Quite Excellent: Recent Episodes
LydonTeaches
This podcast is a supplement to in-class instruction, a place to analyze the poems that will be read in class at the start of the following week.
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Artist: Gabriela Dukova
Posted Date: 5/9/2020
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Artist: Timothy Garding
Posted Date: 1/20/19
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Artist: Ravindra Kumar
Posted Date: 01/9/22
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Artist: Olga Kapustina
Posted Date: 01/20/22
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Artist: Roberto Dziura
Posted Date: 08/28/20
Read by John Nightengale
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Oksana Soronovych
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Cory Whitfield
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Joel Woods
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Rye Jessen
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How to Triumph Like a Girl By Ada Limón
I like the lady horses best, how they make it all look easy, like running 40 miles per hour is as fun as taking a nap, or grass. I like their lady horse swagger, after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up! But mainly, let’s be honest, I like that they’re ladies. As if this big dangerous animal is also a part of me, that somewhere inside the delicate skin of my body, there pumps an 8-pound female horse heart, giant with power, heavy with blood. Don’t you want to believe it? Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see the huge beating genius machine that thinks, no, it knows, it’s going to come in first.
Allowables By: Nikki Giovanni
I killed a spider Not a murderous brown recluse Nor even a black widow And if the truth were told this Was only a small Sort of papery spider Who should have run When I picked up the book But she didn’t And she scared me And I smashed her
I don’t think I’m allowed
To kill something
Because I am
Frightened
You Get Proud by Practicing by Laura Hershey
If you are not proud for who you are, for what you say, for how you look; if every time you stop to think of yourself, you do not see yourself glowing with golden light; do not, therefore, give up on yourself. You can get proud.
You do not need a better body, a purer spirit, or a Ph.D. to be proud. You do not need a lot of money, a handsome boyfriend, or a nice car. You do not need to be able to walk, or see, or hear, or use big, complicated words, or do any of those things that you just can’t do to be proud. A caseworker cannot make you proud, or a doctor. You only need more practice. You get proud by practicing.
There are many many ways to get proud. You can try riding a horse, or skiing on one leg, or playing guitar, and do well or not so well, and be glad you tried either way. You can show something you’ve made to someone you respect and be happy with it no matter what they say. You can say what you think, though you know other people do not think the same way, and you can keep saying it, even if they tell you you are crazy. You can add your voice all night to the voices of a hundred and fifty others in a circle around a jailhouse where your brothers and sisters are being held for blocking buses with no lifts, or you can be one of the ones inside the jailhouse, knowing of the circle outside. You can speak your love to a friend without fear. You can find someone who will listen to you without judging you or doubting you or being afraid of you and let you hear yourself perhaps for the very first time. These are all ways of getting proud. None of them are easy, but all of them are possible. You can do all of these things, or just one of them again and again. You get proud by practicing.
Power makes you proud, and power comes in many fine forms supple and rich as butterfly wings. It is music when you practice opening your mouth and liking what you hear because it is the sound of your own true voice. It is sunlight when you practice seeing strength and beauty in everyone, including yourself. It is dance when you practice knowing that what you do and the way you do it is the right way for you and cannot be called wrong. All these hold more power than weapons or money or lies. All these practices bring power, and power makes you proud. You get proud by practicing.
Remember, you weren’t the one who made you ashamed, but you are the one who can make you proud. Just practice, practice until you get proud, and once you are proud, keep practicing so you won’t forget. You get proud by practicing.
The (actual) very last episode of the year. Poet José Olivarez answers questions from my students
My Therapist Says Make Friends with Your Monsters José Olivarez
we are gathered in truce because my therapist said it was time to stop running,
& i pay my therapist too much to be wrong, so i am here. my monsters look almost human
in the sterile office light. my monsters say they want to be friends. i remember
when we first met, me & my monsters. i remember the moment i planted each one. each time
i tried to shed a piece of myself, it grew into a monster. take this one with the collar of belly fat
the monster called Chubby, Husky, Gordito. i climbed out of that skin as fast as i could, only to see some spirit
give it legs. i ran & it never stopped chasing me. each new humiliation coming to life & following after me.
after me, a long procession of sad monsters. each monster hungry to drag me back, to return me
to the dirt i came from. ashes to ashes, fat boy to fat.my monsters crowd around me,
my therapist says i can’t make the monsters disappear no matter how much i pay her.
all she can do is bring them into the room, so i can get to know them, so i can learn
their names, so i can see clearly their toothless mouths, their empty hands, their pleading eyes.
