Carolyn Miller: California Poets Part 8, Four Poems
January 8th, 2025
California Poets: Part VIII
Carolyn Miller
Four Poems
Hell
Hell is other people.
—Jean-Paul Sartre
People who ride bicycles on the sidewalk.
People who ride bicycles in the crosswalks.
People on bicycles who don’t stop for red lights.
People who let their dogs run on the sidewalk without a leash.
People on bicycles on the sidewalk with dogs that aren’t on a leash.
People who don’t clean up after their dogs.
People who let their dogs pee on trees and bushes and flowers.
People in groups who block the sidewalk, with or without their dogs.
People who talk really loud on their cell phones while walking right behind me.
People who talk on cell phones in public places.
People who let their cell phones ring in yoga class.
People on bicycles on the sidewalk talking on cell phones.
People who talk really loud in restaurants, with or without a cell phone.
People in giant SUVs.
People in giant SUVs who talk on cell phones while turning the corner when I’m
in the crosswalk.
People who do rolling stops in their giant SUVs when I’m in the crosswalk.
People who drive their giant SUVs really fast and then brake suddenly at the last
minute when I’m in the crosswalk.
People who stand in the doorways when riding the bus.
People who do not take their giant backpacks off when riding the bus.
People who play rap music anywhere I can hear it, especially in the apartment
next door.
People who don’t sweep the sidewalk in front of their house.
People who put garbage in the recycling bin.
People who don’t like French people. Or anyone who is different from them.
People who are bitter that their life didn’t turn out the way they thought it
would.
People who are still mad at their parents.
People who complain all the time.
Untitled, 2001 (No. 2)
after a painting by Cy Twombly
Wasn’t it like that then, color falling
from the sky, blobs and globs of joy
streaming in the air, tears and laughter
coming into being and exulting in
the summer light, summer by the sea,
a table laden with roses and ripe figs, everything
rising to some peak of happiness, the world
singing with it, being born over and over in
the full flush of existence—and won’t it be
like that again, one more time,
pink and crimson and rose and gold,
falling and blossoming in
the shimmering light?
Missouri, Summer, 1948
when you could look up at night and see
the Milky Way floating above you, a vast,
mysterious cloud of stars, part of your life,
like the leg pains that made your mother
have to get up in the middle of the night
and wrap your legs with hot, wet towels
while your father fumed in their room below.
Part of your life, like your dog, Sparky,
who ran free without collar or license
or leash or fence, sucking eggs down
in the holler and bringing home huge bones
from slaughtered hogs. And the Big Dipper,
enormous, spread out across the darkness,
pointing to the North Star in the handle of
the Little Dipper, and Venus, the trembling
Evening Star you wished on every night
as darkness deepened. And the elusive,
theatrical moon, changing shape each night,
swelling and growing, shrinking and
disappearing and reappearing in different places
at different times in the sky, the sky that was
so much closer then, when the swarms of stars
and the wandering planets and friendly
constellations were bigger and shone brighter.
Where are they now, I wonder, where have they gone,
the stars, the spotted dog, the years?
Grocery-Store Tulips
Even wrinkled, these
red-green-purple tulips are
beautiful. Even as they die,
sprawling in the green glass vase,
their petals, streaked
with all the colors
of the Northern Lights,
keep on thinning like old silk,
and the dark stars
of their interiors
grow visible through
the layers of
their bell-like cups.
Now, their petals close
against the California light
to hide their fleshy
three-lobed stamens and
their fierce black stigmas
and their faint, almost
exhausted, bitter scent.
Even now they reach
a fatal glory
on this table
in my kitchen where
all the wars
are far away, even as
the earth’s crust
keeps on shifting in
April’s changing light.
Author Bio:
Carolyn Miller is a poet, painter, and freelance book editor living in San Francisco. Her most recent book of poetry is Route 66 and Its Sorrows (Terrapin Books, 2017). Two earlier books, Light, Moving (2009) and After Cocteau (2002), were published by Sixteen Rivers Press. Her work has appeared in The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, ONE ART, SALT, and Smartish Pace, among other journals, and her awards include the James Boatwright III Prize for Poetry from Shenandoah and the Rainmaker Award from Zone 3.
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