Tonight at the poetry meeting,
I should warn you about the cheese plate:
Be careful of the sharp cheddar.
It really is sharp. I sliced my finger wide open
Trying to spread it on a cracker.

Here are some rules (and one demand)
For dealing with a cut finger
At a social gathering:

Rule One: No matter how much blood
You are losing, do not try to refill your
Veins with many glasses of red wine.

Rules Two: If your pen goes dry,
No matter the temptation, do not
Write out the remainder of the poem
In blood. The Devil is always lurking,
Out of sight, when poets meet, and He
Will pounce on any and all red words
As proof that you’ve sold your soul
To Him (and ninety-nine percent
Of the time, He’s not wrong).

Rule Three: Under no circumstances
Should you risk bringing communicable
Diseases into your host’s home. In fact,
Be incommunicative to everyone in your life:
Your spouse, shrink, friends and parents,
Even your bartender. Drive them away with
Your stark silence. Trust me, it’s for the best.

Rule Four: Wear your best red top
With those jeans. Yes, I know it may
Be an egregious fashion mistake, but
At least nobody will notice that it’s
Your finger’s time of the month.

Rive Five: Stay away from bulls, lest they
See the red and try to run you down.
Give them a wide berth. Don’t even come
Close to their shit on the ground. In fact,
Avoid bullshit altogether. Be brutally honest.

And, finally, the one demand:
You all need to look at me,
Attend my words and recognize
That it wasn’t just my finger
That got cut, and it wasn’t just
My epidermis that started bleeding...

...It was my heart.

—Isaiah Pittman

The DJ played “Love Will Tear Us Apart”
To get everyone out on the dance floor.

The cake was baked with ashes.
The frosting was salted.
There was no water.

The champagne had tears in it.
The priest had, like, five beers in him.

Instead of rice, we threw dark chocolate chips
Bitter enough to blister the mouth.
Instead of doves, we released a pack of black dogs
Slavering and hungry with rage, they loped past our knees,
A dark flood of fur,
Before they collapsed, died, choking on the chocolate.

When the groom stepped on a glass,
This time, he wore no shoe.

The bride’s dress was yellow.
Who thought of that?

The bridesmaids all wore yellow, too.
The priest gave a long speech about how bridesmaids
Were originally intended to act as decoys for the bride,
Luring away the attentions of evil spirits.
We all said, “Amen.”

The children were running around in the coat closet
Playing divorce,
Playing games like, how could you?
And, what’s her name?

Jack (I think that was his name) sat on the floor,
In his little tux, when his eyes met mine.

Kid, stop fucking looking at me.
I don’t care if you’re only eighteen months old.
I’ll punch the gums right out of your mouth.

The slow dance was set to “Strange Fruit” by Nina Simone;
Someone had slipped the DJ twenty dollars to play it.

I danced with a five-year-old girl
Who kept fanning herself with one hand.
She asked me what all of this was about.
I told her it was a part of growing up,
That, sooner or later, would happen to everyone.

She started to cry a little, then.
She asked me if I’d keep her company
Until her parents came back to take her home.
I told her no.
I’m leaving, I said.
I’m going off my medication,
Into the heart of the storm.


Isaiah Pittman
July 28th, 2015

I have heard, from a very reliable source,
That in Italy, stealing fruit is a cherished pastime.
But what I want to know is this: if the grapes
Have already been pressed into the wine bottle,
Is it still an acceptable form of theft?
Because I would much rather steal
A swallow of wine from the bottom of the bottle
Than a greenhouse full of ripe raw green grapes.
But I would prefer, even more than that,
To steal a single sip of wine
From off your lips.
But is that the kind of theft that would get me slapped
In jail? Let’s say, on another note,
If I visit the hillside where your fruit trees
Are swaying in the wind, and I drink in
The sight of them,
Is that theft by looking? Am I stealing
Away beauty that does not belong to me?
And even if the answer is yes,
What else can I do with my dreams?
Put them in cupboards and forget them?
Fruit that goes unpicked is soon forgotten.
I would rather take what lovely things
I can get my hands on. Oh, the ways
by which I live to cheat the world!

Isaiah Pittman

Translation into Italian by Rosalind Resnick

Ho sentito parlare, da una persona molto affidabile,
Che in Italia rubare la frutta e’ un passatempo preferito.
Ma io vorrei sapere questo: Se le uve
Sono state premute
Nella bottiglia di vino,
Sarebbe ancora una forma legittima di furto?
Perché io preferirei rubare
Un sorso di vino dal fondo della bottiglia
Che da una serra pieno di uve verdi, crude e mature.
Ma io preferirei anche più di questo
Rubare un solo sorso di vino
Dalle tue labbra.
Ma è questo il tipo di furto che mi manderà in prigione?
Diciamo in un'altra nota
Se io visitassi la collina dove i tuoi alberi da frutta stanno ondeggiando nel vento
E io bevessi la loro vista,
Sarebbe il furto da guardare?
Vuol dire che io sto rubando la bellezza che non è la mia?
Anche se la risposta sia "si,"
Che altro potrei fare con i miei sogni?
Metterli nei cassetti e dimenticarli?
La frutta non raccolta e’ presto dimenticata.
Io vorrei prendere le cose belle
Sulle quale potrei mettere le mani.
O, tutti i modi
In cui io vivo per imbrogliare il mondo!

Violet. 

Indigo. 

Blue. 

Green. 

Yellow. 

Orange. 

Red. 

VIBGYOR. 

 

When you first awaken

yourself off that deep, black life 

Notice a white light 

That passes through you,

Making a spectrum of you. 

So make a rainbow. 

Pick up a color and start

From the start

Or start from the end,

Try to see which way they bend 

Because light is a line

That travels straight 

And straight it will go

From earth to heaven 

The band of seven colors

Through seven layers 

To the seventh most step 

Which is your destination. 

So begin 

With Violet, the other blue 

Just not really its true hue 

Indigo has a similar story to tell

A little towards left or right

Don't surmise, be precise.

It'll all be amiss otherwise. 

Then green, like the eyes of that fish

Which swims away when you're out fishing

But it is so beautiful, that you let it go

Green, Like the water which is blue

But green, like aquamarine.

Then call yellow, that silly fellow 

Who's your best friend 

The brightest one 

in the middle of all that colorful mess

Sitting next to that darker version 

Of himself 

Who is blazing brightly

Like a hot black coal piece;

Estranged, strange. 

Orange. 

Embrace him to burn you down

And burn you do 

Again with another blue 

Suffocate to another shade 

It's only real

For only the toughest are moulded 

By that fiery orange. 

Then you turn red,

With anger

With rage

To quench

The thirst for revenge. 

At this stage, it's all red.

And red it will be then,

The color that gets you through, 

Which In its correct wavelength 

Becomes the red of the blood,

Red of the heart. 

Maybe that's why 

you see it from afar,

maybe our ruddy hearts

 need to feel,

That Crimson burn

Estranged, strange, 

From Blue to orange. 

To climb 

The last stair to heaven,

Through the red

Of the heart.

 
Rudra Joshi