Last week i did some waiting room duty for my sister who was having surgery. another sister was there with me. Mercy Hospital now has a new coffee shop right
next to the waiting room area. My sister remarked about the high cost of the coffee. I said thats why they call it starBUCKS (is that *$'s in TM?). Since i didn't have any caffeine in the previous 3 weeks and having had 2 cups
of the "Bold" Xmas blend, I found myself awake in the wee hours that night with the night owlies ( which if i made it up is a condition in which one wakes up and is unable to go back to sleep).
My thoughts restlessly came in and out of focus when i realized the Clapton song Cocaine (1st track on the Slowhand album) was wormlooping thru my brain, only "cocaine" was replaced by "caffeine":
Cocaine Lyrics
Artist(Band):Eric Clapton
by J. J. Cale
If you wanna hang out you've got to take her out; caffeine.
If you wanna get down, down on the ground; caffeine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; caffeine.
If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues; caffeine.
When your day is done and you wanna run; caffeine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; caffeine.
If your thing is gone and you wanna ride on; caffeine.
Don't forget this fact, you can't get it back; caffeine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; caffeine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; caffeine.
(Did Weird Al Yankovich already do that parody?)
Besides giving you an opportunity to worry about your health the night owlies provide you time to think of things to put on your blog. Remembering having read "One day in the life of Ivan Densonivich" in college it occurred to me to blog "one day in the life of art dunbar". Coming Soon to a Blog near you!
(One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a novel written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, originally published in November 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir. It is set in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s, and describes a single day for an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. Its appearance was an
extraordinary event in Soviet literary history—never before had such an account of "Stalinist repression" been openly distributed. ).
Only i thought i would use the format of one of my favorite Galway Kinnell poems .
MIDDLE OF THE WAY
1. I wake in the night,
An old ache in the shoulder blades.
I lie amazed under the trees
That creak a little in the dark,
The giant trees of the world.
I lie on earth the way
Flames lie in the woodpile,
Or as an imprint, in sperm, of what is to be.
I love the earth, and always
In its darknesses I am a stranger.
2. 6 A.M. Water frozen again. Melted it and made tea. Ate a
raw egg and the last orange. Refreshed by a long sleep. The
trail practically indistinguishable under 8' of snow. 9:30 A.M.
Snow up to my knees in places. Sweat begins freezing under
my shirt when I stop to rest. The woods are filled, anyway,
with the windy noise of the first streams. 10:30 A.M. The sun
at last. The snow starts to melt off the boughs at once,
falling with little ticking sounds. Mist clouds are lying in
the valleys. 11:45 A.M. Slow, glittering breakers roll in on the
beaches ten miles away, very blue and calm. Odd to see it
while sitting in snow. 12 noon. An inexplicable sense of joy,
as if some happy news had been transmitted to me directly,
bypassing the brain. 2 P.M. From the top of Gauldy I looked
back into Hebo valley. Castle Rock sticks into a cloud. A cool
breeze comes up from the valley, it is a fresh, earthly wind
and tastes of snow and trees. It is not like those transcendental
breezes that make the heart ache. It brings happiness. 2:30 P.M.
Lost the trail. A woodpecker watches me wade through the
snow trying to locate it. The sun has gone back of the trees.
3:10 P.M. Still hunting for the trail. Getting cold. From an
elevation I have an open view of the SE, a world of timberless,
white hills, rolling, weirdly wrinkled. Above them a pale
half moon. 3:45 P.M. Going on by map and compass. I saw
a deer a minute ago, he fled touching down every fifteen feet
Or so. 7:30 P.M. Made camp near the head of Alder Creek.
Trampled a bed into the snow and filled it with boughs.
Concocted a little fire in the darkness. Ate pork and beans.
A slug or two of whisky burnt my throat. The night very
clear. Very cold. That half moon is up there and a lot of stars
have come out among the treetops. The fire has fallen to coals.
3. The coals go out,
The last smoke weaves up
Losing itself in the stars.
This is my first night to lie
In the uncreating dark.
In the heart of a man
There sleeps a green worm
That has spun the heart about itself,
And that shall dream itself black wings
One day to break free into the beautiful black sky.
