Category: #Poetry

Diary of a Dancer Sometimes Poet

    10:30 PM – Plush Palace – Mon night 10 April 78
            Two more sets. I’ll live. Finished study of Mary McCarthy 

by Doris Grumbach. Much prefer that to actually having to read McCarthy
who reminds me of Aldous Huxley – Is it possible to be too contemporary?
Trends of modern writing a little too sketchy for me. No book should feel
like flipping through a magazine. Sensory overload sans enlightenment.
As for Angus Wilson – we are parting forever. I read all but two stories in
Such Darling Dodos  – back on the shelf he goes.

Wonderful day – up before 7, read New York Times,
sent out poems – magnificent walk with dogs – explored abandoned house.
Haunted by novel – so went back and got six pages – one good new idea.
Called publisher – ordered ten more books.   Little self-promotion. While
working got call from the Plush Palace – would I come in two sets early
for Glory, who is sick? Love to.  Just feeling bankrupted by the
drycleaners. I was justified too because first set got a big tip. ($300)!
Peter called – said he would have loved to go to the Raitt concert with
me but had to go to Vermont. He certainly talks differently when his girlfriend/housekeeper/telephone answerer person is not around.
He hinted that his love life is impossibly complex and
he doesn’t want his parents to know. I’m guessing that she is married.

He
promised to get in touch when he gets back. I’m in the ladies room
because the air-conditioning in dressing room not working – it is suffocating
in there. Yesterday evening thoroughly enjoyable – steaks wine and hot fudge sundaes at A’s then watched Richard Brooks Happy Ending which really
was a bomb. Trying to read Anthony Powell’s Venusberg but feeling
nothing yet. Tried Sarton’s Miss Pickthorn – a hash of all her other stuff –
very slight. Avril not home for past four hours – out on date with Jordan.
Can’t wait to hear how it went.

            11:45 PM – Thurs 13 Apr 78
            Safe & warm in my gilt-canopied bed, happy in spite 

of my cold. A & I got “El Diablo” inspected today – $70 – But at least she
can take it to the MVA tomorrow and have it put in her name. That great
feeling of “starting out fresh”. In spite of dribbles & wheezes, blissful dog
walk followed by deep-dish pizza & wine at Armand’s. No painful memories.
Cherry blossoms are out.

Saw Coming Home with Jon Voigt & Jane Fonda. Good, if somewhat
earnest. Bruce Dern acted like he was in a different movie. Rough part
deserves a hero’s commendation. I stare at the casually interdependent
couples – it’s been a year since I could lay a hand on another’s thigh with
that proprietary air. Poor A dissolved in tears towards the end – too
reminiscent of the “endless pain” of vets like Bruce and Mason.
I’d be more sympathetic if they didn’t take it out on
others. What they learned apparently is how to “stage a war”. The people
we love inflict the worst damage. A’s at the stage where she’s still
haunted by Mason but feels it’s “boring” to talk about him so she
bottles it up. I tell her get a diary. Hope to finish Powell’s
Agents & Patients tonight – but it is a little dull.

            Plush Palace –Fri 14 Apr 78 – 3:50 PM
            Only 3 more sets, with 4 dancers.  Still, made 

enough tips for groceries. Buy wild birdseed for the birds cavorting
outside my desk’s bay window. Daringly went on without stockings –
such a savings if we didn’t have to buy them but Eddie told me No Cigar.
Too bad – they’re hot in summer. Alvera says Yvonne’s back at Mother
Joe’s. I thought she wouldn’t be able to eat enough shit to stay in her
music clerk job. We goddesses areso spoiled by our pedestal. Called A
in the afternoon to see how she was doing – Shoulders was there flexing
his muscles at her and she is over the moon. Trying to be glad for her
but in spite of his obvious beauty I’m afraid he is a bit of a shit. (See testimony
past burnees plus eviction notices.)

