Posts tagged poetry

in the midmorning as I walk along the green. In the sun, the words with which He comes down from heaven, “like the dewfall”, glitter on all the tongues of grass. Until then I had never understood those words. Did He descend like the rain, or condensate like the sweat on the back of a lover’s neck? With Him bathing my feet I see that it makes no difference, that it does not matter how He gets here, what matters is that He’s here. And I walk along the green with God’s words on my feet.

The next day, early class. While the sun is still a rumor I cross the green again. This time, the sprinklers, automatic ch-ch-ch-ch-ch, evenly spread the dew over the grass. Thinking back to the day before, I shake my head and head for the sidewalk. Still, when the sprinkler touches me with a drop of reclaimed water, I cross myself all the same.

I probably spend too much money on books.

But when a poet makes me laugh, think, or feel personally victimized, I buy their bloody book.

are a funny lot.

I sent a letter to Philip Dacey, one of my favorite poets, and to my great surprise I got a reply. One the back of a flyer for a reading that took place in 2002. 

In other news, Mr.Dacey’s son is a philosophy professor at my school. Which means that I have read poems about him doing all sorts of embarrassing things as a kid. I can’t believe I didn’t put that together sooner.

Damn you, Pablo Neruda. Of all people, why do you have to be relevant right now?

1st Floor:

Be healthy.

Be safe.

Eat breakfast.

Live mindfully

and don’t forget

to always use condoms.

2nd Floor:

Balcony. Look over the rail and see

the edge of the world.

Down below is Eden

where no one uses the sidewalks.

3rd Floor:

Parking garage.

Mysterious stain in the corner.

No empty spaces on the bottom floors.

The stain has filled them all for the weekend.

4th Floor:

Look up through the center of the stairwell.

If one could hang suspended

in the middle of it all

like a spider in Heaven,

it would be Heaven.

But upon what would one feed?

5th Floor:

Elevator out of order.

In case of fire, break glass.

But don’t take the stairs.

Break glass, and jump.

Maybe you’ll rise with the smoke

and be home at last.

-9/11/12

WINDFALL 

When she objected that the bedroom 
was too hot that summer day 
for what I had proposed and suggested 
we create a spectacle of ourselves 
for the audience of trees and shrubs 
in our backyard, I had forgotten 
about the apples. 

And when we spread wide open 
the sheet and sleeping bag on the grass, 
out of sight (mostly) of the road, 
and released our entire bodies, 
piece by piece of clothing, 
into the arms of the air 
(which, unaccustomed to such 
an opportunity, puffed excitedly), 
I was not thinking at all 
of the apples. 

And even when we laid ourselves down 
and sanctified that country acre as it had 
long deserved to be sanctified, 
sending birds racing between trees 
while the whole world gathered itself 
in her eyes, into which I looked and looked, 
I did not see the apples. 

But later that afternoon, 
as I carried our clothes toward the house, 
and she, walking ahead of me, stopped 
to pick up a windfall apple and tasted it, 
declaring it delicious and urging me 
to take a bite, I most certainly noticed 
not only the apple but the garden 
surrounding it, like a scene 
from a familiar story, one including 
a man happy in his skin and a woman as 
tall and shapely as she was naked— 

naked, that is, except for the Raybans, 
which she’d slipped on when she went 
to get us each a beer after our holy 
expense of energy and which, 
with their Vogue-like stylish incongruity, 
saved me from an insufferably poetic moment 
and let me enjoy the very apple 
that the apple was.

Philip Dacey
Cider Press Review, 2004

Hat tip:Q

The Joy of the Blood of Stars

(Joie du Sang des Étoiles )

Near the Beginning, there was no light,

though all of the stars were shining bright.

A race of beings, paranoid with shame,

had no desire to play the stars’ game,

and jealously cloaked their planet in night.

The King of the Stars saw the darkness they sowed,

choking with clouds their once sunny abode.

From his vast face fell a celestial tear,

for the beings grew paler with each passing year.

“Very well, my children,” he said as he shouldered the load,

“So that you might see me, I shall explode.”

Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote,

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth,

inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open eye-

So priketh hem Nature in hir corages-

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.