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National Poetry Month - Day 12
I forgot to bring my bag of books into the office today, so I've only got access to online poetry. However, I really liked yesterday's poem-a-day from the Academy of American Poets so I'm going to post that. For those of you receiving the e-mails, this isn't new. My apologies to those of you seeing it twice, but I like it. So there. ;)
Failing and Flying
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.
--Jack Gilbert from Refusing Heaven newly published by Knopf.
Here's my poem for today. I'm not really happy with it, but I'm not sure I want to revisit it, so I'll go ahead post.
fourteen years old
in the back of a trailer
your mouth on mine
hard and demanding
hand in my hair
holding me to you
hand on my jeans
button undone
Yeah, baby, that's it.
hand on my arm
pulling me away
What the fuck?
tug-of-war
I'm the rope
Let her go.
Fuck you.
Her brother's here.
stumbling away
glancing back
driving home
sobering up
arms around me
holding me close
I'm not gonna tell.
I forgot to bring my bag of books into the office today, so I've only got access to online poetry. However, I really liked yesterday's poem-a-day from the Academy of American Poets so I'm going to post that. For those of you receiving the e-mails, this isn't new. My apologies to those of you seeing it twice, but I like it. So there. ;)
Failing and Flying
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.
--Jack Gilbert from Refusing Heaven newly published by Knopf.
Here's my poem for today. I'm not really happy with it, but I'm not sure I want to revisit it, so I'll go ahead post.
fourteen years old
in the back of a trailer
your mouth on mine
hard and demanding
hand in my hair
holding me to you
hand on my jeans
button undone
Yeah, baby, that's it.
hand on my arm
pulling me away
What the fuck?
tug-of-war
I'm the rope
Let her go.
Fuck you.
Her brother's here.
stumbling away
glancing back
driving home
sobering up
arms around me
holding me close
I'm not gonna tell.