Ars Poetica BY José Olivarez
Migration is derived from the word “migrate,” which is a verb defined by Merriam-Webster as “to move from one country, place, or locality to another.” Plot twist: migration never ends. My parents moved from Jalisco, México to Chicago in 1987. They were dislocated from México by capitalism, and they arrived in Chicago just in time to be dislocated by capitalism. Question: is migration possible if there is no “other” land to arrive in. My work: to imagine. My family started migrating in 1987 and they never stopped. I was born mid-migration. I’ve made my home in that motion. Let me try again: I tried to become American, but America is toxic. I tried to become Mexican, but México is toxic. My work: to do more than reproduce the toxic stories I inherited and learned. In other words: just because it is art doesn’t mean it is inherently nonviolent. My work: to write poems that make my people feel safe, seen, or otherwise loved. My work: to make my enemies feel afraid, angry, or otherwise ignored. My people: my people. My enemies: capitalism. Susan Sontag: “victims are interested in the representation of their own sufferings.” Remix: survivors are interested in the representation of their own survival. My work: survival. Question: Why poems? Answer:
My Therapist Says Make Friends with Your Monsters José Olivarez
we are gathered in truce because my therapist said it was time to stop running,
& i pay my therapist too much to be wrong, so i am here. my monsters look almost human
in the sterile office light. my monsters say they want to be friends. i remember
when we first met, me & my monsters. i remember the moment i planted each one. each time
i tried to shed a piece of myself, it grew into a monster. take this one with the collar of belly fat
the monster called Chubby, Husky, Gordito. i climbed out of that skin as fast as i could, only to see some spirit
give it legs. i ran & it never stopped chasing me. each new humiliation coming to life & following after me.
after me, a long procession of sad monsters. each monster hungry to drag me back, to return me
to the dirt i came from. ashes to ashes, fat boy to fat.my monsters crowd around me,
my therapist says i can’t make the monsters disappear no matter how much i pay her.
all she can do is bring them into the room, so i can get to know them, so i can learn
their names, so i can see clearly their toothless mouths, their empty hands, their pleading eyes.
Ars Poetica BY José Olivarez
Migration is derived from the word “migrate,” which is a verb defined by Merriam-Webster as “to move from one country, place, or locality to another.” Plot twist: migration never ends. My parents moved from Jalisco, México to Chicago in 1987. They were dislocated from México by capitalism, and they arrived in Chicago just in time to be dislocated by capitalism. Question: is migration possible if there is no “other” land to arrive in. My work: to imagine. My family started migrating in 1987 and they never stopped. I was born mid-migration. I’ve made my home in that motion. Let me try again: I tried to become American, but America is toxic. I tried to become Mexican, but México is toxic. My work: to do more than reproduce the toxic stories I inherited and learned. In other words: just because it is art doesn’t mean it is inherently nonviolent. My work: to write poems that make my people feel safe, seen, or otherwise loved. My work: to make my enemies feel afraid, angry, or otherwise ignored. My people: my people. My enemies: capitalism. Susan Sontag: “victims are interested in the representation of their own sufferings.” Remix: survivors are interested in the representation of their own survival. My work: survival. Question: Why poems? Answer:
“The Facebook Sonnet” By Sherman Alexie
Welcome to the endless high-school Reunion. Welcome to past friends And lovers, however kind or cruel. Let’s undervalue and unmend
The present. Why can’t we pretend Every stage of life is the same? Let’s exhume, resume, and extend Childhood. Let’s all play the games
That occupy the young. Let fame And shame intertwine. Let one’s search For God become public domain. Let church.com become our church.
Let’s sign up, sign in, and confess Here at the altar of loneliness.