I feel I must disappear deeper into solitude and see
what’s down there. Gift (new version of Courtney) coming along
interestingly but slowly. I’m afraid it has no plot other than my own life,
when what it needs is a couple of murders. (Same thing my life has always
required.) Poems easier instead:

MAN – FISH

My husband caught a walleye; I caught
A day-old baby
Trolling my Dalkon shield
On idle spinnerets I hooked him
He bore the wounds of other fishermen.
Through holes in his side I saw
His heart still beating
Shielded by a membrane tough
As duck’s egg.
I said I think I can save him
My husband said too small
And threw him back.

Tried to read Phyllis Bottome but she’s a fatal cross between a
didact and a pleaser; sort of like a barky little dog. Most unpleasant.
And that casual anti-Semitism pretty shocking.

            Plush Palace – Sat 5:50 PM 15 Apr 78
            Halfway through novel –  can’t figure out if I’m 

satisfied or not. All my discoveries so agonizingly slow. Can’t afford
fuckups – then I’ll have to go through it all AGAIN. Slept late, breakfast
at A’s. We did laundry together, then played gin.
I was the first one here thank God (means I’m the
first to leave). Got my schedule – 4 nights in a row, 2 days off. Good.
Congratulate myself on my intellectual freedom as I wrap black lace around
my throat, recalling all the put-downs suffered as the “architect’s helpmeet”.

Reread Alvarez’ description of Plath’s suicide – I don’t agree her death was
some “by-product.” Her mother raised her to be murdered by other people –
Nazis or husbands. There had to be a “bloodletting” – Mrs. Plath’s ulcer –
Sylvia’s “suicides”. If you don’t “accept” martyrdom someone will have to die
in your place. Kid yourself it’s” freedom” just because you choose time & place.
It bothers me terribly that they shared a bedroom during
Sylvia’s formative years. Death would seem inevitable just to get some privacy & distance. Poor Sylvia offered those magnificent poems to Alvarez and he
backed away terrified because Art is terrifying. $30 for lost contact that came
out when a necklace scraped my eyeball while I was hanging upside down.
Teach me to wear contacts onstage. Who needs to see the audience anyway?

            7:15 PM Sun 16 Apr 78
            Spent the day in bed eating oranges, coffee, peanut 

butter. A’s spending the night at Shoulders’ new place – then tomorrow we’re
going to the new Cassavetes film and I’m excited. Jervaze in for last set to
invite me to his going away party. I slept nine hours.
Horrifying Who Made the Lamb – author really lost
control of this one but I bet she would say she was just “reporting”. Books
do Furnish a Room much better than Powell’s previous – has a sense of
direction. “Trapnel himself always insisted that a novel is what its writer is”.
I would agree. Style follows taste, I think. Realize Dad and I don’t mean
the same thing by the word “intellectual”. He means a person who knows
specific things, (education) I mean a person who thinks a certain way (style).
Twain never meet. I am not respectful of an artificially acquired patina of
“points of view”. Wrote the infirmary scene – just what I wanted to say.
Maybe I need to give up sex and even male companionship
– just can’t afford them.

            Plush Palace – 6:45 PM Fri 21 Apr 78
            Wonderful walk along Powder Mill Road thinking 

about the mystique of money. I eternally fight a rearguard action. M & D
call at noon – Genevieve had little girl – Belinda. Avril delivers my new lens
– bounce notice in mail – I tear my hair in a frenzy. I get to dance 2 sets for
GiGi – $200 – she tells me about her night of sin with Louie. And she wants
another one. Life’s a soap opera. Management says there’s going to be
a drug raid with dressing room search warrant. Panic among the girls – but
not me. Check out the customers with a more intense interest. Are narcs here? Everyone planning to leave town except me. I offer to work tomorrow night.
Reading an interesting study of Iris Murdoch novels –
the Disciplined Heart. Too much coffee – I’m switching to tomato juice.

            Sat night – 22 Apr 78 8:30 PM
            My whole body hurts from dancing 5 nights in a row. 

