Tag: Gunn

The J Car

Last year I used to ride the J Church Line,
Climbing between small yards recessed with vine
— Their ordered privacy, their plots of flowers
Like blameless lives we might imagine ours.
Most trees were cut back, but some brushed the car
Before it swung round to the street once more
On which I rolled out almost to the end,
To 29th Street, calling for my friend.
       He’d be there at the door, smiling but gaunt,
To set out for the German restaurant.
There, since his sight was tattered now, I would
First read the menu out. He liked the food
In which a sourness and dark richness meet
For conflict without taste of a defeat,
As in the Sauerbraten. What he ate
I hoped would help him to put on some weight,
But though the crusted pancakes might attract
They did so more as concept than in fact,
And I’d eat his dessert before we both
Rose from the neat arrangement of the cloth,
Where the connection between life and food
Had briefly seemed so obvious if so crude.
Our conversation circumspectly cheerful,
We had sat here like children good but fearful
Who think if they behave everything might
Still against likelihood come out all right.
       But it would not, and we could not stay here:
Finishing up the Optimator beer
I walked him home through the suburban cool
By dimming shape of church and Catholic school,
Only a few white teenagers about.
After the four blocks he would be tired out.
I’d leave him to the feverish sleep ahead,
Myself to ride through darkened yards instead
Back to my health. Of course I simplify.
Of course. It tears me still that he should die
As only an apprentice to his trade,
The ultimate engagements not yet made.
His gifts had been withdrawing one by one
Even before their usefulness was done:
This optic nerve would never be relit;
The other flickered, soon to be with it.
Unready, disappointed, unachieved,
He knew he would not write the much-conceived
Much-hoped-for work now, nor yet help create
A love he might in full reciprocate.

Hello Friends,

I had the immense privilege of studying with a number of master poets as an undergrad, among them Thom Gunn — who was usually at the center of the room, leaning back with his legs crossed, black jeans and black boots propped up on a desk, his sleeve rolled up to reveal the panther tattoo roaring down his forearm, scattered with white hairs. I picture him, and this poem, almost every time I ride the J Church Line through the section of backyards from 19th through 30th Streets.

“The J Car” comes from Gunn’s 1992 collection The Man with Night Sweats — night sweats being a common symptom for men living with HIV, and especially severe in the later stages of AIDS. Gunn is British but lived in the Haight-Ashbery district of San Francisco for decades. He often writes in rhyme, and in “The J Car,” I find it particularly telling that he chose heroic couplets with almost all full or perfect rhymes — as if each line, each rhyme, fully reciprocates its partner.

To learn more about men living with HIV and AIDS in San Francisco, visit http://www.stopaids.org. And to help my dear friend Hunter stop AIDS this Thursday, April 30, 2009, participate in Dining Out for Life: At some San Francisco locations, 25% or more of Thursday’s lunch and dinner proceeds will go to The Stop AIDS Project, and there are some damn tasty restaurants participating. So check it out, grab some friends, and have a nice night out for a good cause.

Cheers,
Ellen

Poet Thom Gunn was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 5, 2008.