01:32 - Michael DuBon reads his poem, “In the Wash”
03:30 - Extended conversation with Michael on student analysis
17:28 - Michael answers student questions
“Instructions on Not Giving Up” Ada Limón
More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees that really gets to me. When all the shock of white and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath, the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us, a return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then, I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.
Michael DuBon “In the Wash”
Arms deep, filth-clad, toilet toil: working at The Ski Tahoe Resort. Scrubbing this mess of spiders, disposing the cast off suppositories, the tracks of geriatric indulgence.
Work, where people don’t know how to talk to you.
Where the other housekeepers won’t trade Spanish with you because you’re not Latino enough, too American. Where one day you hear a voice from behind exclaim,
No clean! and you turn around to a white man waving his arms, pleading, No! No clean! We don’t need no clean.
Where you can’t speak Spanish, can’t speak English, where all you can say is, Ok.
Work: where you throw up on the carpet after two turkey sandwiches, so hungover you pass out again before vacuuming them up then see them again in the sink, the toilet too, you scrub up your mess alongside everyone else’s.
Where your fingers fall endlessly but never pick out all the dirt. Your Guatemalan parents who got you this job scold you for your failings as it might mean their jobs, their names already sullied.
The job helps pay your parents’ rent first, then your own. They made you work at so young an age, a childhood stained across carpets of empty suites.
You blamed them for wasting wasteful time earmarked for young weekends. Proved them right. Smoked in the units.
Eight years drain like hard water.
My hands reappear from rubber gloves. I enter any room here and I’m already gone.
Anne Stevenson “The Victory”
I thought you were my victory though you cut me like a knife when I brought you out of my body into your life.
Tiny antagonist, gory, blue as a bruise. The stains of your cloud of glory bled from my veins.
How can you dare, blind thing, blank insect eyes? You barb the air. You sting with bladed cries.
Snail. Scary knot of desires. Hungry snarl. Small son. Why do I have to love you? How have you won?
Marilyn Nelson “Asparagus”
He taught me how to slurp asparagus: You hold it in your fingers, eat the stem by inches to the tender terminus, then close your eyes and suck in the sweet gem. First, cook it in its own delicious steam, sauté breadcrumbs in butter separately, combine, eat slowly. As he ate, a gleam in his eyes twinkled with such jeu d'esprit, it made me drunk with longing. In my chair amid our laughing, slurping dinner guests, I felt as smug as a new billionaire, not jealous, not rejected, not depressed, as almost obscene, almost a debauché, he slurped asparagus, and winked at me.
Did I Miss Anything? Tom Wayman
Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here we sat with our hands folded on our desks in silence, for the full two hours
Everything. I gave an exam worth 40 percent of the grade for this term and assigned some reading due today on which I’m about to hand out a quiz worth 50 percent
Nothing. None of the content of this course has value or meaning Take as many days off as you like: any activities we undertake as a class I assure you will not matter either to you or me and are without purpose
Everything. A few minutes after we began last time a shaft of light suddenly descended and an angel or other heavenly being appeared and revealed to us what each woman or man must do to attain divine wisdom in this life and the hereafter This is the last time this class will meet Before we disperse to bring the good news to all people on earth
Nothing. When you are not present how could something significant occur?
Everything. Contained in this classroom is a microcosm of human experience assembled for you to query and examine and ponder This is not the only place such an opportunity has been gathered
but it was one place
And you weren’t here
The End A.A. Milne
When I was One, I had just begun.
When I was Two, I was nearly new.
When I was Three, I was hardly me.
When I was Four, I was not much more.
When I was Five, I was just alive.
But now I am six, I'm as clever as clever
So I think I'll be six now Forever and ever.