It’s not good for tips, either. Poor May Sarton is trying to exorcise Eliz Bowen.
Good luck with that! Elizabeth so contemptuous of “schoolgirl crushes”!
Real love in EB’s world seems strangely synonymous with corruption &
loss. Old fashioned view and more male really – “ejaculate” and die. We
women get children, poems & novels out of it. Avril stood up for dinner by
Shoulders. Uh oh. Beginning of the end. Apparently saying “yes” is fatally
unsexy. She & I will be eating her pot roast tomorrow – fine with me.
Fatima came down early but Lori refused to go up,
pointing to her watch! Much excitement & hissing.

            7:45 PM – Mon. 24 Apr 78
            Good Gift scene – Miss Pruitt vs. Viv. Now I need a 

boathouse picnic. Every time you get to the mountaintop there’s just more
mountain. Then you’re supposed to “prune” at the end – if you have any
energy left. Trying to read A Literature of Their Own but Showalter too
hard on poor old Woolf. Women have always owned literature, it’s the
publishers, editors and critics we apparently can’t have. 60,000 words on
Gift tells me it’s time to celebrate. No novel could EVER be this hard again.
I demand a party.

Strange letter from Devon – he is involved with some
“Jewish woman” and it isn’t going well. She seems “inaccessibly foreign”
and he is “losing faith” in his “ability to pick a friend.” Is this a plea for help?
He specifically asked where I would be this summer. Said he loved me.
Took his glamour pic out of the bin where it has lain and put it up, then went
out with A and bought a bikini. She and Shoulders are so mired in excuses,
lies and expectations no new relationship seems possible. Intensive
sunbathing season starts tomorrow.

            1PM Thu May 4 -78
            Comparing lovers.  “It’s Devon in the stretch with

Jervaze fatally winded and Bruce fallen by the wayside”. Write poem:

The sideways smile

I heard you singing and remembered
things that you’ve forgotten
I see you clearly
Fish in a hailstone.
See your hands
Long for a man I always thought
And your upper lip too short
Like a lion’s in fact
You have an animal presence
Placing no trust in words
Placing no trust in love
Acting like you’d never met me
As you roll your joints with
private letters that I sent
islands undiscovered and
worlds unreachable.
You were the joke
I didn’t get; I recall
your sideways smile
blowing smoke between us
refusing to forgive the essential fragility that
Marks us humans;
Fated as you were
always to surrender
to the scornful cries of your
Invisible bystanders.

            Finished Gift last week.   Letting it “perk”.  It already feels “swallowed up” by the past.  Avril read it, disappointed by the ending.  Wants murder at the very least.  But is that real life?  I think I agree with her that it should be.  People should kill themselves when you are done with them. Sadly, in reality  they’re all whimper and no bang.  How to fix?
            When I’m not engaged on some important work my “real life” ceases.  Car to its “first service” Mon – involved ferrying each other around and jockeying with one car. Why don’t M & D appreciate this?  It’s like they want us to be ashamed of needing other people to survive. Mom staying in NYC with the new baby but then coming here Sat. to inspect our dissolute lives.  Uh oh.  I won’t have any trouble getting time off but I hate to.  Can’t work when she is here.  Living two weeks off one paycheck can be done. But I will feel obligated to battle Mom for financial freedom.  
            Finished Glendinning’s Bowen.  A life rich and strange but hardly enviable. I’m being pestered by old “college friend” but I am officially “not home”.  She sneaks around the house, sniffing. 

Diary of a Dancer

Mon midnight 6 Feb 78
        Fri night J was in the bar getting slowly snockered. Very

proud to take me home. We had our most passionate sex session yet
– 5 hours! Of course he couldn’t come. We finally quit because I was
exhausted. He told me the sexiest thing I do is play with my breasts
when we make love! I only do it because he doesn’t!  The big lug.
He asked me what I would do if I accidentally got pregnant.
(He knows about IUD.) I said have the baby. Of course I didn’t
tell him that I might not inform him of the fact – depends on him
and the state of our relationship.

