Richie Hofmann

Richard “Richie” Joseph Hofmann, born May 26, 1987, is an American poet, winner of the Alice James Award, and the Pushcart Prize. Hofmann was the Jones Lecturer in poetry at Stanford University, where he taught poetry and creative writing courses.

 

 

THE FABLES
Richie Hofmann

In school, we read a ridiculous story by Aesop,
one not involving wise or foolish animals or insects, but one in which a god allocates emotions
to the parts of the body. Intellect to the mind, Love
to the heart, etc. etc., until only the asshole is left,
to which the god assigns Shame. Understandably, Shame is unhappy
with the accommodations, but it’s too late. Shame
curses, “If Eros should ever seek to occupy that place,
I will leave the body for good.” This is why
homosexuals have no shame, according to Aesop,
or one of his Victorian translators. According to me, this is why
there is no moral order
to my sexual imagination, and why, praising my looks and hair
and white flesh as I lie with you, then falling
silent for days at a time, you really are the master of my pain.
 
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LATE NIGHT ODE
Richie Hofmann

It’s over, love. Look at me pushing fifty now,
Hair like grave-grass growing in both ears,
The piles and boggy prostate, the crooked penis,
The sour taste of each day’s first lie,

And that recurrent dream of years ago pulling
A swaying bead-chain of moonlight,
Of slipping between the cool sheets of dark
Along a body like my own, but blameless.

What good’s my cut-glass conversation now,
Now I’m so effortlessly vulgar and sad?
You get from life what you can shake from it?
For me, it’s g and t’s all day and CNN.

Try the blond boychick lawyer, entry level
At eighty grand, who pouts about the overtime,
Keeps Evian and a beeper in his locker at the gym,
And hash in tinfoil under the office fern.

There’s your hound from heaven, with buccaneer
Curls and perfumed war-paint on his nipples.
His answering machine always has room for one more
Slurred, embarrassed call from you-know-who.

Some nights I’ve laughed so hard the tears
Won’t stop. Look at me now. Why now?
I long ago gave up pretending to believe
Anyone’s memory will give as good as it gets.

So why these stubborn tears? And why do I dream
Almost every night of holding you again,
Or at least of diving after you, my long-gone,
Through the bruised unbalanced waves?