A REAL POET
For Mark
I phoned a young poet friend
and asked him what he was up to.
He said, Well, I’m eating a bologna
sandwich, drinking a glass
of whiskey, and washing out
my good shirt in the sink
with dish detergent
because I have a reading
in the city tonight. I said,
You’re living the poet’s life.
You stay poor, stay lean, stay hungry,
shun the successful, keep at the work.
POETRY READING
for Richard Sober
It was his graceful
flamboyance--
the ease at which
he found himself
when so intoxicated,
with the audience--
that endeared him
to me immediately.
Besides being a poet,
he was also a painter.
One of his paintings won
my heart
because it had
blue chickens in it.
After his reading,
he gave away his art--
lovely, flowing abstracts
sprawled on flimsy paper.
When he scattered them
about the room
they fluttered, then paused
for a moment
on the still air.
LOST IN ILLINOIS
Chesterton, Illinois 2011
Winding my way off Interstate 74
going from Champaign to Sullivan
with my Google map beside me,
I’ve missed a country road turn-off
and find myself lost in the little
town of Chesterton. I pull into
the gravel lot of an antique store
just as a plump Amish woman in full
black garb peddles toward me on her
bicycle. Her basket carries whatever
it was her errand was about, and beads
of sweat have formed on her forehead.
I wave her to a stop to ask directions,
and she tells me to go straight ahead
and turn right after the one lane bridge
and proceed through Arthur. Sullivan,
she says, is just seven miles further.
She adds that I will see signs.
I thank her and watch her pump,
her fat-tired Schwinn into motion.
It wobbles for several yards and then
straightens into a labored progress.
Her white bonnet and black dress
ripple as a car whizzes by.
I plan to watch for signs.
VITA NUOVA
The moon was many times full
while I was ignorant of its light,
while I, in moon-flooded night,
made love to my own mortality.
Each evening could have been the last,
but I would not be the one to say,
Let’s call it a night, because endings
are as bitter as the brittle moon--
the curved silvered moon I finally came
to know as a cuticle, a forecast, an eclipse.
THIS MORNING
The tall old elm tree that overlooks
the porch where I smoke and read
is ornamented with a dozen or more
vultures. At age seventy, it’s high time
I put on my game face and commit
to a resistance of all things dark--
time to dispel all allurements of death
and man-up for the long haul.
I think about this while I smoke my cigar
and take a pull now and then on my iced tea.
This would all be so much easier if
only whiskey were my friend.
For Mark
I phoned a young poet friend
and asked him what he was up to.
He said, Well, I’m eating a bologna
sandwich, drinking a glass
of whiskey, and washing out
my good shirt in the sink
with dish detergent
because I have a reading
in the city tonight. I said,
You’re living the poet’s life.
You stay poor, stay lean, stay hungry,
shun the successful, keep at the work.
POETRY READING
for Richard Sober
It was his graceful
flamboyance--
the ease at which
he found himself
when so intoxicated,
with the audience--
that endeared him
to me immediately.
Besides being a poet,
he was also a painter.
One of his paintings won
my heart
because it had
blue chickens in it.
After his reading,
he gave away his art--
lovely, flowing abstracts
sprawled on flimsy paper.
When he scattered them
about the room
they fluttered, then paused
for a moment
on the still air.
LOST IN ILLINOIS
Chesterton, Illinois 2011
Winding my way off Interstate 74
going from Champaign to Sullivan
with my Google map beside me,
I’ve missed a country road turn-off
and find myself lost in the little
town of Chesterton. I pull into
the gravel lot of an antique store
just as a plump Amish woman in full
black garb peddles toward me on her
bicycle. Her basket carries whatever
it was her errand was about, and beads
of sweat have formed on her forehead.
I wave her to a stop to ask directions,
and she tells me to go straight ahead
and turn right after the one lane bridge
and proceed through Arthur. Sullivan,
she says, is just seven miles further.
She adds that I will see signs.
I thank her and watch her pump,
her fat-tired Schwinn into motion.
It wobbles for several yards and then
straightens into a labored progress.
Her white bonnet and black dress
ripple as a car whizzes by.
I plan to watch for signs.
VITA NUOVA
The moon was many times full
while I was ignorant of its light,
while I, in moon-flooded night,
made love to my own mortality.
Each evening could have been the last,
but I would not be the one to say,
Let’s call it a night, because endings
are as bitter as the brittle moon--
the curved silvered moon I finally came
to know as a cuticle, a forecast, an eclipse.
THIS MORNING
The tall old elm tree that overlooks
the porch where I smoke and read
is ornamented with a dozen or more
vultures. At age seventy, it’s high time
I put on my game face and commit
to a resistance of all things dark--
time to dispel all allurements of death
and man-up for the long haul.
I think about this while I smoke my cigar
and take a pull now and then on my iced tea.
This would all be so much easier if
only whiskey were my friend.
