Category: letters

The first man ever frozen

While I was preparing 
for my Science Fair project, 
busily freezing turtles, 
insects, and plants, 
you were busy dying. 

Mr. Vest and your physician began CPR, 
packed you in ice on the hospital bed.

It is something of an understatement 
to describe Nelson as a pathological liar 
and an outright fraud. You would 
certainly have perished at Chatsworth 
with the nine patients whom Nelson 
allowed to thaw out and decompose.

You, of course, do not know me at all. 

Sometime in the June of 1973 
I walked into the cavernous 
industrial bay of Galiso, Inc.
The unit containing you sat out 
on the shop floor amid the clutter 
of uncompleted dewars and test equipment, 
covered with a heavy layer 
of ubiquitous Southern California dust. 

This was our first meeting.

So much happened between 1982 and now.
On the other side of the flimsy “wood” paneled wall
(there were open studs on the side where you rested), 
we were washing out the blood of dogs 
and cooling them down to a few degrees.

I cannot describe the feeling of elation 
when I peeled back the sleeping bag and saw 
that you appeared intact and well cared for. 

Ruby was cremated a few days after 
her death. It appears that where immediate 
family is concerned, you will be making 
the journey into tomorrow alone.

Dr. Bedford, I hope we really meet someday. 
I am not sure we will have much in common, 
But we will have the joy, the sheer, 
unbounded joy of being alive in a universe 
where we can move freely, unchained 
from the bonds of gravity, earth, and time.

(From Dear Dr. Bedford, July 1991)

Presently a misty moon

Lo! and behold and hear! 
Hearken to his song! 
Out come the nightingales, 
right about the guns.

Presently a misty moon came up, 
a nightingale began to sing… 
It was strange to stand there and listen, 
for the song seemed to come 

all the more sweetly and clearly 
in the quiet intervals between 
the firing. There was something
infinitely sweet and sad about it, 

as if the countryside 
were singing gently to itself, 
in the midst of all our noise 
and confusion and muddy work; 

so that you felt the nightingale’s song 
was the only real thing 
which would remain when all the rest 
was long past and forgotten.

Gradually the night wore on, 
until day began to break, 
and I could see clearly the daisies 
in the long grass about my feet.

(From a letter from the Western Front, 1915.)

In flight

Owls move in a buoyant manner, as if 
lighter than air, herons seem incumbered 
with too much sail for their light bodies. 

The green-finch exhibits such languishing 
and faltering gestures as to appear 
like a wounded and dying bird.

Fernowls, or goat-suckers, glance in the dusk
over the tops of trees like a meteor; 
starlings as it were swim along. White-throats 

use odd jerks and gesticulations 
over the tops of hedges and bushes,
woodpeckers fly volatu undosu, 

opening and closing their wings at 
every stroke, and so are always rising 
or falling in curves.

(English naturalist Gilbert White, 1778)

Horseback to Palm Canyon

Dear mother dad sweetheart gang wife
hubby girls boys old kid

How are you? I am fine 
happy lonesome sad broke flying 
high enjoying the desert

Wish I had you a letter more ambition
someone to love me more sleep

Things are wonderful lovely exciting

I have seen the mountains the desert
lots of pretty girls 
lots of handsome men 
the desert sunset desert wildflowers 
the canyons

Doing lots of sightseeing loafing
sleeping hiking sun-bathing 
swimming golfing celebrating
playing tennis bicycle riding

I rode horseback to Palm Canyon
on the Skyline trail in the moonlight
on the desert on the Araby trail
to Andreas Canyon to Seven Palms

I’m staying at the
I danced at
I dined at

Will be seeing you away a little longer
thinking of you writing you again
hitting the hay stepping out

Yours ‘till the cows come home 
with love forever sincerely

Name

(The Lazy Person’s Correspondence Card from Palm Springs)

I feel a great love for grass

I feel a great love for grass, thorns in the palm
of the hand, ears red against the sun,
and the little feathers of bottles.
Not only does all this delight me,
but also the grapevines and the donkeys
that crowd the sky.

                                        In the sky
are donkeys with parrot heads, grass and sand 
from the beach, all about to explode, all clean,
incredibly objective, and the scene 
is awash in an indescribable blue, 
the green, the red and yellow of a parrot, 
an edible white, the metallic white 
of a stray breast. How beautiful!

                                                            Helle,
dear sir! Yessirree, you must be rich. 
If I were you I would be your whore 
to cajole you and steal peseta notes 
to dip in donkey piss…

                                             Just think
with a little money, with five hundred
pesetas, we could bring out an issue
of the ANTI-ARTISTIC magazine
and shit on everyone and everything
from the Orfeo Catalan to Juan Ramon.

(From Salvador Dali’s letter to Federico Garcia Lorca, December 1927)

A holiday from time

It makes me remember
all the times we’ve been together
absolutely alone in some suspended hour
a holiday from Time
prowling about in those quiet places
alienated from past and future
where there is no sound save listening
and vision is an anesthetic…

When I see how handsome you are
my stomach will fall
with many unpleasant emotions
like a cake with too many raisins
and I will want to shut you up in a closet
like a dress too beautiful to wear.

(Zelda Fitzgerald writes to her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1931. Submitted by Grace Andreacchi)

I’m a Nurse with a Vice

off duty without a friend, a hobby to console me,
or the price of a cinema ticket, what can I do?

I enter a little shop down the road, furtively,
and ask the woman for my favourite brand.

I sneak back to my room and lock the door
against everyone. Then out comes the teaspoon

I filched from the dining room. I indulge in an orgy
of onions, gherkins, piccalilli, mustard and spice.

Yes, I finish the whole jar. Then I wash my hands,
clean my teeth, and can face the world. Maybe

it’s because pickles aren’t provided in our meals.
Or maybe my nature requires still more acid.

Mother says the vinegar will dry up my blood
and I’ll be preserved. But, oh, what a glorious end.

(From a letter to an old edition of Woman magazine. Submitted by Angela Readman)

Woman to woman

I know I am not the only woman in the world
with a sort of hurt feeling about fruit shops.

The windows are always so full of delicious
looking fruit. The rosiest of apples, succulent

black grapes, oranges and grapefruit that make
my mouth water. The greenest of watercress,

and sprightly mustard cress just ask for a plate
of thin bread and butter and a cup of strong tea.

Brussel sprouts are so neat and compact.
And every potato is round, neat and eyeless,

– just right to bake with half a dozen of its brothers.
Why is it then, when I get home with my basket

I find little shapeless many eyed potatoes, sprouts
dirty and loose-leaved, cress yellow and limp?

I know every fruit and vegetable can’t be perfect.
But I think some of the window fruit should get

into the shopping basket more often – in fact I know.

(From a letter to Woman magazine in the late 1940s. Submitted by Angela Readman)

Not given to imagination

Mummy, I’m not afraid to die.
Why do you talk of dying
and you so young
do you want a lollipop?

No, but I shall be with Peter and June.

Mummy, let me tell you about my dream last night.
Darling, I’ve no time now. Tell me again later.

No, Mummy, you must listen.
I dreamt I went to school
and there was no school there.
Something black had come down all over it.
You mustn’t have chips for supper for a bit.

The next day off to school went her daughter
as happy as ever.
In the communal grave she was buried
with Peter on one side
and June on the other.

(From an account of 10-year-old Eryl Mai’s premonition of the 1966 Aberfan avalanche disaster)