Ode to my Suit Pablo Neruda
Every morning, suit, you are waiting on a chair to be filled by my vanity, my love, my hope, my body. Still only half awake I leave the shower to shrug into your sleeves, my legs seek the hollow of your legs, and thus embraced by your unfailing loyalty I take my morning walk, work my way into my poetry; from my windows I see the things, men, women, events and struggles constantly shaping me, constantly confronting me, setting my hands to the task, opening my eyes, creasing my lips, and in the same way, suit, I am shaping you, poking out your elbows, wearing you threadbare, and so your life grows in the image of my own. In the wind you flap and hum as if you were my soul, in bad moments you cling to my bones, abandoned, at nighttime darkness and dream people with their phantoms your wings and mine. I wonder whether some day an enemy bullet will stain you with my blood, for then you would die with me, but perhaps it will be less dramatic, simple, and you will grow ill, suit, with me, with my body, and together we will be lowered into the earth. That's why every day I greet you with respect and then you embrace me and I forget you, because we are one being and shall be always in the wind, through the night, the streets and the struggle, one body, maybe, maybe, one day, still.
defining the magic Charles Bukowski
a good poem is like a cold beer when you need it, a good poem is a hot turkey sandwich when you’re hungry, a good poem is a gun when the mob corners you, a good poem is something that allows you to walk through the streets of death, a good poem can make death melt like hot butter, a good poem can frame agony and hang it on a wall, a good poem can let your feet touch China, a good poem can make a broken mind fly, a good poem can let you shake hands with Mozart, a good poem can let you shoot craps with the devil and win, a good poem can do almost anything, and most important a good poem knows when to stop.
Not Bad, Dad, Not Bad Jan Heller Levi
I think you are most yourself when you are swimming; slicing the water with each stroke, the funny way you breathe, your mouth cocked as though you're yawning.
You're neither fantastic nor miserable at getting from here to there. You wouldn't win any medals, Dad, but you wouldn't drown.
I think how different everything might have been had I judged your loving
like I judge your sidestroke, your butterfly, your Australian crawl.
But I always thought I was drowning in that icy ocean between us, I always thought you were moving too slowly to save me, When you were moving as fast as you can.
School Prayer Diane Ackerman In the name of the daybreak and the eyelids of morning and the wayfaring moon and the night when it departs,
I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace.
In the name of the sun and its mirrors and the day that embraces it and the cloud veils drawn over it and the uttermost night and the male and the female and the plants bursting with seed and the crowning seasons of the firefly and the apple,
I will honor all life —wherever and in whatever form it may dwell—on Earth my home, and in the mansions of the stars.
From A Song About Myself John Keats
There was a naughty boy, And a naughty boy was he, He ran away to Scotland The people for to see — Then he found That the ground Was as hard, That a yard Was as long, That a song Was as merry, That a cherry Was as red, That lead Was as weighty, That fourscore Was as eighty, That a door Was as wooden As in England — So he stood in his shoes And he wondered, He wondered, He stood in his Shoes and he wondered.
The Fairy School under the Loch By John Rice
The wind sings its gusty song. The bell rings its rusty ring. The underwater fairy children dive and swim through school gates. They do not get wet.
The waves flick their flashing spray. A school of fish wriggles its scaly way. The underwater fairy children learn their liquidy lessons. Their reading books are always dry.
The seal straighten in a stretchy mass. Teresa the Teacher flits and floats from class to class. The underwater fairy children count, play, sing and recite, their clothes not in the least bit damp.
The rocks creak in their cracking skin. A fairy boat drifts into a loch of time. The underwater fairy children lived, learned and left this life- their salty stories now dry as their cracked wings.
Today By Billy Collins
If ever there were a spring day so perfect, so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary's cage, indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight that you felt like taking
a hammer to the glass paperweight on the living room end table,
releasing the inhabitants from their snow-covered cottage
so they could walk out, holding hands and squinting
into this larger dome of blue and white, well, today is just that kind of day.
Toad Circus by Julia Story
The day after my toad circus the toads were all dead, crunchy and silent in their window well. I wanted to draw a doorway to walk through to get to the world of lilacs: purple, contagious green leaves and no movement but the steady invisible breathing of flowers. I knew I had to tell someone what I had done so I first walked to the park and stayed there until dusk, sitting on the glider or in the middle of the rusty and dangerous merry-go-round; I can’t remember which. When it was nearly dark I walked home, certain that they were worried and maybe even out looking for me. When I got there I saw them busy in the kitchen through the window, so I hid in the back yard until it was good and dark, a living thing on a swing set in the gloom, the attic in my head cracking open for the first time and I went in.