Which raises the important question: do I want
an alcoholic baby? Wouldn’t you be watching it throughout childhood
to see if it favored rum candy? He said he hoped we’d get married
because a child needs a father. I think this might be the way an
Alabamian proposes. Surprising how totally un-good it felt. I almost
got as depressed as he is.  Jervaze, who has the beauty of an angel-god,
is no better than a drifter. Even I am shocked by my own taste. His life
is guaranteed to go from bad to worse because of his fatal Hamlet-like
inability to take charge. Clearly he needs to be the full time project of
some managing woman. This is bringing out all my masculine characteristics,
some of which, frankly, I was hoping never to see again. I am also
bothered by the fact that he can’t have serious conversations.  I would
say he absolutely does not know me at all, and appears satisfied with that.
I probably also don’t know him, although I am beginning to face the fact
that there may be nothing to know. 

  The drama of my own existence is important to me.
There’s a full cast of characters and  A LOT OF PLOT SURPRISES
and he hasn’t even opened the book. It’s frustrating because it makes
everything less meaningful.  I feel I’m in a bind, though, because he’s
definitely the best of the bunch in all the bars I’ve danced. Most
attendees are married men looking for fun and excitement. They are
the dancers’ favorite because they’re established, generous and
sometimes they actually leave their wives. This happened with R
although he always insisted (and I believed) it wasn’t me, it was him. 
(And her, presumably).  The best you can do is “catch them on the cusp” of divorce.  The “singles” men come in three kinds – total losers who can’t
manage a relationship and that’s what they’re doing in a bar like this, guys
who need you to quit the minute you start dating them because “no girlfriend
of mine” blah blah blah. (More R). The third is guys who are fine with you
dancing – in fact they want to be your manager. Several dancers have fallen
for these guys and often they marry them. He buys their costumes, drives
them to and fro, bargains with the club owner and even looks after the kids.
The good ones don’t just drain her money, date the competition or beat her up. 
(Those are rare. But exist. I’ve met them.) Only now she can’t ever quit! 
Take Lida for example. Lida’s in her 40’s and can’t be seen in
the light of day. Although she has a perfect body, she is real scary close up –
gets the worst clubs  and shifts – here she is strictly a fill-in. One dancer and
her boyfriend live in a van, going from club to club. He sits in the bar for every
set and that has to be OK with the management.
This would seem to mean my parents are right that I can’t meet
nice men because of my job, and although I don’t want to go all apocalyptic, it
is hard to see how this can get better. I could meet someone through my writing
if I were a different kind of person but I just can’t seem to change. (I’m getting happier and happier Being Me.) Probably my best bet is to go back to college –
I’ve been wanting to – take a class here and there (a lot of dancers do this) and
date guys without letting them know what I do for work until I know them really well. Money is the problem there. More capital expense. I make good money and I should be able to afford it, however it doesn’t combine well with my plans to
take time off and travel. I would have to work constantly which so far I
have been too spoiled to do. A light schedule keeps dancing fresh for me
– it’s also good for my writing. So I should probably compromise and
take one class – something nice and cheap like adult ed at the community
college. I’ll think about it.

Sat night J was all withdrawn again. I don’t think he wants
me to coax out of him what the problem is; I think when he is in that mood
he really just wants me to go away. So I do. A says I’m being an idiot –
that he is clearly in love with me – in her definition, I’ve “arrived”. I could
get him to move in with me, structure his time and tell him what to do.
Maybe that’s what he wants but it certainly isn’t what I want. He seems
so depressed about his family — and it is too late to lie to them about what I do because his brother (whom I’ve still never met) “already knows”. Could I
change my name and get away with being someone else entirely? Tell me
again why should I go to those lengths?

