Everything we do is for our first loves
whom we have lost irrevocably
who have married insurance salesmen
and moved to Topeka
and never think of us at all.
We fly planes & design buildings
and write poems
that all say Sally I love you
I'll never love anyone else
Why didn't you know I was going to be a poet?
The walks to school, the kisses in the snow
gather as we dream backwards, sweetness with age:
our legs are young again, our voices
strong and happy, we're not afraid.
We don't know enough to be afraid.
And now
we hold (hidden, hopeless) the hope
that some day
she may fly in our plane
enter our building read our poem
And that night, deep in her dream,
Sally, far in darkness, in Topeka,
with the salesman lying beside her,
will cry out
our unfamiliar name.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
The Unities of Drama - Gordon Gilsdorf
The time of the representation and that of the action represented must be exactly coincident... and the scene of the action must be constant.
-Ludovico Castelvetro, Poetica (1576)
If her great-grandfather,
like seed wanting to die
in soil along the landtrails
beyond the waterways of immigration,
had refused his roots to Ohio
and had guessed his last coins
could buy him Wisconsin loam,
she might have come to me
through the stubble fields
of summer's golden barley
in a long-past harvest
swinging her sweating pail,
giving it with a brushing touch
as fresh as the water itself
or her blush in cool calico.
She might have lengthened
the already-long day's work
with a word or a smile, leaving,
as she turned toward sunset,
for my heart, I recall,
was at a crossroads then.
Instead, when she came,
three generations late,
she had two frosted cokes
from a noisy hallway automat
and we negotiated the July heat
in a terrazzo classroom,
cooled in the garb of our vows,
far from the crossroads then.
Her blush rankled like barley stubble,
a flush of care not to touch,
and we wondered under our words
if Castelvetro believed his "unities,"
if somehow we had cheated
his time and place and action
to shape the little drama
that is both the planting
and the harvest of our love.
-Ludovico Castelvetro, Poetica (1576)
If her great-grandfather,
like seed wanting to die
in soil along the landtrails
beyond the waterways of immigration,
had refused his roots to Ohio
and had guessed his last coins
could buy him Wisconsin loam,
she might have come to me
through the stubble fields
of summer's golden barley
in a long-past harvest
swinging her sweating pail,
giving it with a brushing touch
as fresh as the water itself
or her blush in cool calico.
She might have lengthened
the already-long day's work
with a word or a smile, leaving,
as she turned toward sunset,
for my heart, I recall,
was at a crossroads then.
Instead, when she came,
three generations late,
she had two frosted cokes
from a noisy hallway automat
and we negotiated the July heat
in a terrazzo classroom,
cooled in the garb of our vows,
far from the crossroads then.
Her blush rankled like barley stubble,
a flush of care not to touch,
and we wondered under our words
if Castelvetro believed his "unities,"
if somehow we had cheated
his time and place and action
to shape the little drama
that is both the planting
and the harvest of our love.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
First Day of Spring - Ann Hudson
It's a wild March morning in Chicago, the wind
dragging its nets through the streets.
Trawling for its usual and plentiful treasures:
crushed styrofoam cups, torn newspapers,
lost gloves, a blizzard of fast food napkins.
I take my eight-year-old Toyota
through the car wash. Idling in neutral,
I ease past the powerful, shaggy brushes,
the nozzles spraying limp foam onto the hood,
and remember the sick excitement I felt
when my father took my sisters and me through,
all the windows of our '67 baby blue Valiant
tightly cranked, the antenna pushed into its sleeve,
our doors locked against who-knows-what,
the three of us with our identical haircuts
buckled into the back seat, our identical shoes
drumming the vinyl. I was sure
those huge blue brushes would crash
right through the windshield and pin us to our seats.
At eight, a child sure of impending danger this
was about all the thrill I could handle.
I pull out of the car wash into the tangle
of traffic, past the bars that open at nine in the morning
and stay open, past the disheveled and pacing junkies,
past the crumbling theater draped in shadow and disrepair,
and make slow headway against the wind
that gathers the stray grocery bags all over the city,
whipping them against the masts
of budding hawthorns, silver maples,
bald cypress, green ash, green ash.
dragging its nets through the streets.
Trawling for its usual and plentiful treasures:
crushed styrofoam cups, torn newspapers,
lost gloves, a blizzard of fast food napkins.
I take my eight-year-old Toyota
through the car wash. Idling in neutral,
I ease past the powerful, shaggy brushes,
the nozzles spraying limp foam onto the hood,
and remember the sick excitement I felt
when my father took my sisters and me through,
all the windows of our '67 baby blue Valiant
tightly cranked, the antenna pushed into its sleeve,
our doors locked against who-knows-what,
the three of us with our identical haircuts
buckled into the back seat, our identical shoes
drumming the vinyl. I was sure
those huge blue brushes would crash
right through the windshield and pin us to our seats.
At eight, a child sure of impending danger this
was about all the thrill I could handle.
I pull out of the car wash into the tangle
of traffic, past the bars that open at nine in the morning
and stay open, past the disheveled and pacing junkies,
past the crumbling theater draped in shadow and disrepair,
and make slow headway against the wind
that gathers the stray grocery bags all over the city,
whipping them against the masts
of budding hawthorns, silver maples,
bald cypress, green ash, green ash.
Morning Song - Sara Teasdale
A diamond of a morning
Waked me an hour too soon;
Dawn had taken in the stars
And left the faint white moon.
O white moon, you are lonely,
It is the same with me,
But we have the world to roam over,
Only the lonely are free
Waked me an hour too soon;
Dawn had taken in the stars
And left the faint white moon.
O white moon, you are lonely,
It is the same with me,
But we have the world to roam over,
Only the lonely are free
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Spring Thaw - Gordon Gilsdorf
Most things
die reluctantly,
clinging
to the life
they know,
like snow
trying to hold
the land
far beyond
the middle
of March.
How can it know
that April
will not have
violets without warm rains
and that
surrender
is the only way
to inherit
the earth?
die reluctantly,
clinging
to the life
they know,
like snow
trying to hold
the land
far beyond
the middle
of March.
How can it know
that April
will not have
violets without warm rains
and that
surrender
is the only way
to inherit
the earth?
in Just- - e.e. cummings
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
Chicago - Carl Sandburg
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
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