The Yawn
by Paul Blackburn
The black-haired girl
with the big
brown
eyes
on the Queens train coming
in to work, so
opens her mouth so beautifully
wide
in a ya-aawn, that
two stops after she has left the train
I have only to think of her and I
o-oh-aaaww-hm
wow !
Occasional Poem BY JACQUELINE WOODSON
Ms. Marcus says that an occasional poem is a poem written about something important or special that's gonna happen or already did.Think of a specific occasion, she says—and write about it.
Like what?! Lamont asks. He's all slouched down in his seat. I don't feel like writing about no occasion.
How about your birthday? Ms. Marcus says. What about it? Just a birthday. Comes in June and it ain't June, Lamont says. As a matter of fact, he says, it's January and it's snowing. Then his voice gets real low and he says And when it's January and all cold like this feels like June's a long, long ways away.
The whole class looks at Ms. Marcus. Some of the kids are nodding. Outside the sky looks like it's made out of metal and the cold, cold air is rattling the windowpanes and coming underneath them too.
I seen Lamont's coat. It's gray and the sleeves are too short. It's down but it looks like a lot of the feathers fell out a long time ago. Ms. Marcus got a nice coat. It's down too but real puffy so maybe when she's inside it she can't even tell January from June.
Then write about January, Ms. Marcus says, that's an occasion. But she looks a little bit sad when she says it Like she's sorry she ever brought the whole occasional poem thing up.
I was gonna write about Mama's funeral but Lamont and Ms. Marcus going back and forth zapped all the ideas from my head.
I guess them arguing on a Tuesday in January's an occasion So I guess this is an occasional poem.
Ars Poetica BY ARCHIBALD MACLEISH
A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit,
Dumb As old medallions to the thumb,
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—
A poem should be wordless As the flight of birds.
A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs,
Leaving, as the moon releases Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,
Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves, Memory by memory the mind—
A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs.
A poem should be equal to: Not true.
For all the history of grief An empty doorway and a maple leaf.
For love The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—
A poem should not mean But be.
“Days” Tony Mitton
Old Day, gold day, where did you go?
Over the skyline, sinking low. Into the arms of the waiting night to nestle myself in its dark delight.
New day, blue day, what will you bring?
Light in the sky and a song to sing. Sun bobs brightly up with the dawn, spreading warmth as the day is born.
“On Turning Ten”Billy Collins
The whole idea of it makes me feellike I'm coming down with something,something worse than any stomach acheor the headaches I get from reading in bad light--a kind of measles of the spirit,a mumps of the psyche,a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.
You tell me it is too early to be looking back,but that is because you have forgottenthe perfect simplicity of being oneand the beautiful complexity introduced by two.But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.At four I was an Arabian wizard.I could make myself invisibleby drinking a glass of milk a certain way.At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.
But now I am mostly at the windowwatching the late afternoon light.Back then it never fell so solemnlyagainst the side of my tree house,and my bicycle never leaned against the garageas it does today,all the dark blue speed drained out of it.
This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believethere was nothing under my skin but light.If you cut me I could shine.But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,I skin my knees. I bleed.
"If I Had Known" Mary Carolyn Davies
If I had known what trouble you were bearing; What griefs were in the silence of your face; I would have been more gentle, and more caring, And tried to give you gladness for a space. I would have brought more warmth into the place, If I had known.
If I had known what thoughts despairing drew you; (Why do we never try to understand?) I would have lent a little friendship to you, And slipped my hand within your hand, And made your stay more pleasant in the land, If I had known.
Autumn Kalidasa
The autumn comes, a maiden fair In slenderness and grace, With nodding rice-stems in her hair And lilies in her face. In flowers of grasses she is clad; And as she moves along, Birds greet her with their cooing glad Like bracelets' tinkling song.
A diadem adorns the night Of multitudinous stars; Her silken robe is white moonlight, Set free from cloudy bars; And on her face (the radiant moon) Bewitching smiles are shown: She seems a slender maid, who soon Will be a woman grown.
