Timothy Steele
Breeze sent a wrinkling darkness
Across the bay. I knelt
Beneath an upturned boat,
And moment by moment felt
The sand at my feet grow colder
The damp air chill and spread.
Then the first raindrops sounded
On the hull over my head.
Friday, April 17, 2020
Saturday, April 4, 2020
It Could Happen To You
David Lehman (2019)
It's June 15, 2017, a Thursday, fortieth anniversary of the infamous day the Mets traded Tom Seaver to Cincinnati and they're still losing
I mean we are
7 to 1 to the Washington Nationals a team that didn't exist in 1977 the summer of a little tour in France with Henry James in a yellow Renault douze
the light a lovely gray the rain a violin concerto (Prokofiev's No. 2 in D Major) and I had books to read
Huxley Woolf Forster and their enemy F.R. Leavis Empson a little dull for my taste also Freud on errors, Norman Mailer on orgasms, James Baldwin in Paris Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground Part 1
and John Ashberry tells me he is reading The Possessed translated as The Demons in the newfangled translation while Ron and I stay faithful to Constance Garnett
I went upstairs stood on the terrace ate some cherries admired the outline of trees in the dark
and Rosemary Clooney sang "It Could Happen To You"
and I was a healthy human being, not a sick man for the first summer in three years.
It's June 15, 2017, a Thursday, fortieth anniversary of the infamous day the Mets traded Tom Seaver to Cincinnati and they're still losing
I mean we are
7 to 1 to the Washington Nationals a team that didn't exist in 1977 the summer of a little tour in France with Henry James in a yellow Renault douze
the light a lovely gray the rain a violin concerto (Prokofiev's No. 2 in D Major) and I had books to read
Huxley Woolf Forster and their enemy F.R. Leavis Empson a little dull for my taste also Freud on errors, Norman Mailer on orgasms, James Baldwin in Paris Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground Part 1
and John Ashberry tells me he is reading The Possessed translated as The Demons in the newfangled translation while Ron and I stay faithful to Constance Garnett
I went upstairs stood on the terrace ate some cherries admired the outline of trees in the dark
and Rosemary Clooney sang "It Could Happen To You"
and I was a healthy human being, not a sick man for the first summer in three years.
Thursday, April 2, 2020
Silver Spoon Ode
Sharon Olds (2018)
I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and a silver knife, and a silver fork. I would complain about it—the spoon was not greasy, it tasted like braces, my shining access to cosmetic enhancement. And I complained about the taste of my fillings in my very expensive mouth, as if only my family was paying where did I think the rich got their money but from everyone else? My mother beat me in 4/4 time, and I often, now, rant to her beat—I wear her rings as if I killed her for them, as my people killed, and climbed up over the dead. And I sound as if I am bragging about it. I was born with a spoon instead of a tongue in my mouth—dung spoon, diamond spoon. And who would I be to ask forgiveness? I would be a white girl. And I hear Miss Lucille, as if on the mountain where I'd stand beside her, and brush away the insects, and sometimes pick one off her, sometimes by the wings, and toss it away. And Lucille is saying, to me, You have asked for enough, and been given in excess. And that thing in your mouth, open your mouth and let that thing go, let if fly back into the mine where it was brought up from the underworld at the price of lives, beloved lives. And now, enough, Shar, now a little decent silence.
I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and a silver knife, and a silver fork. I would complain about it—the spoon was not greasy, it tasted like braces, my shining access to cosmetic enhancement. And I complained about the taste of my fillings in my very expensive mouth, as if only my family was paying where did I think the rich got their money but from everyone else? My mother beat me in 4/4 time, and I often, now, rant to her beat—I wear her rings as if I killed her for them, as my people killed, and climbed up over the dead. And I sound as if I am bragging about it. I was born with a spoon instead of a tongue in my mouth—dung spoon, diamond spoon. And who would I be to ask forgiveness? I would be a white girl. And I hear Miss Lucille, as if on the mountain where I'd stand beside her, and brush away the insects, and sometimes pick one off her, sometimes by the wings, and toss it away. And Lucille is saying, to me, You have asked for enough, and been given in excess. And that thing in your mouth, open your mouth and let that thing go, let if fly back into the mine where it was brought up from the underworld at the price of lives, beloved lives. And now, enough, Shar, now a little decent silence.
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