Also by Jesse Ball
Fiction
The Curfew Samedi the Deafness The Way Through Doors
Verse & Prose
March Book Vera & Linus
Drawings
Og svo kom nóttin
For Catherine Ball
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
—P. Larkin
Grateful Acknowledgement is given to the editors of the following journals where these poems previously appeared:
“A Set Piece,” The Boston Review.
“Morceau” and “And if They Should Tell You,” Conduit.
“Speech by a Window,” “Speech in a Chamber,”
“Speech Confided,” “Speech in a Meadow,” “Auturgy,” The Paris Review.
“A Turn,” “A Calico Ascription,” “Report From Our Lands,” “That Season,” Oberon.
“Balloon Diary, Week of the Pastoral Revolt” “Asking Advice of the Scissors,” “The Distressing Effect of Rumors,” Denver Quarterly.
“Here is some information about turtles,” Hobart.
“A Project,” Conduit.
“Parables & Lies,” The Cupboard Pamphlet.
“The Early Deaths of Lubeck, Brennan, Harp & Carr” The Paris Review.
“Pieter Emily,” Guernica.
INTRODUCTION
The works included in this volume were written between 2003 and 2008. During that time I lived (in 2003–2004) in a series of Manhattan and Brooklyn apartments, (in 2004–2006) in various parts of France, (in 2006–2007) in Iceland, and lastly, (in 2007–2008) in Chicago. Matching the places up to the works is most likely a ridiculous proposition, but I encourage those who choose to do it.
It has always been my ambition to produce an omnibus, a small, tidy book of depths that would fit in a pocket, yet occupy a traveler for several train rides. When I saw that these various books of mine could come together into such an omnibus, I was delighted, and went forward with the idea immediately. What you have before you is the result of that thought.
Jesse Ball, 6 April 2011
parables and lies
2003
They were given the choice of becoming kings or kings’ messengers. As is the way with children, they all wanted to be messengers. That is why there are only messengers, racing through the world and, since there are no kings, calling out to each other the messages that have now become meaningless.
F. Kafka
2 Dec. 1917
ONE
The Coming Upon A Play
If