I leave my eyes open,
I lie here and forget our life,
All I see is we float out
Into the emptiness, among the great stars,
On this little vessel without lights.
I know that I love the day,
The sun on the mountain, the Pacific
Shiny and accomplishing itself in breakers,
But I know I live half alive in the world,
I know half my life belongs to the wild darkness.
GALWAY KINNELL
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Sicko
i'm sick of going to the doctors.( I wonder if there is a medicine for that). Everytime I think I have my last appointment and begin to think i can resume a "normal" life for awhile a Doctor suggests another test to "rule out" some remote disease or another which entails a lab test (with fasting of course) and 3 or 4 more appointments.
i've learned that i have a moderately servere case of peripheral neuropathy from an undetermined cause. my neurologist predicted i would be disabled within 10 years. there appears to be no cure though there are drugs with ugly side effects can mask the pain.
the doctor suggests getting as healthy as possible to delay the inevitable which i guess is what we all try anyway. i intend to try harder.
What is peripheral neuropathy?
"Peripheral neuropathy describes damage to the peripheral nervous
system, the vast communications network that transmits information
from the brain and spinal cord (the central nervous system) to every
other part of the body. Peripheral nerves also send sensory
information back to the brain and spinal cord, such as a message that
the feet are cold or a finger is burned. Damage to the peripheral
nervous system interferes with these vital connections. Like static on
a telephone line, peripheral neuropathy distorts and sometimes
interrupts messages between the brain and the rest of the body."
or put it another way, basically the nerves die and then the muscles atrophy.
it usually starts with the feet and ascends up the legs.
the hands are also often affected. in my case my feet have lost feeling
and the muscles in my ankles are atrophied. i often stumble already.
in short my feet hurt.
I think i will turn to poetry for healing vibrations- medicine has failed . it isn't
universal enough.
one of my favorite poets is Mary Oliver :
"An intense and joyful observer of the natural world, Oliver is often compared to Whitman and Thoreau.
Her poems are filled with imagery from her daily walks near her home in Provincetown, Massachusetts: shore birds, water snakes, the phases of the moon and humpback whales. Maxine Kumin calls Oliver "a patroller of wetlands in the same way that Thoreau was an inspector of snowstorms" and "an indefatigable guide to the natural world." "
and one of my favorite poems is Wild Geese :
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
i've learned that i have a moderately servere case of peripheral neuropathy from an undetermined cause. my neurologist predicted i would be disabled within 10 years. there appears to be no cure though there are drugs with ugly side effects can mask the pain.
the doctor suggests getting as healthy as possible to delay the inevitable which i guess is what we all try anyway. i intend to try harder.
What is peripheral neuropathy?
"Peripheral neuropathy describes damage to the peripheral nervous
system, the vast communications network that transmits information
from the brain and spinal cord (the central nervous system) to every
other part of the body. Peripheral nerves also send sensory
information back to the brain and spinal cord, such as a message that
the feet are cold or a finger is burned. Damage to the peripheral
nervous system interferes with these vital connections. Like static on
a telephone line, peripheral neuropathy distorts and sometimes
interrupts messages between the brain and the rest of the body."
or put it another way, basically the nerves die and then the muscles atrophy.
it usually starts with the feet and ascends up the legs.
the hands are also often affected. in my case my feet have lost feeling
and the muscles in my ankles are atrophied. i often stumble already.
in short my feet hurt.
I think i will turn to poetry for healing vibrations- medicine has failed . it isn't
universal enough.
one of my favorite poets is Mary Oliver :
"An intense and joyful observer of the natural world, Oliver is often compared to Whitman and Thoreau.
Her poems are filled with imagery from her daily walks near her home in Provincetown, Massachusetts: shore birds, water snakes, the phases of the moon and humpback whales. Maxine Kumin calls Oliver "a patroller of wetlands in the same way that Thoreau was an inspector of snowstorms" and "an indefatigable guide to the natural world." "
and one of my favorite poems is Wild Geese :
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
Sunday, November 25, 2007
gobsmacked
one cold and drizzly afternoon last week I decided to
spend the afternoon reading. I was sitting in the lazyboy
listening to music and perusing CLAPTON ( eric clapton's autobiography) when he really grabbed my attention by using the term "gobsmacked". the
dictionary states it is British slang meaning flabbergasted or being struck dumb with awe or amazement. The book is mostly the story of clapton's
recovery from drug and alcohol addiction with his love of music providing the staying power to pull him thru from
sucidial despair to a peacefull and happy family life. Besides being a successfull musician he founded a
drug and alcohol rehabilation center called Crossroads
in Antigua. After finishing that i read Into the Wild. I had
recently seen the movie which i was gobsmacked by.