Over the rice-fields, laden plants Are shivering to the breeze; While in his brisk caresses dance The blossomed-burdened trees; He ruffles every lily-pond Where blossoms kiss and part, And stirs with lover's fancies fond The young man's eager heart.
Did I Miss Anything? Tom Wayman
Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here we sat with our hands folded on our desks in silence, for the full two hours
Everything. I gave an exam worth 40 percent of the grade for this term and assigned some reading due today on which I’m about to hand out a quiz worth 50 percent
Nothing. None of the content of this course has value or meaning Take as many days off as you like: any activities we undertake as a class I assure you will not matter either to you or me and are without purpose
Everything. A few minutes after we began last time a shaft of light suddenly descended and an angel or other heavenly being appeared and revealed to us what each woman or man must do to attain divine wisdom in this life and the hereafter This is the last time the class will meet before we disperse to bring the good news to all people on earth.
Nothing. When you are not present how could something significant occur?
Everything. Contained in this classroom is a microcosm of human experience assembled for you to query and examine and ponder This is not the only place such an opportunity has been gathered
but it was one place
And you weren’t here
Does Maude Have Friends? (A Poem in Fifteen Tweets) Raphael Bob-Waksberg
@RaphaelBW Does Marge have friends?
@RaphaelBW (a poem in fifteen tweets)
@RaphaelBW Who are Marge’s friends? Is Helen Lovejoy a friend? Sarah Wiggum? Agnes Skinner?
@RaphaelBW To whom does Marge spill her secrets over coffee on cold days? Who laughs at Marge’s jokes? Who knows Marge, truly and well?
@RaphaelBW Who tells Marge to leave the brute, knowing she won’t? “You don’t have to stay. You deserve so much more.”
@RaphaelBW Who, on a morning walk, sees a tall blue bush, texts a photo to Marge, “this made me think of you”? Surely not Lenny, or Kirk or Luann.
@RaphaelBW Did Marge mourn for Maude Flanders? Late nights, at the kitchen table, staring at her own hands. Is she haunted still by her absence?
@RaphaelBW Does she see in her late neighbor a cautionary tale? Seldom-remembered, semi-anonymous Maude — could this fate too befall Marge?
@RaphaelBW Perhaps, once at a summer barbecue, when both were still alive, Maude grabbed Marge’s hand under the table and held tight.
@RaphaelBW What prompted this sudden connection, this sudden expression of— what was it, warmth?
@RaphaelBW The two weren’t close— acquaintances, sure, had they ever even hugged?
@RaphaelBW And yet here they were, holding hands, silently, secretly, while their children shrieked and their husbands grilled the hot dogs.
@RaphaelBW One night, Marge couldn’t sleep, the linens, hung to dry in the yard, flapping in the wind with unprecedented accent.
@RaphaelBW Marge wandered into the night, a fleck of yellow in a blanket of white stars, and she felt, as she often did, alone.
@RaphaelBW Marge felt the sharp grass on her feet, the breeze on her face. Over the fence she saw Maude, pale as a sheet, her eyes wet with tears.
@RaphaelBW Marge looked to her— “Maude?” and Maude shook her head.
@RaphaelBW And Maude whispered this: “It’s not the calm before the storm that frightens me. It’s the calm that follows.”
We Wear the Mask BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask!
A Good Dog
Tail-wagging and leash-pulling as we lead her into her new home, let loose she runs from the front door, runs fast not about the house, wild, but out into the back. Excitement paused for manners, she uses the little dog's room that first sweet day, because She is a Good Dog.
Tail-wagging, window-fogging as we bring Santa's snow for wishing children, she's in my lap inside the truck, eager to breath the frozen air. But the window is up, repelling the cold, so she just follows passing lights that cut the pitch, because She is a Good Dog.
Tail-wagging and gums-bleeding as we survey: the crumpled garage door seams, bent from climbing paws, anxious teeth; the house door, licked soft and dug through; the door knob, dimpled from teeth that turned, opened. Even bloody, stump-toothed, she's smiling-glad we're home, because She is a Good Dog.
