I may live on until I long for this time In which I am so unhappy, And remember it fondly. —Fujiwara No Kiyosuke Translated by Kenneth Rexroth I found this poem in a lovely little book of my father’s called 100 Poems from the Japanese. I have no idea why he bought […]
MoreRefusing at Fifty-Two to Write Sonnets by Thomas Lynch It came to him that he could nearly count How many Octobers he had left to him In increments of ten or, say, eleven Thus: sixty-three, seventy-four, eighty-five. He couldn’t see himself at ninety-six— Humanity’s […]
MoreOde to Age by Pablo Neruda I don’t believe in age. All old people carry in their eyes, a child, and children, at times observe us with the eyes of wise ancients. Shall we measure life in meters or kilometers or months? How far since you were born? How long […]
MoreMy last post on poet Frank Stanford (I just typed in “Frank Suicide,” which shows you where my head is) was overly long for a blog entry, so I cut myself off before I finished exploring his life. I’ll finish today and hopefully will put him and his dark charms behind me because this guy […]
MoreBlue Yodel of those Who Were Always Telling Me by Frank Stanford You look like you just woke up What did you do last night sleep in the fields Now all ofyou who ride the schoolbus during deer season be sure and duck down on the backroads Get on […]
MoreThe Beginning “Where have I come from, where did you pick me up?” the baby asked its mother. She answered, half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to her breast- “You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling. You were in the dolls of my childhood’s games; and when with clay […]
MoreO Luxury by Guy Longchamps O what a luxury it be how exquisite, what perfect bliss so ordinary and yet chic to pee to piss to take a leak To feel your bladder just go free and open like the Mighty Miss and all your cares go down the creek to pee […]
MoreFifty-four years ago today the world gained a joyful citizen, the radiant Elizabeth Ann O’Leary. Unfortunately for the world and for all of us who loved Beth, she moved on ten years ago, just shy of her 44 birthday. A few weeks ago on the tenth anniversary of her death, I visited her grave […]
MoreContinuing with my previous post, here’s three more poems I left behind on a recent trip to the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula. Louise Gluck’s riveting “Gretel in Darkness” is a favorite poem of mine and I couldn’t resist putting it in these enchanted woods. Gluck imagines Gretel years after she has pushed […]
MoreEvery summer for the past seven I’ve made a trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Year after year, its wild beauty calls me back. (You can read about my 2010 visit here.) Visiting the U.P. unsettles me. I’m enough a suburbanite that I feel on edge in a place with so many trees and so […]
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