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