I went through my notebook...

and refined some poems. Here they are (still pretty rough):

Can I Thank You?

Can I thank you
for your enduring spirit?
for your tenderness,
unmatched by any one creature?
for your shy chuckle,
the way the wind greets your hair?

Or perhaps I can thank you
for being you
and never even a shadow
of anyone who’s not,

and your boundless loyalty
and your strong hands
and your clownlike soul
and your deep, relentless talent
for loving me
without losing yourself
in me.

Yes, I think I shall thank you for that.


I hide away, your ghost in mind

I hide away, your ghost in mind
as I cross my legs in a dim Best Western room
in an ushanka, beer in hand.

Vision blurred, I can see you behind my eyes.
Your silhouette, far ahead, sauntering
through raindrops, with dog close by.

A glimpse outside reveals
a flickering McDonald’s arch
and the disappearance
of your drizzled silhouette.

No sweat entangled between us tonight.

But still as I sit, head in knees,
blood cells constricting in rye,
there is your apparition
on the curb
dog leash in hand
glancing back at me
waiting.

This one is an Elizabethan sonnet I wrote for my poetry class last semester. An Elizabethan sonnet is 14 lines long, written in iambic pentameter, and follows an alternating rhyme pattern, ending in a couplet. I'm pretty happy with this one, especially because formal verse can be challenging for me, but I feel the title is a bit pompous. "He Do the Police in Different Voices" was the original title of Eliot's masterpiece "The Waste Land," which I was reading at the time I wrote this. Soooo...though my piece is post-apocalyptic, like "The Waste Land," it's definitely below Eliot. Regardless, here it is:

He Do the Police in Different Voices

Title credit to T.S. Eliot

Wheels crushed the parched bits of Navajo stone
as the sun, a pomegranate fist, smashed
through the raw sky of sugar glass. No bone
was protected from the remnants of clashed
celestial bodies, blood ran sweet from
the sky’s legs below to the carcasses.
And the land could not weep. And the wild drum
rose and greeted the clouds made molasses,
soaking up the sky’s marred virgin remains.
Upon the fatal collision the beasts
stirred, navigating the thicket of stains.
Their claws struggled to the meals that had ceased
to be. Cactus blossoms shriveled from view
and, unlike us, continued to renew.

Alternative title suggestions...?


I'm contemplating doing a "Poem A Day" feature, in which I would showcase the poems of my favorite poets as well as the poems of contemporary poets who deserve exposure. I probably will for my sake, but I hope anyone reading will enjoy them as well. I may occasionally do "mini-papers" where I present interpretations of the poem, including my own analysis, for a paragraph or two. Perhaps my fellow literature aficionados can debate with me.

If I follow through with the "Poem A Day" plan, this is the first. It's by Denise Levertov, a 20th Century British-American poet highly influenced by William Carlos Williams. She's the master of compression, saying an infinite amount in so little space. Here she remarks on grief and regret in 8 lines. It's incredible.

Intrusion

by Denise Levertov

After I had cut off my hands
and grown new ones

something my former hands had longed for
came and asked to be rocked.

After my plucked out eyes
had withered, and new ones grown

something my former eyes had wept for
came asking to be pitied.