So I’m reading some recently published poetry. I’m thinking maybe it’ll help me become a better poet or something, you know? And I come across this one from the latest edition of Poetry magazine. Wow. I thought this was a gem. I just found it beautiful.
sorrows
who would believe them winged
who would believe they could be
beautiful who would believe
they could fall so in love with mortals
that they would attach themselves
as scars attach and ride the skin
sometimes we hear them in our dreams
rattling their skulls clicking their bony fingers
envying our crackling hair
our spice filled flesh
they have heard me beseeching
as I whispered into my own
cupped hands enough not me again
enough but who can distinguish
Okay, then, how about this delightful one from the November issue?:
Easy as Falling Down Stairs
To always be in motion there is no choice
even for the mountain and its frigid
cousins floating on the oceans that even sluggish
seethe and moan and laugh out loud at their own
jokes. How “like the human heart†can be said of
pert near everything, pint of fizz, punching
bag because all moves: the mouse, the house,
the pelt of moon corresponding to the seas
(see above) (now get back here) of mood,
sadness heaving kelp at the sunken city’s
face, gladness somersaulting from the eaves
like a kid’s drawing of a snowflake. No matter
how stalled I seem, some crank in me
tightens the whirly-spring each time I see
your face so thank you for aiming it
my way, all this flashing like polished
brass, lightning, powder, step on the gas,
whoosh we’re halfway through our lives,
fishmarkets flying by, Connecticut,
glut then scarcity, hurried haircuts,
smell of pencils sharpened, striving,
falling short, surviving because we ducked
or somehow got some shut-eye even though
inside the hotel wall loud leaks. I love
to watch the youthful flush drub your cheeks
in your galloping dream. Maybe even
death will be replenishment. Who knows?
Who has the time, let’s go, the unknown’s
display of emeralds closes in an hour,
the fireworks’ formula has changed, will we
ever see the tangerine blue again, factory
boarded up then turned into bowling lanes.