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Men with Small Heads
| My daughter Diana introduced me to the work of
Thomas Lux, one of her favorite poets. When I first read "Men with
Small Heads" I thought the text might be impossible to set to music.
However, as I delved further into Mr. Lux's poems I came to
appreciate their incredible structure, and my imagination ran wild.
Several musical motifs dominate and unify Men with Small Heads. (The
piano quotation of America The Beautiful at the end is intentional.)
Refrigerator, 1957 is a musical fantasy. Reminiscent of French
songs, the opening veers into a 3/4 section as the subject,
"maraschino cherries," is introduced. A parody of Italian opera
(combined with other humorous tidbits) leads to a lyric and touching
close. Imitation figures prominently in A Small Tin Parrot Pin as
the piano punctuates the singer's offbeat observations. Snake Lake
uses hissing to emphasize the recurring "s" sound in the poem. The
"squiggly" musical figures employed in both voice and piano
symbolize swimming and water, and the accented notes are meant to
portray the lurking danger-and sting-of a snake bite. |
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Men With Small Heads
poems by Thomas Lux
Men with Small Heads
and women with small heads
were everywhere
in my hometown when I was six.
Two men standing on the corner: small heads.
Small head: a woman leans to look in her mailbox.
Then there'd be some normal bodies, normal heads.
Not everyone,
in other words, in my hometown
had small heads
but many did, enough
that I'd say to my mother, father: why
does that man have a small head?
I was glad my parents'
heads were normal-size.
They were glad I (mostly) didn't ask
why a person with a small head
had a small head
within earshot of that person. Apparently
these small heads
did not appear so small to them.
They had my eyes checked first.
They took some x-rays of my skull.
Did I have migraines?
Did I have pinhead fears, dreams?
Perhaps it was the angle through the windshield glass?
The local Dr. leaning over me
with his penlight probing
my retina - his head was huge
and the hairs on the back of his hand
were crossed like swords. Nothing wrong
with my eyes or my brain
that he could tell
but the heads I swore were small
were not, they were just your average heads,
circa 1953,
just your average heads,
in America.
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Refrigerator, 1957
More like a vault - you pull the handle out
and on the shelves: not a lot,
and what there is (a boiled potato
in a bag, a chicken carcass
under foil) looking dispirited,
drained, mugged. This is not
a place to go in hope or hunger.
But, just to the right of the middle
of the middle door shelf, on fire, a lit-from-within red,
heart red, sexual red, wet neon red,
shining red in their liquid, exotic,
aloof, slumming
in such company: a jar
of maraschino cherries. Three-quarters
full, fiery globes, like strippers
at a church social. Maraschino cherries, maraschino,
the only foreign word I knew. Not once
did I see these cherries employed: not
in a drink, nor on top
of a glob of ice cream,
or just pop one in your mouth. Not once.
The same jar there through an entire
childhood of dull dinners - bald meat,
pocked peas and see above,
boiled potatoes. Maybe
they came over from the old country,
family heirlooms, or were status symbols
bought with a piece of the first paycheck
from a sweatshop,
which beat the pig farm in Bohemia,
handed down from my grandparents
to my parents
to be someday mine,
then my child's?
They were beautiful
and, if I never ate one,
it was because I knew it might be missed
or because I knew it would not be replaced
and because you do not eat
that which rips your heart with joy.
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A Small Tin Parrot Pin
Next to the tiny bladeless windmill
of a salt shaker
on the black tablecloth
is my small tin parrot pin,
bought from a bin,
75 cents, cheap, not pure tin - an alloy,
some plastic toy tin?
The actual pin, the pin that pins the pin,
will fall off soon
and thus the parrot,
if I wear it, which I will,
on my lapel. I'll look down
and it'll be gone.
Let it be found by a child,
or someone sad, eyes
on the sidewalk, or what a prize
it would be for a pack rat's nest.
My parrot's paint
is vivid: his head's red, bright yellow of breast
and belly, a strip of green,
then purple, a soft
creamy purple, then bright - you know
the color - parrot green
wing feathers. Tomorrow I think
I'll wear it on my blue coat.
Tonight, someone whom I love
sleeps in the next room,
the room next to the room with the black tablecloth,
the salt shaker, the parrot pin.
She was very sleepy
and less impressed than I
with my parrot
with whom, with which I
am very pleased.
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Snake Lake
My friends, I hope you will not swim here:
this lake isn't named for what it lacks.
This is not just another vacant scare.
They're in there - knotted, cruel, and thick
with poison, some of them. Others bite
you just for fun - they love that curve
along the white soft side of your foot,
or your lower calf, or to pierce the nerves
with their needles behind your knees.
Just born, the babies bite you all the same.
They don't care how big you are - please
do not swim here. There is no shame
in avoiding what will kill you: cool pleasure
of this water. Do not even dip your toes
in because they'll hurt you, or worse,
carry you away on their backs - no,
not in homage, but to bite you as you sink.
Do not, my friends, swim here: I like you
living: this is what I believe, what I think.
Do not swim here - lest the many turn to few.
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Poems for Men with Small Heads used by permission of Thomas Lux and Houghton
Mifflin Company from NEW & SELECTED POEMS, 1975-1995 by Thomas Lux. ©1997 by
Thomas Lux. All rights reserved.
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(Updated Jan 24, 2010)
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