It may be my favorite film of the year.
Robert Hass won the National Book Award for poetry .
Happiness
Because yesterday morning from the steamy window
we saw a pair of red foxes across the creek
eating the last windfall apples in the rain—
they looked up at us with their green eyes
long enough to symbolize the wakefulness of living things
and then went back to eating—
and because this morning
when she went into the gazebo with her black pen and yellow pad
to coax an inquisitive soul
from what she thinks of as the reluctance of matter,
I drove into town to drink tea in the café
and write notes in a journal—mist rose from the bay
like the luminous and indefinite aspect of intention,
and a small flock of tundra swans
for the second winter in a row was feeding on new grass
in the soaked fields; they symbolize mystery, I suppose,
they are also called whistling swans, are very white,
and their eyes are black—
and because the tea steamed in front of me,
and the notebook, turned to a new page,
was blank except for the faint idea of order,
I wrote: happiness! It is December, very cold,
we woke early this morning,
and lay in bed kissing,
our eyes squinched up like bats.
On a more personal note my neurologist's tests showed nothing conclusive but
ruled out brain problems. he believes the seizure was caused by pacemaker failure
but he said he could not prove it. He said I can quit the anti-seizure drugs and apply
for exception to the 6 months legal limitation of no driving. However he said the application
would probably take several months to process. So I probably won't be driving till march.
spend the afternoon reading. I was sitting in the lazyboy
listening to music and perusing CLAPTON ( eric clapton's autobiography) when he really grabbed my attention by using the term "gobsmacked". the
dictionary states it is British slang meaning flabbergasted or being struck dumb with awe or amazement. The book is mostly the story of clapton's
recovery from drug and alcohol addiction with his love of music providing the staying power to pull him thru from
sucidial despair to a peacefull and happy family life. Besides being a successfull musician he founded a
drug and alcohol rehabilation center called Crossroads
in Antigua. After finishing that i read Into the Wild. I had
recently seen the movie which i was gobsmacked by.
It may be my favorite film of the year.
Robert Hass won the National Book Award for poetry .
Happiness
Because yesterday morning from the steamy window
we saw a pair of red foxes across the creek
eating the last windfall apples in the rain—
they looked up at us with their green eyes
long enough to symbolize the wakefulness of living things
and then went back to eating—
and because this morning
when she went into the gazebo with her black pen and yellow pad
to coax an inquisitive soul
from what she thinks of as the reluctance of matter,
I drove into town to drink tea in the café
and write notes in a journal—mist rose from the bay
like the luminous and indefinite aspect of intention,
and a small flock of tundra swans
for the second winter in a row was feeding on new grass
in the soaked fields; they symbolize mystery, I suppose,
they are also called whistling swans, are very white,
and their eyes are black—
and because the tea steamed in front of me,
and the notebook, turned to a new page,
was blank except for the faint idea of order,
I wrote: happiness! It is December, very cold,
we woke early this morning,
and lay in bed kissing,
our eyes squinched up like bats.
On a more personal note my neurologist's tests showed nothing conclusive but
ruled out brain problems. he believes the seizure was caused by pacemaker failure
but he said he could not prove it. He said I can quit the anti-seizure drugs and apply
for exception to the 6 months legal limitation of no driving. However he said the application
would probably take several months to process. So I probably won't be driving till march.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
my neurologist said....
my neurologist said seizure was most probably heart related.
If caused by pace-maker we will probably
never know. He cut back anti-seizure med dosage
and thinks it will lessen some side effects.
He suggests two more tests
and if they show brain normal then he would
take me off anti-seizure med and send me back
to heart doctors ( from whom i'm still awaiting
results of tests ).
Iowa law says if you have seizure and pass out
you must go 6 months without another before you can drive again.
