![\"Peter](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/images\/selfportraitwithcrocodile_peterbeard_bordered.jpg?resize=600%2C386&ssl=1\")
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[Image: “Self-Portrait in Mouth of Crocodile” (1965) by photographer-adventurer Peter Beard (who had earlier shot the 15-foot crocodile alongside Lake Rudolph in Kenya). One source<\/a> says that while the photograph was being set up, “the insides of the freshly dead crocodile began to contract, nearly crushing [Beard’s] legs.” The photo almost certainly inspired the rather problematic “Crocodile Eating Ballerina<\/a>,” Helmut Newton’s 1983 photo (see the “Lot Notes” tab at that link).]<\/em><\/p>\n From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n The Happiest Day<\/strong><\/p>\n It was early May, I think (Linda Pastan [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n …and<\/a>:<\/p>\n You look at the world and it may seem whole or it may seem broken but the world looks back and some sort of reciprocity that is not romantic and is not of any school of poetry or any single denomination happens, and in our absolute attention we feel attended to:<\/p>\n …for here there is no place (William Olsen [source<\/em><\/a>]; last two lines by Rainer Maria Rilke [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n Caroline In Sickness<\/strong><\/p>\n Tonight the full moon is stopped by trees (Robert Lowell [source<\/em><\/a> (quoted)])<\/p>\n …and:<\/p>\n I know someone who drops houses.<\/p>\n Small houses. Condemned ones. He buys them for nothing and uses cranes and helicopters to haul, then drop them from on high, then he drops the pieces until they reduce to sharp angles and wire and corrugation, and he photographs the drops.<\/p>\n For a while I just looked at the photos — the colors, the angles, the motion. The order of descending shapes. The evolutionary lopping of edges, the cracking of form.<\/p>\n Now I don’t know what to think. But I think I’m supposed to be thinking. So here goes:<\/p>\n The subject doesn’t seem to be the ominous destruction of the family.<\/p>\n The process isn’t wasteful, since the houses are going to be demolished anyway.<\/p>\n I read that the artist doesn’t like to talk about how he does it — that he “never intended the process to be a concern for the viewer.” He just takes the pictures and presents them, massive and simply framed. He is “happier when people react to the actual image.”<\/p>\n But then, his catalog provides all these sneak peeks at the process… helicopters positioning houses for a drop; the cluttered work sites; rented trailers and folding tables loaded with lunch; plans unscrolled like blueprints; disembodied fingers pointing; the artist, central in white T-shirt and jeans, walkie-talkie clipped to his belt wearing his regulation hard hat…<\/p>\n There must be a thousand ways to make a thing seem to be a falling house, and the story behind it big.Oh.<\/p>\n I get it. Making-it-seem<\/em>.<\/p>\n No houses are falling.<\/p>\n The site isn’t real. The crew isn’t real.<\/p>\n Everything made is coming unmade.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\na moment of lilac or dogwood
\nwhen so many promises are made
\nit hardly matters if a few are broken.
\nMy mother and father still hovered
\nin the background, part of the scenery
\nlike the houses I had grown up in,
\nand if they would be torn down later
\nthat was something I knew
\nbut didn’t believe. Our children were asleep
\nor playing, the youngest as new
\nas the new smell of the lilacs,
\nand how could I have guessed
\ntheir roots were shallow
\nand would be easily transplanted.
\nI didn’t even guess that I was happy.
\nThe small irritations that are like salt
\non melon were what I dwelt on,
\nthough in truth they simply
\nmade the fruit taste sweeter.
\nSo we sat on the porch
\nin the cool morning, sipping
\nhot coffee. Behind the news of the day—
\nstrikes and small wars, a fire somewhere—
\nI could see the top of your dark head
\nand thought not of public conflagrations
\nbut of how it would feel on my bare shoulder.
\nIf someone could stop the camera then…
\nif someone could only stop the camera
\nand ask me: are you happy?
\nperhaps I would have noticed
\nhow the morning shone in the reflected
\ncolor of lilac. Yes, I might have said
\nand offered a steaming cup of coffee.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThat does not see you. You must change your life.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nor the wallpaper between our windows—
\non the threshold of pain,
\nlight doesn’t exist,
\nand yet the glow is smarting
\nenough to read a Bible
\nto keep awake and awake.
\nYou are very sick,
\nyou remember how the children,
\nyou and your cousin,
\nMiss Fireworks and Miss Icicle,
\nfirst drove alone with learners’ cards
\nin Connemara, and popped a paper bag—
\nthe rock that broke your spine.
\nThirty years later, you still suffer
\nyour spine\u2019s spasmodic, undercover life…
\nPutting off a luncheon,
\nyou say into the telephone,
\n“Next month, if I’m still walking.”
\nI move to keep moving;
\nthe cold white wine is dis-spirited…
\nShine as is your custom,
\nscattering this roughage to find sky.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n