Tail-wagging and mouth-agape as she tries and fails to catch a soft- tossed treat, always trying, always missing. Sniffing out the lost treat, crunching, lapping up the pieces with her great pink tongue. I clap the thick, bassy drum of her sturdy ribs because She is a Good Dog
Tail-wagging and fur-kneaded as the baby, clambering, pulls ears, rolls down her haunch. Grayed white tuffs are loosed, thrown. Baby stumbles over her brown- freckled face, poking at her patient, kind eyes; she groans, rolls to expose her belly for scratching, because She is a Good Dog.
I clap her hollow ribs, Feel the bones, the spine. Her slow steps are less steady. We coax her to eat, and she does, mostly. She hears less or is more in- different. But she still comes when I call because She is a Good Dog.
She sees waiting dogs and leash-pulls, strong again one moment. But her tail remains limp. Lying, calm, the cruel-kind pink syringe drains and she breaths deep, rests her head, heavy, on my lap. I knead her because She was my Good Dog.
The Wounded Cupid. Song BY ANACREON TRANSLATED BY ROBERT HERRICK
Cupid as he lay among Roses, by a Bee was stung. Whereupon in anger flying To his Mother, said thus crying; Help! O help! your Boy’s a dying. And why, my pretty Lad, said she? Then blubbering, replied he, A winged Snake has bitten me, Which Country people call a Bee. At which she smil’d; then with her hairs And kisses drying up his tears: Alas! said she, my Wag! if this Such a pernicious torment is: Come tell me then, how great’s the smart Of those, thou woundest with thy Dart!
Cape Cod Pantoum Maria Nazos
Tonight you’re loaning Billy your car, a brand-new seal-gray Volkswagen Passat with four doors, though last week at 3 a.m., he stole your canoe, and sank it in the autumn sea, then swam ashore.
Tonight you’re lending Billy your car—it’s brand-new— and he’s a well-meaning, blue-eyed Byronic drinking man who last week, at 3 a.m., stole your beached canoe, and when it sank he blamed it on a dolphin.
A well-meaning, blue-eyed, Byronic, hard-drinking man whose phone calls you take, no matter the hour, who sank your canoe and blamed it on a dolphin, and the young man with him, whom the sea sadly devoured,
so you’ll always take Billy’s call, no matter the hour. Because, you sigh, his mother’s dying, too, and he’s drinking again. He’s no longer a young man (he’s sad and he’s drowning), and neither are you, and all friends sometimes sin.
Besides, you sigh, his mother’s dying, too, that’s why he’s drinking. She wasn’t a beauty—she came on to you long ago. And he’s not a young man; he’s drunk and he’s drowning. So you press the phone to your cheek, stare out the dark window.
Who hasn’t come on to you? (Who wasn’t lovely long ago?) (Even Billy did; his tragic need, his blank blue eyes.) You press the phone to cheek, stare out the dark window, and listen to him make a mess of our peaceful lives.
Now back in bed, we return to our disrupted romance. Although last week, at 3 a.m., he stole your canoe, you set a sinking man adrift in the sea of second chance: tonight you’ve loaned Billy your car again, brand-new.
"Leisure" is both celebratory and cautionary, a questioning and observation on the value of taking a rest. My poem is about my daughter and the frustrations of trying to get a child ready for school.
A short poem, "Death" says a lot in four lines, leaving me wondering about the inevitably of the end.
A poem advocating for Alzheimer's awareness, I note how effective it is at exploring presenting hope in the face of horror.
A discussion of the emotional shackles placed on boys, and how their release - through tears - is both freeing and unifying.
How does the spider experience the world? Is it possible that his experience is not unlike ours?
I read and briefly analyze Charles Simic's "The Infinite" for the anxiety and comfort the personified Infinite seems to give us.
I discuss how the selection and omission of imagery, grammar, titles, and stanzaic structure create meaning.
On this, the second episode of Quite Excellent, I read William Cullen Bryant's "Summer Wind" and consider young romance.
On this, the first episode of Quite Excellent, I read and share my thoughts on Billy Collins' "Introduction to Poetry," a poem concerned with the tortured relationship many students have with poetry.