live under a confining
curse? Trish is my lover
but not very good at
comforting me: she is too
lost in her own blues. Too
many colors swirl around
her head, she is lost to
images, tints, hues, shades.
Wood creaks beneath us.

By X-Mas our mood lifts.
My folks take us to dinner
in a Vietnamese restaurant,
and we order pad thai for
the first time. Trish for me
means new tastes and the
color of these noodles is
matched to her hair that
is grown out, no longer
bunned. We are near
home in West Philly
and West Philly does
begin to feel like home.
No sharp pangs linger, our bodies shared.

New Years there’s a party:
Tobi giggles over Indian
food that we have delivered,
everything is voluptuous
luxury. I jam with Matt from
Eris in the music room (Josh’s
bedroom) on Velvets tunes,
read the new pieces for Jackie
who says “groovy.” Trish is a
bright fish swimming in a
school, green waters around
us. We are two fish together
and we are ripped to the gills
and the floor is soft coral.

Trish is unhappy: parties are
starting to wear on her. By
February she moves into a
new pad in a rugged old
brown brick building, also
in West Philly, with Tobi.
The doors to Trish’s bed-
room are glass, not very
substantial, so Tobi has to
listen to us make love all
the time (a night with no
love would be unworthy
of us). I love the view from
Trish’s windows: placid

looking 42nd Street, trees,
large houses, it could pass
for suburbia. It reminded
me, also, of the England I
have always imagined, the
ideal England which gave
rise to so many early heroes
of mine, and which once
produced giants of the written
word. I would look out the
window, pretend we were
in England after Trish had
gone to sleep, and if Tobi
were out or in her room, where I wanted into, too.

Trish: A Romance, Pt.4

IV.

How we establish ourselves: every
night is spent together. I prefer to
spend as many nights as possible in
West Philly, where rugged old houses
sport ample foliage that is ripe with
the flush of late August. We make
love at least once a night, so
we can be fully animal and happily
married. Green herb follows us
around as a mode of relaxation and
to get our moods in sync. Trish is
developing my palette: I taste pesto
for the first time, vegetarian stews.

At 4325, there is a party all the time,
and it is like finding an adolescence that
I never had. Jackie was another painter
who lived on the ground floor (Trish’s
room was upstairs.) Trish and Jackie had
fooled around and Jackie painted in a far
more violent manner than Trish (lots of
smears, grays, blacks, more abstraction),
but he was a farm kid from Carolina and
a gentle soul. His girlfriend Grace was
from a well-connected Connecticut
family and knew J.D. Salinger personally.
She had a bit of an attitude, and her
lips were often curled in a sneer.

The rest of the 4325 crew were rock
and rollers and into doing Ritalin
lines. By October I am an honorary
member of the household. At that
time I was recording an album of
spoken-word stuff in South Philly.
I would zoom on a trolley up to
West Philly and that night there
was a party. The kitchen had
awful yellow wallpaper and a
blazingly bright light and I did
shots there with Jackie. I wasn’t
a big drinker but that night Trish
both went to town, and got rowdy.

Trish and I adjourn to her bedroom
and have loud, drunken sex with the
door wide open. Her diaphragm got
stuck but we just kept going. Later
we heard another couple hooking
up down the hall. The air was mild
and clean and it was warm for October
and there was no way we could go to
bed. We staggered down to the front
porch and sat on the forest-green
swing-bench that was held up
against Jackie’s window. Branches
hung between us and the street.
Leaves were falling in Clark Park.

That night was one peak of 4325.
There were many. We began to
develop our rituals beyond just
pot, food, and sex. I always
cherished the walk from Penn
(where I was finishing my
degree) to 4325. At 40th and
Spruce was the University
Pinball Arcade, which I liked
to call the Universal Pinball
Arcade, but neither of us ever
went in. We also liked to walk
late up to Fresh Grocer at
40th and Walnut. We’d buy

French bread, because on pot
there is nothing better. We were
also spending lots of time with
Tobi, who at that point was
Trish’s best friend. She was
another painter, less into
mythology and more into
precisely detailed figuration.
Tobi was tiny, with exquisite
cheekbones, bright blue eyes,
wavy chestnut hair, thick bow-
shaped lips. She was hilarious
but turbulent, and wont to cause
scenes. There were to be lots. I loved her too.