If cause is determined then you can apply for
exception. However the application process takes
several months so bottom line is i probably won't be
able to drive until March.
News so discouraging that it gave me a bad cold and
put me out of commision for a few days.
not that it has anything to do with anything but i 've
always liked the Mad Gardener's Song by Lewis Carroll
...
He thought he saw a Argument
That proved he was the Pope:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
'A fact so dread,' he faintly said,
'Extinguishes all hope!'
-- Lewis Carroll
the subject of this post "my neurologist said..." reminds me
of a Hal Sirowitz poem. Here are some samples:
Hal Sirowitz
Don't Talk Back
(from My Therapist Said)
There are two sides to every story,
Mother said, but since I'm the adult
& you're the child, only my side counts.
Yours will count, too, one of these days,
but right now your job is to listen,
so when it's your turn to be a parent
& your child tries to interrupt youwhile you're speaking, you'll know what to say.
Psychology Books
(from My Therapist Said)
Some therapists don't let their patients read Freud, my therapist said. But you can read as many of his books as you like. You can read Horney, Adler, & Jung, too. I read some of their books. I'm not afraid of the competition. They can never be as good as I am at telling you what you need to do. They never knew you.
Girlfriend Over for Dinner
(from Mother Said)
She's very pretty, Mother said, but she's going to leave you.
She was talking about her future, & you weren't in it, so I asked her to tell it to me again, just in case she made a mistake & left you out, but you weren't in the second version either.
She talked about going away to school, & when I asked her what she was planning to bring with her, she talked about her coat, her boots, but she never mentioned you.She says she's fond of you, but people say that about puppies they're about to give away.
If caused by pace-maker we will probably
never know. He cut back anti-seizure med dosage
and thinks it will lessen some side effects.
He suggests two more tests
and if they show brain normal then he would
take me off anti-seizure med and send me back
to heart doctors ( from whom i'm still awaiting
results of tests ).
Iowa law says if you have seizure and pass out
you must go 6 months without another before you can drive again.
If cause is determined then you can apply for
exception. However the application process takes
several months so bottom line is i probably won't be
able to drive until March.
News so discouraging that it gave me a bad cold and
put me out of commision for a few days.
not that it has anything to do with anything but i 've
always liked the Mad Gardener's Song by Lewis Carroll
...
He thought he saw a Argument
That proved he was the Pope:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
'A fact so dread,' he faintly said,
'Extinguishes all hope!'
-- Lewis Carroll
the subject of this post "my neurologist said..." reminds me
of a Hal Sirowitz poem. Here are some samples:
Hal Sirowitz
Don't Talk Back
(from My Therapist Said)
There are two sides to every story,
Mother said, but since I'm the adult
& you're the child, only my side counts.
Yours will count, too, one of these days,
but right now your job is to listen,
so when it's your turn to be a parent
& your child tries to interrupt youwhile you're speaking, you'll know what to say.
Psychology Books
(from My Therapist Said)
Some therapists don't let their patients read Freud, my therapist said. But you can read as many of his books as you like. You can read Horney, Adler, & Jung, too. I read some of their books. I'm not afraid of the competition. They can never be as good as I am at telling you what you need to do. They never knew you.
Girlfriend Over for Dinner
(from Mother Said)
She's very pretty, Mother said, but she's going to leave you.
She was talking about her future, & you weren't in it, so I asked her to tell it to me again, just in case she made a mistake & left you out, but you weren't in the second version either.
She talked about going away to school, & when I asked her what she was planning to bring with her, she talked about her coat, her boots, but she never mentioned you.She says she's fond of you, but people say that about puppies they're about to give away.
Monday, October 22, 2007
retirement is great
retirement is great: you can worry obsessively about all your health issues without
distraction. nothing new to report. still awaiting results of tests and waiting to see neurologist.
i may be becoming a bit of a pain but so far i haven't got tired of replying to anyone who says " gotta run, i've gotta go to work" . "oh, i don't have to go today" .
I finished an excellent book last week. I enjoyed it alot and i may not have been the only one who liked it since it won the Nat'l Book award last year:
by Richard Powers
The Echo Maker
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
About the Book
Set in Nebraska during the Platte River’s massive spring migrations, this novel explores the power and limits of human intelligence.
