Poem of the Day movies/tv

[spiralstairs]

Ah

 

by Leonard Nathan

 

Through an open window of late summer evening

a woman cries, Ah-ah-AH!

 

Neighbors pause, blush perhaps, then go on

with their homely chores, smiling to themselves.

 

What do you do with thisâ€â€another’s shameless,

lonely ecstasy? Or your own? I put

 

a tape of Mozart on to cover our confusion.

[ConGregation]

It speaks to me, man! It speaks to my soul!

 

 

 

 

[spiralstairs]

And one more for today before I head off to work...

 

* The Irish Space Program by David Berman

 

The day was hot and it was not cold.

He sat by a stream east of the trees,

the very picture of invisible labor

in the old price ranges of folklore,

like a hermit in a romantic ballad.

I guessed him dreaming of unnoticed things

or unnoticed aspects of noticed things

in that meadow whose fundamental beauty

was commensurate with its uselessness

as was, so often was, the case.

It was the wonderful overgrown field,

ever-redolent of an abandoned stage

where I had written "Death Rents A Flower"

and "Reactions From A Snowbound Academy"

the year before. Finding it occupied

I continued down the shabby road

past the barn that seemed to hide things

not worth finding. There was a waterlogged

tavern door lying flat on its back

in the grass. With a stick I engraved

curse words on the surface of a forest pool.

Oh why should I lie to you! I was desperately

unhappy. I could hardly believe how

uncomfortable my clothes had become.

Was I to return to the wobbling candlelight

of the inn to gamble for nightingales

with west-country earls? These forests

were just voids with bears inside.

I could not have felt more harrassed

if it had been raining carrots.

I turned on my heels and headed back,

determined to eject that hermit from

my thinking spot. Hatred came flipping

down my forearms. Any refusal would be met

with super-refusal. It was not for nothing

that I called my hands the Wild Fives.

But upon returning, I found my pastoral arena

depopulated once again. I took a seat and

turned an ear to the birds inside the sky.

So only ten bad minutes had been appended

to my life. Leaves fell in soft corkscrews.

A lone rabbit hopped by.

The day was hot and it was not cold.

[spiralstairs]

Poem of the Day, Volume III.

 

Another by the great David Berman:

 

The Spine of the Snowman

 

On the moon, an old caretaker in faded clothes is holed up in his

pressurized cabin. The fireplace is crackling, casting sparks onto the

instrument panel. His eyes are flickering over the earth,

 

looking for Illinois,

 

looking for his hometown, Gnarled Heritage,

until his sight is caught in its chimneys and frosted aerials.

 

 

He thinks back on the jewler's son who skated the pond

behind his house, and the local supermarket with aisles

that curved off like country roads.

 

 

Yesterday the robot had been asking him about snowmen.

He asked if they had minds.

No, the caretaker said, but he'd seen one

that had a raccoon burrowed up inside the head.

 

 

"Most had a carrot nose, some coal, butons, and twigs for arms,

but others were more complex.

Once they started to melt, things would rise up

from inside the body. Maybe a gourd, which was an organ,

or a long knobbed stick, which was the spine of the snowman."

 

 

The robot shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

[spiralstairs]

Not a poem, but a really good short story nonetheless:

 

...I turned around and called out "everything you said was wrong." It echoed through the subdivision. We made it to the party. There was a bonfire. Two San Angelo boys with crew cuts and black turtle necks watched me as I approached, pulled a burning log out of the fire and lit my cigarette. Their names were Jody and Todd. Very naive guys. Their turtle necks were freaking me out. I told them Glen Campbell was an airhead. They wanted to know why. They watched as I challenged Alexa as to who could firewalk longer. We took our shoes and socks off. I stuck my left foot all the way in and held it there three full seconds. There was a fat girl drinking fuzzy navel wine coolers. Jody and Todd were trying to make it with her but they were such Richie Cunninghams about it. I talked to them about the modern condition. About how you're always in a place and someone says something gloomy, someone else says "knock on wood" and you look around and all you can find is plastic and metal in your immediate vicinity. That, my boys, is the modern condition, I said. They nodded, and they stared down into Natural Light cans.

There was a dude in a Jason mask sitting on the other side of the fire with his girlfriend. Hey Jason why'd you do it, I said. He didn't say anything. I always thought you framed Michael Myers, I said, joking. He just stared through the hockey mask. Someone put on some Mexican Music. I said to Jody and Todd, How come Mexican music is so fast but Mexicans are so slow? They laughed and looked at each other. Jody said, Everybody back home in Angelo makes fun of Mexicans but how come nobody does down here. I chopped at the log with a burning stick. You see, I said, the log is trying to hold itself together. The log doesn't want to burn. It's freaking out. This a bad night for this log.

[spiralstairs]

One in the Afternoon

 

by Franz Wright

 

Unemployed, you take a walk.

At an empty intersection

you stop to look both ways as you were taught.

An old delusion coming over you.

The wind blows through the leaves.

Edited December 16, 2004 by spiralstairs

[spiralstairs]

Sudden Opera

 

by Frank Stafford

 

In Arkansas the liquor costs

The wind lifts a finger

And that is all

 

You look over your shoulder

When you have a chance

Your bottle is empty

 

If I could go somewhere

I would go

where the music doesn't have knuckles

And the dancers don't wear boots

 

I'll never leave here

The creeks are so cold and solo

 

My tie-rack is a convent

The pool hall is closed