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Those Destroyed by Success
The very large pasteboard replica of the general,
his medals pasted from his chest
down over his washboard belly,
is propped up at the podium and squeaks.
Skillful technicians amplify and dilute
what he appears to be saying, until the audience,
which is comatose anyway from the brandy
and the smuggled cigars, grunts
approvingly into its paunches.
It will be all right.
Even the general, even the president,
who is weeping in the Oval Office
at the thought of having to give up
the least hangnail of power, even
the great poet whose voice has become
so identifiable that we genuflect
hearing it, shutting off our minds
to the recognition that it is only a voice now,
even these, before their success, were men.
Inside them, as they are towed, great
helium balloons in the Macy's Christmas parade,
there may still be men rattling,
but how are we to know?
I watch you richochet
from banquet to banquet, from
radio to talk show, and I think
"That is my friend. She is in
real danger." And you watch me
in a suit with a vest, and wearing a
Countess Mara tie, accepting
with judicious well-phrased thanks.
Both of us need to remember that
we are no good, no good, really.
Neither of us can speak fluent Greek.
WILLIAM DICKEY
Both of us can cook, but last night
I ruined a perfectly possible chicken soup,
and I still remember when your stove caught fire
and you had to redecorate the kitchen.
To be destroyed by success, I think
you do need to begin to believe
you can do anything and everything
and as the belief grows
little bits of the brain fall off
and turn into recalcitrant diamonds.
And eventually you are only a scatter of diamond
and a hollow where the ability to fail once was.
Keep reminding me, and I will keep
reminding you. Remember that
you cannot tell east from west, remember
that in separate cars, you leading
and then I leading, it once
took us two hours to find the freeway.
Remember the Christmas Day in Bucks County
when I was trying to call Seattle, and
the long-distance operator began to try
to put long-distance calls through me
in the upstairs bedroom,
and when I explained I was only trying
to call Seattle, said: "You poor thing."
Even if the money comes, let us be poor
and spend it rapidly on British Leyland
motor cars that collapse when scolded
and on fish poachers for which we have
no fish. And after the banquet
at which multiples of ourselves have toasted
multiples of ourselves many times over
and turned red in the face, let us go back
to a shabby hotel room and talk
about what went wrong, and remember
how dangerous it is to be right, and how