He would just appall my parents. This would confirm every
bad thing about me they’ve ever said (and they’ve said a lot). It’s really one
of those tragic Victorian love stories (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) except that
we’re not from different classes – so maybe its more SCI fi because we’re from different PLANETS. I’m beginning to think he’s actually “cast off” by his family

that’s his deep dark secret. His alcoholic behavior “ruined” him in his
hometown somehow. (He did graduate high school. He says.) He’s the
horrible albatross from the Coleridge poem (or he’s trying to shift it off onto
me.) Under the apparently inexorable rules of sexual attraction, once again
he’s a weird mirror image of me.  But instead of being a drunk (which my
parents would prefer) I’m a poet. Probably in the South it all comes to the
same thing.  In the North it’s almost the same. Here we’ve got actual mental
illness thrown into the mix.)

Can’t say my advice which is he ought to write them off . He
totally buys into their rejection and who knows, maybe it will save him in the
end. “Dump your family” was my advice to my husband, so possibly it’s
me who has the problem.

Mom and Dad asked if J was an intellectual and I said,
“Well, he’s reading my book.” I didn’t tell them he’s been reading it for the
past two months with no end in sight. I don’t dare even comment on it
anymore.  It snowed about 20 hours – that’s another thing I like about J
– he lives right next to the club. It’s hard on my dogs – but so would my
death on the roads be.

R. Called today – 3rd time in a month. He acted very loving
and considerate – I don’t believe it for a minute. Now he’s worried about
my health – wants to bring me homemade chicken soup, etc. I don’t rise
to these flies any more and it feels so good. Any desire I may have had to
see the flesh ripped from his bones with red-hot razorblades has ebbed. 
I take that as progress. I look forward to seeing him again because I think
it would be great to feel nothing.

11:30 AM Tues. 7 Feb 1978
Mom and Dad called – there’s another apt available on
the island.  What once seemed so attractive is now an obvious ploy to
make me over in their image.  This is the same island Mom referred to
when she said, “Eyeshadow is not appropriate here.” (She gets to
decide how people should dress for parties.) When I mentioned this to
Genevieve, she said, “Well it’s not.”  Way to back me up sister.  So the
question really is, would I be ready to sacrifice eye shadow for a sinkhole
of safety?

 Could I end up wearing shawls and baking bread
without any ability to save myself? If I can ever afford a “get-away”
(and my royalties say no) I think it should be on the Chesapeake. And if
I want to afford that I should try to “get the market” to work for me, i.e.
be F. Scott Fitzgerald instead of Sylvia Plath. Both died young but she
died younger.

But hey, I want to be myself and I can live on so little.
 I ought to be able to pull this off. On the other hand, if Dad’s fish
recover from their anal calcification and his latest aquafarm project
takes off, maybe we’ll make millions.  Still, he won’t let me have the stock certificates so possibly it’s all blather.

Worked listlessly on Demon. Cold, strange little book,
and NOT what my new editor wants me to write, but I find the protagonist
interesting. Maybe someone else will. It’s working out to top off at 30,000
words or the worst length ever. Unfortunately I like it this way. Introduce
subplot? Submit it with other short stories? Can’t decide. Erin is exactly
the same length. Between the two of them aren’t they a book? Unfortunately,
they are too similar which I guess ruins it for the reader who has to be taken
by surprise.

R called hearing I had sniffles (from his spy?) but didn’t come
by. Said he didn’t get sick at all. Favored by God, I guess. He always acts
like I am just about to dump him totally. Maybe I already have. We are as
formal as people who have never even met.

    Reading Waugh’s diaries and thinking a lot about my own life.
I try thinking about my writing as if it were acting: “do what the part demands,
try what other actors have done.” But it doesn’t work. It is the pure eccentricity
of uniqueness that the universe demands and nothing less.  You’re either part
of the pursuit of ultimate meaning or you’re “against” it. What a pity, too, the
universe is not “the world”.

MOON-SOULED

The moon & my soul have
Too much in common;
Retreating to
Eclipses
Abandoning natives
Screaming in panic:
“Come back, come back
We never notice
When you’re here yet
Who can bear this darkness
Now that you have gone?”