NaPoWriMo - day twenty nine

choir

standing on the bleachers,

getting ready to sing,

my youngest son looks out

at the gathered crowd,

searching for me

while i try to catch his attention

to let him know i am here.

his eyes lock onto my eyes

locking onto his eyes

and a smile brightens his face.

he waves eagerly

as he sees me

seeing him.

was i like that as a boy?

i don’t remember.

all i know is my son

will know my eyes are on him,

he brings me great joy,

his smile is my smile.

i will be this father:

he will walk in the knowledge

that he blesses me.

i will bless him

with both hands.

i will bless him

with words of life.

i will bless him

with joy, and he will know

he is my song.

Monday by Billy Collins - NPM29

The birds are in their trees,
the toast is in the toaster,
and the poets are at their windows.

They are at their windows
in every section of the tangerine of earth-
the Chinese poets looking up at the moon,
the American poets gazing out
at the pink and blue ribbons of sunrise.

The clerks are at their desks,
the miners are down in their mines,
and the poets are looking out their windows
maybe with a cigarette, a cup of tea,
and maybe a flannel shirt or bathrobe is involved.

The proofreaders are playing the ping-pong
game of proofreading,
glancing back and forth from page to page,
the chefs are dicing celery and potatoes,
and the poets are at their windows
because it is their job for which
they are paid nothing every Friday afternoon.

Which window it hardly seems to matter
though many have a favorite,
for there is always something to see-
a bird grasping a thin branch,
the headlight of a taxi rounding a corner,
those two boys in wool caps angling across the street.

The fishermen bob in their boats,
the linemen climb their round poles,
the barbers wait by their mirrors and chairs,
and the poets continue to stare
at the cracked birdbath or a limb knocked down by the wind.

By now, it should go without saying
that what the oven is to the baker
and the berry-stained blouse to the dry cleaner,
so the window is to the poet.

Just think-
before the invention of the window,
the poets would have had to put on a jacket
and a winter hat to go outside
or remain indoors with only a wall to stare at.

And when I say a wall,
I do not mean a wall with striped wallpaper
and a sketch of a cow in a frame.

I mean a cold wall of fieldstones,
the wall of the medieval sonnet,
the original woman's heart of stone,
the stone caught in the throat of her poet-lover.

Collins, Billy "Monday" The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems. New York: Random House, 2005. 7-8.

NaPoWriMo - day twenty eight

gathering

and so we sit and speak of poetry

sipping sherry and innis & gunn

we take turns to read various scribblings

talk about intention and attention

speak of wounds and hope and struggle

opine about the uses of poetry

we live here in this shared language

or the desire for shared language

the rhythm of words and how they connect

words to words and poets to poets

spirits and bodies and hearts

poetry is a way of saying things

you cannot say in any other way

one of us says, and we all agree

with friends only it is possible to be this direct

with friends only is it possible to be this hopeful

perhaps we are even romantic

these lovers of words are my friends

The Introduction by Billy Collins - NPM28

I don’t think this next poem
needs any introduction-
it’s best to let the work speak for itself.

Maybe I should just mention
that whenever I use the word five,
I’m referring to that group of Russian composers
who came to be known as “The Five,”
Balakirev, Moussorgsky, Borodin–-that crowd.

Oh--and Hypsicles was a Greek astronomer.
He did something with the circle.

That’s about it, but for the record,
“Grimké” is Angelina Emily Grimké, the abolitionist.
“Imroz” is that little island near the Dardanelles.
‘Monad”--well, you all know what a monad is.

There could be a little problem
with mastaba, which is one of those Egyptian
above-ground sepulchers, sort of brick and limestone.

And you’re all familiar with helminthology?
It’s the science of worms.

Oh, and you will recall that Phoebe Mozee
is the real name of Annie Oakley.

Other than that, everything should be obvious.
Wagga Wagga is in New South Wales.
Rhyolite is that soft volcanic rock.
What else?
Yes, meranti is a type of timber, in tropical Asia I think,
and Rahway is just Rahway, New Jersey.

The rest of the poem should be clear.
I’ll just read it and let it speak for itself.

It’s about the time I went picking wild strawberries.

It’s called “Picking Wild Strawberries.”

Collins, Billy "The Introduction" The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems. New York: Random House, 2005. 61-2.

NaPoWriMo - day twenty seven

(talking)

i walked through the door

and she was already talking.

not a stream of words

but a torrent, a wave.

she just kept talking,

drowning me in sound -

a wall of noise -

a battering ram

against my thoughts

in this previously

quiet moment

non-stop talking

as if desperate

to fill the spaces

with something,

anything but

silence, talking

in circles, the same

introductions, the same

invocations unchanging

rhythm of the same phrases

lurching back and forth.

the talking continues

even now at home

as she kneels

to say her prayers

unwilling to receive

the peace, nothing

in her mouth
but her own

unceasing

tongues.