. from somewhere… Postcard Margaret Atwood I’m thinking about you. What else can I say? The palm trees on the reverse are a delusion; so is the pink sand. What we have are the usual fractured coke bottles and the smell of backed-up drains, too sweet, like a mango on the verge of rot, which […]
Eating Poetry (XXVI) – “Whole”
Does serendipity tell us anything about the world? I suppose that question matters if one is seeking, like a physicist, to understand the world as something separate and independent of those who live in it. In that case we can make various claims, including that serendipity is only the happier among coincidences. If what concerns […]
Eating Poetry (XXV) – Some of the Words Are Theirs
The close of The Great Gatsby is probably the most famous and referenced ending of any American novel. Lyricized in a lushly romantic invocation of American promise, somehow gone wrong in the stinking, rich like of Tom and Daisy Buchanan, and in the aftermath of Jay Gatsby’s failed striving, with such foolish and criminal élan, […]
Eating Poetry (XXIV) – The Zen of Alice
LIFE IS BUT A DREAM Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) A boat, beneath a sunny sky Lingering onward dreamily In an evening of July– Children three that nestle near, Eager eye and willing ear, Pleased a simple tale to hear– Long has paled that sunny sky; Echoes fade and memories die; Autumn frosts have slain July. Still […]
Eating Poetry (XXXIII) – Everybody Who Is Dead
A poem that is so lean and so direct, digging deep, radiating out. Simply, profoundly perfection. Everybody Who is Dead Frank Stanford When a man knows another man Is looking for him He doesn’t hide. He doesn’t wait To spend another night With his wife Or put his children to sleep. He puts on a […]