About the Author
Richard Powers is the author of eight previous novels, including Operation Wandering Soul, which was a nominated for a National Book Award in 1993. He has received numerous honors including a MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Historical Fiction. He lives in Illinois.
Not everyone liked it i guess. here is an excerpt from a not so glowing review in the NATION:
Richard Powers has a lot of ideas: complex, articulate, deeply informed ideas about artificial intelligence, virtual reality, relativity, genetics, music and much more. But poems, as Mallarmé told Degas, are not made of ideas, and neither are novels. The Echo Maker will tell you a great deal about neuroscience, environmental degradation and the migratory patterns of the sandhill crane, but like Powers's other novels, it won't tell you much about what its laboriously accumulated information and elaborately constructed concepts have to do with what it means to be alive at a particular time and place, or what it feels like. And that, crudely put, is what novels are for. .....
distraction. nothing new to report. still awaiting results of tests and waiting to see neurologist.
i may be becoming a bit of a pain but so far i haven't got tired of replying to anyone who says " gotta run, i've gotta go to work" . "oh, i don't have to go today" .
I finished an excellent book last week. I enjoyed it alot and i may not have been the only one who liked it since it won the Nat'l Book award last year:
by Richard Powers
The Echo Maker
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
About the Book
Set in Nebraska during the Platte River’s massive spring migrations, this novel explores the power and limits of human intelligence.
About the Author
Richard Powers is the author of eight previous novels, including Operation Wandering Soul, which was a nominated for a National Book Award in 1993. He has received numerous honors including a MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Historical Fiction. He lives in Illinois.
Not everyone liked it i guess. here is an excerpt from a not so glowing review in the NATION:
Richard Powers has a lot of ideas: complex, articulate, deeply informed ideas about artificial intelligence, virtual reality, relativity, genetics, music and much more. But poems, as Mallarmé told Degas, are not made of ideas, and neither are novels. The Echo Maker will tell you a great deal about neuroscience, environmental degradation and the migratory patterns of the sandhill crane, but like Powers's other novels, it won't tell you much about what its laboriously accumulated information and elaborately constructed concepts have to do with what it means to be alive at a particular time and place, or what it feels like. And that, crudely put, is what novels are for. .....
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Thoughts on turning 60
i don't consider it a great accomplishment. millions do it.
It just reminds me of the old days which seem to keep getting better.
When asked when my birthday was I once thought it clever to reply
that it was the day before Friedrich Nietzsche's so every October 15th
I would remember my birthday was the day before. Thus employing the
logic of one of my favorite grooks on Timing Toast by Piet Hein:
TIMING TOAST
Grook on how to char for yourself
There's an art to knowing when.
Never try to guess.
Toast until it smokes and then
twenty seconds less.
(A grook ("gruk" in Danish) is a form of short aphoristic poem. It was invented by the Danish poet and scientist Piet Hein. He wrote over 7,000 of them, most in Danish or
English, published in 20 volumes. Some say that the name is short for "GRin & sUK" ("laugh & sigh" in Danish), but Piet Hein said he felt that the word had come out of thin
air. His gruks first started to appear in the daily newspaper "Politiken" shortly after the Nazi Occupation in April 1940 under the signature Kumbel Kumbell. The poems were
meant as a spirit-building, yet slightly coded form of passive resistance against Nazi occupation during World War II. The grook are characterized by irony, paradox, brevity,
precise use of language, sophisticated rhythms and rhymes and often satiric nature.)
Speaking of the 60's on my birthday we saw the nostalgic musical film "Across the Universe".
Sort of like HAIR only with all Beatles music. I really enjoyed it though it brought back some
painful memories of when it seemed "events were in the saddle and ride mankind" (Emerson)
and Yeats "Second Coming" was truer than ever :
...
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand...
It just reminds me of the old days which seem to keep getting better.
When asked when my birthday was I once thought it clever to reply
that it was the day before Friedrich Nietzsche's so every October 15th
I would remember my birthday was the day before. Thus employing the
logic of one of my favorite grooks on Timing Toast by Piet Hein:
TIMING TOAST
Grook on how to char for yourself
There's an art to knowing when.
Never try to guess.
