July 8: Unconditional Love, Tracy K. Smith, "Song"

Sometimes, I don't think that I'm a very nice person.  I can be grouchy and impatient.  Snappish.  Especially when I am dealing with a problem that keeps happening over and over.  At that point, I tend to step up on my soapbox and deliver a sermon.  My kids hate it.  My wife isn't too fond of it, either.

I'm not an easy person to love, and yet people love me.  That's amazing to me.  But that's all part of the deal, I guess.  True love is unconditional, despite flaws and idiosyncrasies.

Saint Marty is pretty lucky to have unconditional love in his life.

Song

by:  Tracy K. Smith

I think of your hands all those years ago,
Learning to maneuver a pencil, or struggling
To fasten a coat.  The hands you'd sit on in class,
The nails you chewed absently.  The clumsy authority
With which they'd sail to the air when they knew
You knew the answer.  I think of them lying empty
At night, of the fingers wrangling something
From your nose, or buried in the cave of your ear.
All the things they did cautiously, pointedly,
Obedient to the suddenest whim.  Their shames.
How they failed.  What they won't forget year after year.
Or now.  Resting on the wheel or the edge of your knee.
I am trying to decide what they feel when they wake up
And discover my body is near.  Before touch.
Pushing off the ledge of the easy quiet dancing between us.

February 4: Valentine's Day, Adonis, "Song"

I haven't written a poem in a while.  I've been scribbling ideas for poems in my journal, but I've not sat down and written a poem in a few months.  That happens sometimes when life gets busy.  Since the beginning of the semester, I've had trouble just putting out a couple blog posts a day.

On Valentine's Day, I will be finding out whether I will be the next Poet Laureate of the U. P.  I'm going to tape an episode of a local news program, and the top three finalists will be present.  And then, I'm imagining, somebody will tear open an envelope, and the name of the winner will be announced.

I hold no expectations.  I know I got votes, or else I wouldn't be in the final three.  But winning is not something that I'm prepared for.  For the next ten days, I'm going to be practicing my Oscar loser face.  You know what I'm talking about--when they announce the winners at the Academy Awards, and all the losers sit in their seats, faces stretched in a weird rictus of a smile, clapping politely.

At least Saint Marty might get a new poem out of the experience.  

The last poem from the Poet of the Week, Adonis.

Song

by:  Adonis

          from “Elegy for the First Century”

 

Bells on our eyelashes

and the death throes of words,

and I among fields of speech,

a knight on a horse made of dirt.

My lungs are my poetry, my eyes a book,

and I, under the skin of words,

on the beaming banks of foam,

a poet who sang and died

leaving this singed elegy

before the faces of poets,

for birds at the edge of sky.

June 16: 2% Inspiration, Adonis, "Song"

I am working on a sonnet right now.  I've been working on it for a couple of weeks.  It's been a difficult task for me for some reason.  I haven't felt particularly inspired.  But, if I always waited to be inspired in order to write something, I would probably never compose another poem or story or essay.

Poetry, for me, is about 2% inspiration and 98% hard work.  I've had my short moment of inspiration, so now I'm in the work-your-ass-off phase.  I need to have the poem done by the end of the weekend.  That's when the editor needs to submit it to the publisher.  Tomorrow night, I plan to have a finished rough draft.  Saturday, a revised draft.  Sunday, final draft.

That's my plan, anyway.

Saint Marty may need a little more inspiration tonight.  There's some Bailey's Irish Cream in the cupboard.

Song

by:  Adonis

Bells on our eyelashes

and the death throes of words,

and I among fields of speech,

a knight on a horse made of dirt.

My lungs are my poetry, my eyes a book,

and I, under the skin of words,

on the beaming banks of foam,

a poet who sang and died

leaving this singed elegy

before the faces of poets,

for birds at the edge of sky.