The Voices Project
Follow us
  • POETRY LIBRARY
  • ABOUT
  • SUBMIT
  • RESOURCES

​After Providence (1977)~ By David Lohrey

4/19/2017

3 Comments

 
Damn, damn, damn, damn.
Ah, Molly, where are you? Surely the facts are not in dispute.

Out there in the icy universe, there is nothing.
Oh, Molly! Molly? Get out of my mind.

Just slip a suppository into position. Now let science soothe the troubled rectum.
Live by the guts, die by the guts.

Will I be able to get rid of you with a little style, a little panache?
The search for style often results in a want of feeling.

Suddenly, you are not just aging. You are irrevocably dying.
Hi, diddle-diddy. Ta-tum ta-tum ta-tum.

We live in a state of unacknowledged but mutual exhaustion behind which we scream, 
silently. Shouldn’t everyone live as if they were about to die, not next week, 
nor next month, but now?

You’re not a husband or son, you’re a goddamn jailer. Eyes like marbles.
I’d say style is feeling.

I want, I want, I want. I would like…I, I, I, first-person singular.
There we go: the tremors, the warnings. 

Once death seemed like a gentlest earthquake of the system, but now gathering force 
over the years.
I just thought lying alone in bed that a middle-aged man’s fantasies are not humiliating, 
and I will not reject them. 

I haven’t been bored with you; self-eliminating, yes.
I’m not a person. I’m a fucking construction. Yours.

After dreams, nothing in waking life can have such intensity.
One thinks: ho hum.

Mugged? Yes, mugged. This city’s definitely falling to pieces.
Nothing can compare with the memories of childhood.

There is a terrific fire across the city. The sky is red for miles.
What do you make of it? What do you make of love?

In the end, I shall call for morphine. I am not heroic, oh, no.
Finally, one loses control of everything.

There, there. That’s better. You look very cool this morning. Very lovely.
What do you think of Bangkok? Palm trees, beaches, that kind of thing?

Damn, damn, damn, damn. Don’t deceive yourself. Death creeps on.
A little more venom, children, a little more violence.

I just thought we could blow each other’s brains out, if we had a gun.
I thought we’d make love, if we had the desire.

Something must have gone wrong at some early stage. It could be childhood.
Then what is this huge, huge sense of spiritual emptiness?

Death, no problem. Stop. My son, an emotional cripple. Stop. By all means 
descend on him. Stop.
He is tragically incomplete. He admits no rage.

Yes, when was that first Russian thing – Sput-something – nik: Sputnik?
I once knew a Victorian.

Some would say you are your own worst enemy. 
I’d say you are your only best friend.

One last thing, after this strange and marvelous thing we’ve had. Just leave. 
Now, please. With neither kiss nor touch. With my blessing.


Author Bio:
David Lohrey grew up in Memphis. He graduated from U.C., Berkeley. His plays have appeared in the UK, Switzerland, India and, most recently, in Croatia. In a Newark Minute and Sperm Counts were translated and produced in Estonia (2016). His poetry can be found in Softblow, The Blue Mountain Review, Otoliths, Cecile’s (The Hague) and Quarterday, His poem “Muddy Water” has been selected by the Limerick Arts Office to appear in the Stony Thursday Book for 2016. In addition, recent poems have been accepted as part of anthologies published by the University of Alabama (Dewpoint), Illinois State University (Obsidian) and Michigan State University (The Offbeat). David is a member of the Sudden Denouement Literary Collective in Houston, Texas. Recent fiction can be read in Crack the Spine and at inshadesmag.com. His book The Other Is Oneself, a study of 20th century literature, was published this year in Germany. He is currently writing a memoir of his years living in Saudi Arabia. He teaches in Tokyo.
3 Comments
Jasper Kerkau link
7/15/2017 07:24:18 pm

David Lohrey is a man who's time has come. His work is finding the audience it deserves. I am honored to call him a friend.

Reply
Dustin D Pickering link
7/17/2017 10:40:10 am

This poem is one of unsettled doubt. The voice doesn't know the origin of the doubt, but it's restlessness makes it a serious presence. With want satisfied, the voice asks his companion, either Molly who we know nothing about or the reader, to leave him to his confusion. A moment of bittersweet introversion. The fact we know nothing of Molly makes her more a fantasy we see only in relation to the narrator. The voice blesses her. Or is he sharing his thoughts with the reader and ending on that to express that the experience just narrated is all he offers?

Reply
Dustin D Pickering
7/17/2017 10:44:01 am

And the title invokes mystery of a fine flavor. Perhaps the death of God?

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Poet Search

    by last name

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    June 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012

    RSS Feed

Contact The Voices Project: [email protected]