Pif Magazine » Robert Klein Engler

The Poor Boy Gives Up The Burden of Being Good

Robert Klein Engler — Fri, 01 May 1998 08:01:01 +0000

High above the Illinois prairie a jet flies eastward.
A man sets his drink down on the tray in front of him
and looks out the window at an expanse of snow.
He sees the skyline of Chicago in the distance below.

Perfect love drives out fear, yet who is perfect?
Once a year a dove’s wing brushes against Golgotha.
The land is in the grip of a great winter, even above it,
the cold persists and the reach of ice seems infinite.

Robert Frost says that freedom is simply departure.
The plastic cup of soda vibrates from the engines.
Little bubbles, like worlds, rise with effervescent fire.
We carry a long time-desire and the memory of desire.

A vapor trail draws out a white arc across the sky.
Turn from the window and look at your dry hands.
The execution is over– a guard cleans his fingernail.
Seat belt on. We’ll be landing soon. Relax. Why so pale?

Final Exam

Robert Klein Engler — Wed, 01 Oct 1997 08:01:01 +0000

Essay Question:

Compare the touch of a lover’s hand on your shoulder to a red leaf falling on

the grass. Are the weight of these gestures enough to break a heart? Make

sure your answer includes a note of frost.

Multiple Choice:

a. To live without your lover is a waste of the body.

b. To live with one you don’t love is a waste of the spirit.

c. The body and the spirit are like the moon above a black lake.

d. All of the above.

True or False:

Nothing is whole that has not first been broken.

Fill in the Blank:

I had a drink with a man I knew in college years ago. He confessed he slept

with the one I could never have. That night I dreamed I had a sore on my

thigh. I squeezed it, and gold puss oozed out.

Extra Credit: Find the Metaphor-

salt

bone

snow

Touchstone

Robert Klein Engler — Wed, 01 Oct 1997 08:01:01 +0000

In Old Jerusalem there used to be The Stone of Losses. If you lost
something, and another man found it, you would meet at the stone, he on one
side and you on the other. You would declare, I lost my father, I lost my
house, I lost my lover and my hope. He would say, Describe it, and if you
could, and he held it in his hands, he would return it. But dear, tell me,
what do you own to lose? This life from clotted salt is just a gift. Did
you lose your life? Describe it for me? It was a melody you must hear. It
was a river you must bathe in. It was a breath you must sleep next to. The
world is crowded. Go tell your troubles to a stone, your neighbor will say.
If only that youth with long hair would look at me. Wait, here is a stone.
I have chewed on it for years. No, it was in my shoe and made me limp. Is
it my heart? Father, on the other side, tell me what you hold.

Let’s Review

Robert Klein Engler — Mon, 01 Sep 1997 08:01:01 +0000

He will be 21 in September. After dinner he took his sweater off and lounged

in a T-shirt. I have not felt so vulnerable in years…or so old. He drinks

(two bottles of wine with dinner), and smokes (cigarettes). He pees a lot

(see above). All through dinner I wore my silver ring with the fish on it so

I would be strong. He said that beauty for wisdom is a fair exchange. I’m a

Taurus. He’s a Virgo. The cries of animals are more music than words. I

remind him that beauty is beautiful even in autumn. My mind is working

overtime making plans: the concert next week, then St. Louis in April, Spain

maybe. Stop it! Adam, adama, He comes from the ground. Do I trust him? Did

Abraham trust God? He’s read Plato’s Symposium, but not the Tanach. Here

are two metaphors: a flashbulb and a glacier. I am both today. He has never

slept with anyone yet. Come here. Come hear. All of this would not have

happened if we had not talked in the supermarket the other day about Pascal.

There are 600,000 letters in the Torah. The letters do not touch one another,

so too, every man goes his own way. 600,000 came out of Egypt. He came out

of Nebraska. To pray sometimes is to weep. Since meeting him all those others

seem far away. Once you invite a vampire into your house, you can never keep

him out. God rose from the dead and left the world. Coming back again is the

hard part. If the letters of the alphabet would leave us, the world would

fall down. He is a song that breaks the silence of dawn; and far away a flock

of birds flutters into the sky. Contemporary literary theory is nothing more

than the French trying too hard to be English (cf. David Hume.) He says that

when he looks in the mirror he knows he is young, but what does it mean?

This desire is like flying. I have no control over it. I hate it. He said

he will have tracers in his mind for the rest of his life from some of the

drugs. The cactus guards with thorns what little water it gets. Ben is in

love with him, too. Ben studies the great books at St. John’s College. I am

tired of wanting otherwise. The presence of my dead mother broods over my

dreams. We are supposed to meet again next Wednesday. Will the world hold? I

am wounded and need to talk. The snow turns to rain. My desire turns to

words. I stroke his cheek before he leaves. Maranatha.