Author: Jon

For the Boys in March

Pinup

by Billy Collins

The murkiness of the local garage is not so dense
That you cannot make out the calendar of pinup
Drawings on the wall above a bench of tools.
Your ears are ringing with the sound of
The mechanic hammering on your exhaust pipe,
And as you look closer you notice that this month’s
Is not the one pushing the lawn mower, wearing
a straw hat and very short blue shorts,
her shirt tied in a knot just below her breasts.
Nor is it the one in the admiral’s cap, bending
Forward, resting her hands on a wharf piling,
Glancing over the tiny anchors on her shoulders.
No, this is March, the month of great winds,
So appropriately it is the one walking her dog
Along a city sidewalk on a very blustery day.
One hand is busy keeping her hat down on her head
And the other is grasping the little dog’s leash,
So of course there is no hand left to push down
Her dress which is billowing up around her waist
Exposing her long stockinged legs and yes the secret
Apparatus of her garter belt. Needless to say,
In the confusion of wind and excited dog
The leash has wrapped itself around her ankles
Several times giving her a rather bridled
And helpless appearance which is added to
By the impossibly high heels she is teetering on.
You would like to come to her rescue,
Gather up the little dog in your arms,
Untangle the leash, lead her to safety,
And receiver her bottomless gratitude, but
The mechanic is calling you over to look
At something under your car. It seems that he has
Run into a problem and the job is going
To cost more than he had said and take
Much longer than he had thought.
Well, it can’t be helped, you hear yourself say
As you return to your place by the workbench,
Knowing that as soon as the hammering resumes
You will slowly lift the bottom of the calendar
Just enough to reveal a glimpse of what
The future holds in store: ah,
The red polka-dot umbrella of April and her
Upturned palm extended coyly into the rain.

Tuesday

Monday Morning

by Billy Collins

The complacency of this student, late
for the final, who chews her pen for an hour,
who sits in her sunny chair,
with a container of coffee and an orange,
a cockatoo swinging freely in her green mind
as if on some drug dissolved,
mingling to give her a wholly ancient rush.
She dreams a little and she fears the mark
she might well get—a catastrophe—
as a frown darkens the hauteur of her light brow.
The orange peels and her bright senior ring
make her think of some procession of classmates,
walking across the wide campus, without a sound,
stalled for the passing of her sneakered feet
over the lawn, to silent pals and steins,
dorm of nobody who would bother to pull an A or care.

em ty

I stumbled across this post today on a weblog written by Ron Silliman, a modern poet of sorts. Its about an interesting genre of poetry know as pwoermds (a blending of “words” and “poems”). Given Mike’s recent post, I don’t think he’d like a poem like:

by Jonathan Brannen

laugnage

But, maybe? Truly, this tiny little pwoermds has some nice complexity. The first thought is “language,” but then you notice the hint at the words “laugh” and “age.” Has anyone ever heard of this genre before? I thinks its pretty neat.. and, the best part is I can claim to have read about 20 poems during my lunch hour and written about 200. and1.

Winter of Minds

My sister will be in town this weekend, so it looks like another week delay. I’m hoping we can meet more regularly when the spring kicks in, but I can’t say why I think that would happen. Nice weather? Oh well.

The plan, as far as I can tell, is to do Wordsworth still. The poem is a little long to post here, so I’ll just link it. If anyone finds this poem boring and tedious, I’m open to changing it.

One other thing, I’ve just got a new computer, so I’m able to post/email/etc. when not at work. My home email adress (for now) is jmlawless@mac.com and my AOL IM is jonlawless77.

Ah, Work

I’m back to the old dailiness of life. After spending many beautiful days in South Carolina, watching the sunset and eating and drinking way out of the bounds of moderation, its painful to wake up early and go to work. As usual, there’s always a poem to make one feel better about life’s miseries. Here’s one that’s somewhat refreshing:

Well Water

by Randall Jarrell

What a girl called “the dailiness of life”
(Adding an errand to your errand. Saying,
“Since you’re up . . .” Making you a means to
A means to a means to) is well water
Pumped from an old well at the bottom of the world.
The pump you pump the water from is rusty
And hard to move and absurd, a squirrel-wheel
A sick squirrel turns slowly, through the sunny
Inexorable hours. And yet sometimes
The wheel turns of its own weight, the rusty
Pump pumps over your sweating face the clear
Water, cold, so cold! you cup your hands
And gulp from them the dailiness of life.

Unbosoming

I’ve been thinking about this word today. The thing that struck me was that it is defining a noun, “summer,” as an activity, “unbosoming.” Can anyone think of examples where this is commonly done?

This question falls into the context of our discussion on the poet’s relationship to images: can he capture them or do they always move for him? I noticed that besides this place where the summer becomes an activity that there are many other strange movements:

The third stanza has a bunch of movement in the images and even the images themselves (in the context of this poem) are active
an image: disturbs
the crocus: opening its mouth
flowers: breed
water: (washing) cools, is spilt
an image: born, hastens
life: forks
image: changes
flowers: drop
fresh images: surround, catch

Continue reading “Unbosoming”

Next!

Does anyone have any suggestions for this thursday’s meeting? I was thinking that we could briefly revisit Mary Oliver first and then move onto the Dylan Thomas poem that Brian posted. This conveniently leaves the 2 graveyard poems Alan posted for the thursday prior to Christmas (or we could do something else).

….

Poem 2

The Sun

by Mary Oliver

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone—
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance—
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love—
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed—
or have you too
turned from this world—

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?