Toast until it smokes and then
twenty seconds less.
(A grook ("gruk" in Danish) is a form of short aphoristic poem. It was invented by the Danish poet and scientist Piet Hein. He wrote over 7,000 of them, most in Danish or
English, published in 20 volumes. Some say that the name is short for "GRin & sUK" ("laugh & sigh" in Danish), but Piet Hein said he felt that the word had come out of thin
air. His gruks first started to appear in the daily newspaper "Politiken" shortly after the Nazi Occupation in April 1940 under the signature Kumbel Kumbell. The poems were
meant as a spirit-building, yet slightly coded form of passive resistance against Nazi occupation during World War II. The grook are characterized by irony, paradox, brevity,
precise use of language, sophisticated rhythms and rhymes and often satiric nature.)
Speaking of the 60's on my birthday we saw the nostalgic musical film "Across the Universe".
Sort of like HAIR only with all Beatles music. I really enjoyed it though it brought back some
painful memories of when it seemed "events were in the saddle and ride mankind" (Emerson)
and Yeats "Second Coming" was truer than ever :
...
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand...
Friday, October 12, 2007
doing ok
new pacemaker seems to be working ok. i'll go over to fitness center today and give it a test drive around the block.
the National Book Award nominations were announced yesterday. David Kirby was nominated in Poetry. He is a poet i think is noteworthy. The other nominees were:
Poetry
Linda Gregerson, Magnetic North (Houghton Mifflin Company)
Robert Hass, Time and Materials (Ecco/HarperCollins)
David Kirby, The House on Boulevard St. (Louisiana State University Press)
Stanley Plumly, Old Heart (W.W. Norton & Company)
Ellen Bryant Voigt, Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006 (W.W. Norton & Company)
here is a sample :
Broken Promises
By David Kirby
I have met them in dark alleys, limping and one-armed;
I have seem them playing cards under a single light-bulb
and tried to join in, but they refused me rudely,
knowing I would only let them win.
I have seen them in the foyers of theaters,
coming back late from the interval
long after the others have taken their seats,
and in deserted shopping malls late at night,
peering at things they can never buy,
and I have found them wandering
in a wood where I too have wandered.
This morning I caught one;
small and stupid, too slow to get away,
it was only a promise I had made to myself once
and then forgot, but it screamed and kicked at me
and ran to join the others, who looked at me with reproach
in their long, sad faces.
When I drew near them, they scurried away,
even though they will sleep in my yard tonight.
I hate them for their ingratitude,
I who have kept countless promises,
as dead now as Shakespeare's children.
"You bastards," I scream,
"you have to love me—I gave you life!"
David Kirby, "Broken Promises" from Big-Leg Music (Washington, DC: Orchises Press, 1995).
the National Book Award nominations were announced yesterday. David Kirby was nominated in Poetry. He is a poet i think is noteworthy. The other nominees were:
Poetry
Linda Gregerson, Magnetic North (Houghton Mifflin Company)
Robert Hass, Time and Materials (Ecco/HarperCollins)
David Kirby, The House on Boulevard St. (Louisiana State University Press)
Stanley Plumly, Old Heart (W.W. Norton & Company)
Ellen Bryant Voigt, Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006 (W.W. Norton & Company)
here is a sample :
Broken Promises
By David Kirby
I have met them in dark alleys, limping and one-armed;
I have seem them playing cards under a single light-bulb
and tried to join in, but they refused me rudely,
knowing I would only let them win.
I have seen them in the foyers of theaters,
coming back late from the interval
long after the others have taken their seats,
and in deserted shopping malls late at night,
peering at things they can never buy,
and I have found them wandering
in a wood where I too have wandered.
This morning I caught one;
small and stupid, too slow to get away,
it was only a promise I had made to myself once
and then forgot, but it screamed and kicked at me
and ran to join the others, who looked at me with reproach
in their long, sad faces.
When I drew near them, they scurried away,
even though they will sleep in my yard tonight.
I hate them for their ingratitude,
I who have kept countless promises,
as dead now as Shakespeare's children.
"You bastards," I scream,
"you have to love me—I gave you life!"
David Kirby, "Broken Promises" from Big-Leg Music (Washington, DC: Orchises Press, 1995).
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