Two Poems by Chard deNiord


JUDITH

You were so beautiful the entire army of Holofernes
turned their heads when you walked by and thought
to themselves, "There is no woman like her from one end
of the earth to the other, so lovely of face and wise of speech. "

I dropped my rifle in the midst of war and followed you
to the desert where each morning the first thing I saw
was a murder of crows picking at the bones of my dead mules.
What was I thinking? That there was still a way to relish
the taste of a golden apple and live with you in paradise?
That your tent was a mansion with many rooms?

There was too much dream in your eyes for me to think
about tomorrow, something in your smile that called me back
to the beginning when I thought in terms of forever.
What was I thinking? That Nebuchadnezzar had surrendered?
That Antiochus had repented? That the fatwa had been lifted?

Every day with you was a sandy existence, a fugue of fucking
on a runic rug. Why Gilgamesh left Siduri at the bar.
Why Odysseus left Calypso on her shore. Too much Sahara
in the end, beautiful as you were, my infinite woman rolling
over in bed, shifting in the wind,  drawing me in.

What was I thinking? That form was enough as long
as it changed while remaining the same?
What else could lure me away from my men before the battle?
What else could cause me to think that it was possible
to live on thought alone but thought itself?

My mind was on fire with the light blue flame of a dream,
the thought that you were Queen of Heaven and I the King,
and as long as I burned I'd live forever.
The thought was housed in the flame.
The flame was stolen from heaven.

What was I thinking? That I was dead already?
That alive? That I could live as smoke for a while
then disappear, elope with you in the high desert air?



DINNER WITH CHARLIE

      I am moved like you, Mad Tom, by a line of ants,
       I behold their industry and they are giants.

                                                                        —Derek Walcott

We're at the White Hotel.
I pick up my fork
straight out of hell
and pin down my steak.
Cut it with my knife.
"Father confessor...
Tongue all alone."
Charlie does the same
with his duck.

We feed each other
to practice for heaven.
"That's enough," says Charlie.
"There's only hell."
A red ant crawls across
the table as a sign.
We watch him climb the dune
of a napkin, traverse
the desert of table cloth.

"High yellow of my heart,"
says Charlie, reciting Emile Roumer.
"I had to search for him
as a youth in New York.
This 'lowly' Haitian
who raised me up.
This solitary ant
on the table of America."

The hawk-eyed waiter notices
the ant from across the room
and descends on him
with a silent butler.
"I apologize for this intrusion.
There must be a nest somewhere
that has escaped our exterminator."

"We were rooting for him,"
says Charlie, "to make it
this once, like Lawrence of Arabia."

A beautiful woman removes
her coat and enters the room
with an ugly man,
handsome from birth.

"You want dessert?" I ask.
"I can't decide between the creme brulé
and chocolate mousse."
Charlie is silent for a moment,
staring into space
through the shadow in his glasses.
He's grieving the ant,
the beautiful woman,
and heart of the waiter.

"I'll have some more wine
is all," says Charlie.
"The Cabernet Savignon."

There is a draft in the hall
that blows through the room
and stirs the hem
of the beautiful woman.

"I'm trapped here by choice,
you know," says Charlie.
"Together we're trapped
in the country of poetry
that's almost as strange as America."

The ant returns
with a crumb on his shoulder
and bruise on his head.
We give him cover.
Charlie bounces in his chair
with a smile that's clipped
at the corners.

"We're on that ant," he says.
"He is our Atlas bearing us
into the world."

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Chard de Noird is the author of (click title) Asleep in the Fire (University of Alabama Press, 1990). He teaches English and Creative Writing at Providence College. His poems have appeared recently in the Pushcart Prize 1998, The Best American Poetry 1999, The Iowa Review, Ploughshares, Agni, The Northwest Review, The Antioch Review, The Southern Review, and  The Gettysburg Review. Chard de Noird is the Director of The Spirit and the Letter writing workshops in Patzcuaoro, Mexico.

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