Power Politics Read online

  Power

  Politics

  ALSO BY MARGARET ATWOOD

  Poetry

  The Animals in That Country

  The Circle Game

  Interlunar

  The Journals of Susanna Moodie

  Morning in the Burned House

  Procedures for Underground

  Selected Poems [1966-1974]

  Selected Poems 1966-1984

  Selected Poems II: Poems Selected and New, 1976-1986

  True Stories

  Two-Headed Poems

  You Are Happy

  Fiction

  Alias Grace

  The Blind Assassin

  Bluebeard’s Egg

  Bodily Harm

  Cat’s Eye

  Dancing Girls

  The Edible Woman

  Good Bones

  Good Bones and Simple Murders

  The Handmaid’s Tale

  Lady Oracle

  Life Before Man

  Murder in the Dark

  Oryx and Crake

  The Robber Bride

  Surfacing

  Wilderness Tips

  Nonfiction

  Days of the Rebels 1815-1840

  Moving Targets: Writing with Intent 1982-2004

  Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing

  Second Words: Selected Critical Prose 1960-1982

  Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature

  Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature

  Two Solicitudes: Conversations [with Victor-Lévy Beaulieu]

  Power

  Politics

  margaret atwood

  poems

  Copyright © 1971 , 1996 Margaret Atwood

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First published in 1971 by House of Anansi Press Ltd.

  Revised edition published in 1996

  This edition published in 2005 by

  House of Anansi Press Inc.

  110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 801

  Toronto, ON M5V 2K4

  Tel. 416-363-4343

  Fax 416-363-1017

  www.anansi.ca

  Distributed in Canada by

  Publishers Group Canada

  250A Carlton Street

  Toronto, ON M5A 2L1

  Toll free tel. 1-800-747-8147

  Distributed in the United States by

  Publishers Group West

  1700 Fourth Street

  Berkeley, CA 94710

  Toll free tel. 1-800-788-3123

  09 08 07 06 05 5 6 7 8 9

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Atwood, Margaret, 1939-

  Power politics

  2nd ed.

  Poems.

  ISBN 0-88784-579-7

  I. Title.

  PS8501.T86P671996 C811’.54 C96-930636-9

  PR9199.3.A78P67 1996

  Some of these poems appeared on CBC Anthology, and in the following magazines: Blew Ointment, Kayak, New Work, Saturday Night, Tuatara, and Vigilante. “Hesitations Outside the Door” and “You refuse to own / yourself” first appeared in Poetry (Chicago). “They are hostile nations” was published as a broadsheet by Peter Martin Associates.

  Cover design: Bill Douglas at The Bang

  Author photograph: Dominic Turner

  We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Power

  Politics

  you fit into me

  like a hook into an eye

  a fish hook

  an open eye

  He reappears

  You rose from a snowbank

  with three heads, all

  your hands were in your pockets

  I said, haven’t

  I seen you somewhere before

  You pretended you were hungry

  I offered you sandwiches and gingerale

  but you refused

  Your six eyes glowed

  red, you shivered cunningly

  Can’t we

  be friends I said;

  you didn’t answer.

  You take my hand and

  I’m suddenly in a bad movie,

  it goes on and on and

  why am I fascinated

  We waltz in slow motion

  through an air stale with aphorisms

  we meet behind endless potted palms

  you climb through the wrong windows

  Other people are leaving

  but I always stay till the end

  I paid my money, I

  want to see what happens.

  In chance bathtubs I have to

  peel you off me

  in the form of smoke and melted

  celluloid

  Have to face it I’m

  finally an addict,

  the smell of popcorn and worn plush

  lingers for weeks

  She considers evading him

  I can change myself

  more easily

  than I can change you

  I could grow bark and

  become a shrub

  or switch back in time

  to the woman image left

  in cave rubble, the drowned

  stomach bulbed with fertility,

  face a tiny bead, a

  lump, queen of the termites

  or (better) speed myself up,

  disguise myself in the knuckles

  and purple-veined veils of old ladies,

  become arthritic and genteel

  or one twist further:

  collapse across your

  bed clutching my heart

  and pull the nostalgic sheet up over

  my waxed farewell smile

  which would be inconvenient

  but final.

  They eat out

  In restaurants we argue

  over which of us will pay for your funeral

  though the real question is

  whether or not I will make you immortal.

  At the moment only I

  can do it and so

  I raise the magic fork

  over the plate of beef fried rice

  and plunge it into your heart.

  There is a faint pop, a sizzle

  and through your own split head

  you rise up glowing;

  the ceiling opens

  a voice sings Love Is A Many

  Splendoured Thing

  you hang suspended above the city

  in blue tights and a red cape,

  your eyes flashing in unison.

  The other diners regard you

  some with awe, some only with boredom:

  they cannot decide if you are a new weapon

  or only a new advertisement.

  As for me, I continue eating;

  I liked you better the way you were,

  but you were always ambitious.

  After the agony in the guest

  bedroom, you lying by the

  overturned bed

  your face uplifted, neck propped

  against the windowsill, my arm

  under you, cold moon

  shining down through the window

  wine mist rising

  around you, an almost-

  visible halo

  You say, Do you

  love me, do you love me

  I answer you
:

  I stretch your arms out

  one to either side,

  your head slumps forward.

  Later I take you home

  in a taxi, and you

  are sick in the bathtub.

  My beautiful wooden leader

  with your heartful of medals

  made of wood, fixing it

  each time so you almost win,

  you long to be bandaged

  before you have been cut.

  My love for you is the love

  of one statue for another: tensed

  and static. General, you enlist

  my body in your heroic

  struggle to become real:

  though you promise bronze rescues

  you hold me by the left ankle

  so that my head brushes the ground,

  my eyes are blinded,

  my hair fills with white ribbons.

