Ashbery Off-Riff, image by Irene Koronas
From The
Ashbery Riff-Offs
—where each poem begins with 1 or
1-2 lines from “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” by John Ashbery
Witnessed in the Convex Mirror:
Betrayal with Brand Names
But there
is in that gaze a combination
of tenderness,
amusement and regret
She does
not know his first thought when
he finds
her in his bed with another
lover’s
hands roaming the terrain she
had
promised to be his monopoly—
a country
that elongates itself like
Argentina
or Chile from Bolivia as it
falls from
lips puffed by Sisley Hydrating
Lipstick
shaped into a beveled spiral bullet
to better
apply its vitamins C and E as
anti-oxidants,
plus Calendula for softening
Happily,
his hands had tilled that land with
Kanebo’s
Sensai Premier Body Cream
crafted
from Chinese Mulberry shrub
Japanese
seaweed and Moon Flower
Fragrance.
He shows no anger, simply
turns and
leaves the room while she and
the other
betrayer scramble for clothes
Dressed,
she dashes from the bedroom
and,
opting for offense as the best defense
charges at
him, “What about ____ or ____?”
The
specific names of his lovers do not
matter—what
matters is the mutuality
of
betrayal. Thus, he shrugs as his thoughts
turn to
the Cire Trudon Odeur de Lune
Candle in
his briefcase. He had looked
forward to
sharing it with her that evening
to test
the veracity of Maison Trudon’s claim
that it
offers “a composition imagining
the scent
of [a] satellite orbiting around
the
earth.” Apparently, such a scent involves
sulfur,
black coal and a metal infusion
When he
finally speaks, she is mystified
Distantly,
he observes, “It’s rare for a
product to
embody its glossy marketing”
Witnessed in the Convex Mirror: A
Spy Story
Of the
mirror being convex, the distance increases
significantly
until, unexpectedly, you are intimate
with a
sailor—might as well kiss!—when minutes
earlier
your gaze toward his direction snagged on
the barely
there tip of a ship’s prow interrupting the
horizon.
If convexity brings you someone to kiss
what’s not
to like? But the sailor backed away with
a grimace
before your lips could find land, remind
-ing you
yet again that the speed of sight does
not always
match the impulse to give everyone
the
benefit of a doubt. As you efficiently (albeit
sadly)
slip the wand-thin stun gun from your garter
belt
designed by SiuSiu in Macau, you console
yourself
with the thought: a true sailor would not
turn down
a kiss. SiuSiu’s garter belts are lined
to prevent
X-ray machines from revealing its
tools, of
which some are crafted from plastic
polymers
strong as steel but undetectable by
even the
most hypersensitive metal detector
Positioned
next to the stun gun are a screwdriver
lock pick
and a combination hacksaw/pry bar
The clips
at the dangly straps of your garter
belt
conceal a button-size flashlight, a locator
beacon and
200 feet of dental-floss-thin, 250-
pound
rated cord that could be used to rappel
down as
much as 19 stories, a length determined
by space
considerations coupled with the theory
that if
exit needed to encompass more than 19
stories
then you could break through a high-rise
window or
find some other alternate means of
descent by
the time you reach, if you will, the end
of your
rope. No need to reveal what happened
after the
stun gun kissed the hairy nape of the
false
sailor. The moral of this story? If you wear
for
disguise a dark tan and a white sailor hat
with a
blue anchor embroidered nattily on
its
upturned brim, never reject a kiss from
a spy
wearing nothing but fishnet stockings
and scraps
of black lingerie, like the strapless
bra
offering up breasts more than the eyeful they
actually
are, and where freckles emphasize
the skin‘s
creaminess, proverbially “like buttah!”
—After The Ultimatum by Karen Robards (Mira
Books, Ontario, 2017)
Witnessed in the Convex Mirror: For
Charlie Gard
A
housewife doing chores. Impossible now
to restore
those properties in the silver blur
of
disavowing corporations as humans, a lie
from a
condition precedent of normalizing
marriage
to a house. This poem does not
mean to
insult the same culture that begot
lives of
men as one of “quiet desperation”—
this poem
simply grieves over Charlie
Gard,
indisputably human though he could
not hear,
see, swallow … surrounded by
stuffed
bears and monkeys and clad in
a blue
onesie festooned like the sky with
stars, the
11-month-old was human though
he could
not cry. Such speechlessness
meant his
doctors could not prove Charlie
was
suffering, even as his parents could
not give
up hope: Charlie suffered from
mitochondrial
DNA depletion syndrome
But
something is missing in all of us
an absence
that clarifies our humanity as
we
despair, as we are unable not to hope
and as we
refuse to cease searching
for
redemption, accustomed as we have
become, to
night collapsing before day
Witnessed in the Convex Mirror: The
Lost Context
As
Parmigianino did it, the right hand
bigger
than the head, thrust at the viewer—
reveals
the complication of grabbing
someone’s
attention in the way one wants
to achieve
attention. We all want to remain
the child
who would draw a green dragon
or blue
banana or yellow stallion and
not only
receive but know to anticipate
with
confidence the consistent response
“Wow! You
are so talented!” Yet another
adulthood
complication: the diminution of
mothering
until you, who thought yourself
still a
child, suddenly becomes the Mama
with the
beaming smile and ready reaction
“Wow! You
are so etcetera … “ Diminution—
such a
diminishing experience. Thrust at
viewers in
the beginning now lost in the back
-ground
that is the fate of history, the hand
swerves at
the foreground of the Now from
which
consequences proceed. Maturity
counsels
distrust in any call for recognition—
you either
do or you don’t and discourse
becomes
excuse, or worse, apology (who
wants
pity?). Parmigianino: so much must
lurk in
your heart as you fight off the growing
darkness:
the fur loses its pleasing sheen as
it becomes
one more element bypassed by
a gaze
exhausted with questioning itself
Witnessed in the Convex Mirror: Art
Foretells Even a Typhoon
It happened
while you were inside, asleep
The
penguins now grieve over the escalation
of silt in
their bath. A mother begs a child
“Let go. I
won’t survive, but you can!” But
the child
will not survive this last image
of a
mother forcing a smile to lessen
the impact
of her sacrifice; the smile worsened
the
ordeal, of course. In his future, the child
shall weep
at the sight of Parmigianino’s
Madonna—her stretched neck will evoke his
mother
elongating her neck to try to breathe
above
waves. Typhoon Haiyan broke families
as the
largest storm ever recorded on land
That the
child will sight the painting as
a
reproduction will not diminish the impact
of a work
designed by its artist to break
inherited
conventions of “beauty.” Harmony
the
moderns chided, is not the only possible
solution.
The child will understand a body
depicted
to emphasize what is significant
No wonder
piano sonatas stuff themselves
with
conspiracies, before designing
versions
intended to waft through churches
—Eileen R. Tabios
Eileen R. Tabios loves books and has
released about 50 collections of poetry, fiction, essays, and experimental
biographies from publishers in nine countries and cyberspace. Forthcoming
poetry collections include MANHATTAN: An
Archaeology (2017); Love in a Time of
Belligerence (2017); and HIRAETH:
Tercets From the Last Archipelago (2018). Inventor of the poetry form
“hay(na)ku,” she has been translated into eight languages. She also
has edited, co-edited or conceptualized 12 anthologies of poetry, fiction and
essays as well as served as editor or guest editor for various literary
journals. More information is available at
