a winter solstice poem (still under construction)

new books arrived in the laundry room
(my wife lets me do laundry more often since I retired)

German novels, African American history,
Native American languages, British plays -
I thumb through all the new additions,

while the whites wash and the colors dry. 
An eclectic collection, well kept (I can tell) and
carefully read by a conscientious reader,

perhaps a tenant, now departed, her books
abandoned, left behind to testify
on her (or his) behalf.  And launderers

like me now benefit from such largesse.
I thumb through them all,
and wonder will my volumes end up here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ModPo essay #4: Prepositions and Infinitives: A Mayer Experimental and Randomized Index

Image
to a fleeting moment of awe and dread to a world that’s paranoid… to alight and pollinate-- to assimilate 20th century ideas To attain the final, greatest goal? to avert the difficult question. To be denied, too pure to not be sure To be seduced by the appetites and desires to break the chains of sin and immorality. To bring us to this time and place? To call my father’s gods, subdue To choose one is to choose them both: to close my eyes to come into existence, to survive to convert filth in the atmosphere to correct the incorrection - to dance to; but I fake it, trying to stay in step, to desire your company To earn by birth what we had been endowed. to ease their conscience – to escape the bonds of slavery mentality, to everything’s reality. To glory and to honor, let not the fleeting summer’s wrath To God, to plead for strength to understand to grow, to learn all, to comprehend To guide, to entertain, and to enthuse. To heal itself, be born anew. To help us in our need…” to integrat...
Read more

ModPo essay #1: Emily Dickinson's Initiation Rite of Passage

I t aste a liquor never brewed (214) by  Emily Dickinson I taste a liquor never brewed –  From Tankards scooped in Pearl –  Not all the Frankfort Berries Yield such an Alcohol! Inebriate of air – am I –  And Debauchee of Dew –  Reeling – thro' endless summer days –  From inns of molten Blue –  When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee Out of the Foxglove's door –  When Butterflies – renounce their "drams" –  I shall but drink the more! Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats –  And Saints – to windows run –  To see the little Tippler Leaning against the – Sun! The central theme of this poem is initiation. It is an initiation into a special order. And it is an on-going initiation that lasts a lifetime. The idea of initiation is introduced metaphorically in the first stanza’s first two lines, but it is a well-hidden metaphor. Close examination ...
Read more

High school poems - Summer, 1973

Notes from Governor’s School ( the Winston-Salem series ) Part 1. Area One – propaganda about my special interests to narrow my mind to close my eyes to limit my perspective Area Three – “take a stroll through your mind, sometime” do you believe what you find? do you find it at all? do you find any of it? can you cope with your giftedness and or your talentedness? Area Two – to assimilate 20 th century ideas (little do they realize the 20 th century is 73 years old) to replace outmoded values with spanking fresh 20 th century ones (little do they realize the 20 th century has only 23 years until it is outmoded itself) to integrate Area 1 with Area 3 and completely blow your mind. Part 2.  hypnosis is a state of mind – as is Governor’s School – a figment of the imagination but a pigment of the realization that everything is relative – relative to the concrete & relative to the abstract & relative to the irrelevant. The contemporary view of everything is merely, vaguely, re...
Read more