  There are hordes of me now, alike

  and paralyzed, we follow you

  scattering floral tributes

  under your hooves.

  Magnificent on your wooden horse

  you point with your fringed hand;

  the sun sets, and the people all

  ride off in the other direction.

  He is a strange biological phenomenon

  Like eggs and snails you have a shell

  You are widespread

  and bad for the garden,

  hard to eradicate

  Scavenger, you feed

  only on dead meat:

  Your flesh by now

  is pure protein,

  smooth as gelatin

  or the slick bellies of leeches

  You are sinuous and without bones

  Your tongue leaves tiny scars

  the ashy texture of mildewed flowers

  You thrive on smoke; you have

  no chlorophyll; you move

  from place to place like a disease

  Like mushrooms you live in closets

  and come out only at night.

  You want to go back

  to where the sky was inside us

  animals ran through us, our hands

  blessed and killed according to our

  wisdom, death

  made real blood come out

  But face it, we have been

  improved, our heads float

  several inches above our necks

  moored to us by

  rubber tubes and filled with

  clever bubbles,

  our bodies

  are populated with billions

  of soft pink numbers

  multiplying and analyzing

  themselves, perfecting

  their own demands, no trouble to anyone.

  I love you by

  sections and when you work.

  Do you want to be illiterate?

  This is the way it is, get used to it.

  Their attitudes differ

  1

  To understand

  each other: anything

  but that, & to avoid it

  I will suspend my search for

  germs if you will keep

  your fingers off the microfilm

  hidden inside my skin

  2

  I approach this love

  like a biologist

  pulling on my rubber

  gloves & white labcoat

  You flee from it

  like an escaped political

  prisoner, and no wonder

  3

  You held out your hand

  I took your fingerprints

  You asked for love

  I gave you only descriptions

  Please die I said

  so I can write about it

  They travel by air

  A different room, this month

  a worse one, where your

  body with head

  attached and my head with

  body attached coincide briefly

  I want questions and you want

  only answers, but the building

  is warming up, there is not much

  time and time is not

  fast enough for us any

  more, the building sweeps

  away, we are off course, we

  separate, we hurtle towards each other

  at the speed of sound, everything roars

  we collide sightlessly and

  fall, the pieces of us

  mixed as disaster

  and hit the pavement of this room

  in a blur of silver fragments

  not the shore but an aquarium

  filled with exhausted water and warm

  seaweed

  glass clouded

  with dust and algae

  tray

  with the remains of dinner

  smells of salt carcasses and uneaten shells

  sunheat comes from wall

  grating no breeze

  you sprawl across

  the bed like a marooned

  starfish

  you are sand-

  coloured

  on my back

  your hand floats belly up

  You have made your escape,

  your known addresses

  crumple in the wind, the city

  unfreezes with relief

  traffic shifts back

  to its routines, the swollen

  buildings return to

  normal, I walk believably

  from house to store, nothing

  remembers you but the bruises

  on my thighs and the inside of my skull.

  Because you are never here

  but always there, I forget

  not you but what you look like

  You drift down the street

  in the rain, your face

  dissolving, changing shape, the colours

  running together

  My walls absorb

  you, breathe you forth

  again, you resume

  yourself, I do not recognize you

  You rest on the bed

  watching me watching

  you, we will never know

  each other any better

  than we do now

  Imperialist, keep off

  the trees I said.

  No use: you walk backwards,

  admiring your own footprints.

  After all you are quite

  ordinary: 2 arms 2 legs

  a head, a reasonable

  body, toes & fingers, a few

  eccentricities, a few honesties

  but not too many, too many

  postponements & regrets but

  you’ll adjust to it, meeting

  deadlines and other

  people, pretending to love

  the wrong woman some of the

  time, listening to your brain

  shrink, your diaries

  expanding as you grow older,

  growing older, of course you’ll

  die but not yet, you’ll outlive

  even my distortions of you

  and there isn’t anything

  I want to do about the fact

  that you are unhappy & sick

  you aren’t sick & unhappy

  only alive & stuck with it.

  Small tactics

  1

  These days my fingers bleed

  even before I bite them

  Can’t play it safe, can’t play

  at all any more

  Let’s go back please

  to the games, they were

  more fun and less painful

  2

  You too have your gentle

  moments, you too have

  eyelashes, each of your eyes

  is a different colour

  in the half light

  your body stutters against

  me, tentative as moths, your

  skin is nervous

  I touch

  your mouth, I don’t

  want to hurt<
br />
  you any more

  now than I have to

  3

  Waiting for news of you

  which does not come, I have to

  guess you

  You are

  in the city, climbing the stairs

  already, that is you at the door

  or you have gone, your last

  message to me left

  illegible on the mountain

  road, quick

  scribble of glass and blood

  4

  For stones, opening

  is not easy

  Staying closed is

  less pain but

  your anger finally

  is more dangerous

  To be picked up and thrown

  (you won’t stop) against

  the ground, picked up

  and thrown again and again

  5

  It’s getting bad, you weren’t

  there again

  Wire silences, you trying

  to think of something you haven’t

  said, at least to me

  Me trying to give

  the impression it isn’t

  getting bad at least

  not yet

  6

  I walk the cell, open the window,

  shut the window, the little

  motors click

  and whir, I turn on all the

  taps and switches

  I take pills, I drink water, I kneel

  O electric lights

  that shine on my suitcases and my fears

  Let me stop caring

  about anything but skinless

  wheels and smoothly

  running money

  Get me out of this trap, this

  body, let me be

  like you, closed and useful

  7

  What do you expect after this?

  Applause? Your name on stone?

  You will have nothing