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Cold Water
I bought a jar of gooseberry jam to channel Chekhov because it made me feel literary
how in the story of the same name some friends get caught in the rain and in the shelter of a barn Ivan tells a story within the story which bores his friends Bourkin and Aliohkin to death
I think Chekhov’s message is that to get people to pay attention a story needs to have a gun or a pair of tits not morals
oh and the gun needs to go off
unless it’s a French movie French movies tend to get a pass on these kinds of things*
nowadays there are a lot of tv shows about how communes fail to live up to their ideals which are high but mostly expose their leaders as megalomaniacs and money schemers
lately I’ve found myself suspicious of good intentions is that cynicism or wisdom
at the same time I ignore war and the guy on the subway and my neighbor screaming at her daughter who is always crying
my mother screamed a lot and once threw me into a freezing cold shower to cool off and look at me I turned out okay
I told a student to shut up after he called another student a fat bitch and I don’t regret it this also a kind of morality
inside every story another story sings explosive as a gooseberry
we convince ourselves it is sweet even when it is bitter
we do this by ignoring the suffering of “the masses” according to Ivan’s story
thank god no one says “the masses” anymore
it sounds like a large boil on the thumb of society which I think is the intention
still you can buy a commemorative stamp with Lenin’s face at the collector’s store on Myrtle avenue but it will not take your letter very far
I have friends who insist he had some good ideas but I can’t say either way
instead of reading about 20th century history I watch French movies with Susannah about late 20th century angst and disaffected youth
* in the French coming-of-age film Cold Water a teenager purchases a bag of dynamite that never goes off
then he follows his girlfriend to a commune but they never reach it at the end of the movie she leaves him naked on a riverbank
this is when his “real life begins” according to the filmmaker
the implication is he will never see breasts again
like Ivan’s brother he will become a crapulent landowner who is satisfied with putting off the revolution
so long as the gooseberries pop in his mouth like fireworks at a Bastille Day celebration
Chekhov falls asleep
my neighbor is crying and my mother is calling
for lunch this afternoon I think I will have toast
[Jordan Deveraux’s poems have been published in a handful of places. He enjoys skateboarding, delis, and libraries. He works and plays in Queens.]
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