Category Archives: Poems

On a campus that didn’t much care for poetry, my college had two poetry prizes. I won one sophomore year, and the other one senior year, which pretty much made me Big Poet On Campus. Every spring, five seniors from colleges and universities around the state were chosen for the Poetry Circuit, where you got to drive around and give readings of your poetry with the other BPOCs. It was very prestigious, and I made the penultimate cut, but in the end I wasn’t chosen for the tour. When I expressed my disappointment to my writing teacher, he told me something that I’ve never forgotten. He said,

“In writing, early success leads to early cronyism, leads to early intellectual death.”

When you’re twenty-one and so is Bret Easton Ellis and he’s famous and you’re not, that can give you some hope. But now I’m thirty-eight and so is Bret Easton Ellis and he’s still doing okay and I’m blogging, and it makes me wonder: Is this it? I gave up on poetry when I got to the point where I was only writing sonnets and could only think in pentameter; I gave up on fiction because I didn’t have the attention span to write a coherent, necessary short story, much less a whole novel.

Way back on November 23, 1985 I wrote in my diary, “Maybe this is all I’ll ever write — journal entries.”

Maybe I was right.

Of asphodel, that greeny flower,

I come, my sweet,

to sing to you!

My heart rouses

thinking to bring you news

of something

that concerns you

and concerns many men. Look at

what passes for the new.

You will not find it there but in

despised poems.

It is difficult

to get the news from poems

yet men die miserably every day

for lack

of what is found there.

William Carlos Williams

For the most clever and amusing poetic form, one really need look no further than the double dactyl. Here’s one by George Starbuck.

Said

J. Alfred Prufrock to

Hugh Selwyn Mauberly,

“What ever happened to

Senlin, ought-nine?”

“One with the passion for

Orientalia?”

“Rather.” “Lost track of him.”

“Pity.” “Design.”

We’re going to visit my family in Denver for the next few days, and on that topic, here’s another poem by Philip Levine from a recent New Yorker (I found it, Brian!). I’m sure this violates a copyright or two, but I like to think that posting poetry is like sharing music files, and that if you like them maybe you’ll go buy one of the poet’s books and we can call it even.

Home for the Holidays

Does anyone give a shit? Not

I, said the little brown mouse.

And so to bed, said Mother,

but no one was listening.

Praise the Lord, said the radio,

the radio said Praise the Lord

again, and the television

turned its back on the room.

Turnips for wisdom, eggplant

for beauty, parsnips for ease,

cabbage for size, a raw egg

for the hair, a slice of ham

to seize the hips, for the nose

foxglove and salt, for grace

ice-cold water poured from

way high up to way down low.

Everyone sits at the big table

in the dark. The empty plates

moon, the silverware stars,

the napkins scrub their hands.

I’m home, says the front door.

The windows are deep in thought,

the roof has taken off its hat.

Nothing to do, chants the toilet.

Here I am, shopping for books over the Internet on Christmas Eve. This morning I suddenly realized that two of the books I look for every time I go into a used book store could probably be found very easily online, and I was right. So I ordered them. Of course, that takes some of the the fun out of browsing at used book stores for a while.

Time for two poems, the first by William Carlos Williams.

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

Isn’t that nice? Now this one’s by Kenneth Koch.

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams

1

I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.

I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do and its wooden

beams were so inviting.

2

We laughed at the hollyhocks together

and then I sprayed them with lye.

Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3

I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.

The man who asked for it was shabby

and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4

Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.

Forgive me. I was clumsy, and

I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor.