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A Poem by Robert Frost

john baker — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:40:10 +0000

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Robert Frost (1874–1963).

A Poem by Stephen Dunn

john baker — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:04:41 +0000

If a Clown
by Stephen Dunn

If a clown came out of the woods,

a standard-looking clown with oversized

polka-dot clothes, floppy shoes,

a red, bulbous nose, and you saw him

on the edge of your property,

there’d be nothing funny about that,

would there? A bear might be preferable,

especially if black and berry-driven.

And if this clown began waving his hands

with those big white gloves

that clowns wear, and you realized

he wanted your attention, had something

apparently urgent to tell you,

would you pivot and run from him,

or stay put, as my friend did, who seemed

to understand here was a clown

who didn’t know where he was,

a clown without a context?

What could be sadder, my friend thought,

than a clown in need of a context?

If then the clown said to you

that he was on his way to a kid’s

birthday party, his car had broken down,

and he needed a ride, would you give

him one? Or would the connection

between the comic and the appalling,

as it pertained to clowns, be suddenly so clear

that you’d be paralyzed by it?

And if you were the clown, and my friend

hesitated, as he did, would you make

a sad face, and with an enormous finger

wipe away an imaginary tear? How far

would you trust your art? I can tell you

it worked. Most of the guests had gone

when my friend and the clown drove up,

and the family was angry. But the clown

twisted a balloon into the shape of a bird

and gave it to the kid, who smiled,

let it rise to the ceiling. If you were the kid,

the birthday boy, what from then on

would be your relationship with disappointment?

With joy? Whom would you blame or extoll?

Published in The New Yorker, 24th August 2009.
This is the link to Stephen Dunn’s Site.

A Poem by Julius Chingono

john baker — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:47:55 +0000

AS I GO
My pot is an old paint container
I do not know
who bought it
I do not know
whose house it decorated
I picked up the empty tin
in Cemetery Lane.
My lamp, a paraffin lamp
is an empty 280ml bottle
labelled 40 per cent alcohol
I picked up the bottle in a trash bin.
My cup
is an old jam tin
I do not know who enjoyed the sweetness
I found the tin
in a storm-water drain.
My plate is a motor car hub-cap cover
I do not know
whose car it belonged to
I found a boy wheeling it, playing with it
My house is built
from plastic over cardboard
I found the plastic being blown by the wind
It’s simple
I pick up my life
as I go.

A Poem by Michael Donaghy

john baker — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:23:14 +0000

Irena of Alexandria
by Michael Donaghy

Creator, thank You for humbling me.
Creator, who twice empowered me to change
a jackal to a saucer of milk,
a cloud of gnats into a chandelier,
and once, before the emperor’s astrologers,
a nice distinction into an accordion,
and back again, thank You
for choosing Irena to eclipse me.

She changed a loaf of bread into a loaf of bread,
caused a river to flow downstream,
left the leper to limp home grinning and leprous,
because, the bishops say, Your will burns
bright about her as a flame about a wick.

Thank You, Creator, for taking the crowds away.
Not even the blind come here now.
I have one bowl, a stream too cold to squat in,
and the patience of a saint. Peace be,
in the meantime, upon her. And youth.
May sparrows continue to litter her shoulders,
children carpet her footsteps in lavender,
and may her martyrdom be beautiful and slow.

Colm Tóibín reproduced this poem in Brick Magazine, where he describes how it came into his hands. Michael Donaghy died in 2004 at the age of fifty. You can listen to him reading some of his poems at The Poetry Archive.

A Poem from Jack Gilbert

john baker — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:26:28 +0000

Failing and Flying
by Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Jack Gilbert is the author of Transgressions: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2006), Refusing Heaven (2005), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and The Great Fires: Poems 1982-1992 (1996).

Autumn

john baker — Fri, 29 May 2009 10:35:11 +0000

Autumn

A touch of cold in the Autumn night -

I walked abroad,

And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge

Like a red-faced farmer.

I did not stop to speak, but nodded;

And round about were the wistful stars

With white faces like town children.

TE Hulme (1912)

Mrs McCullers, I love you.

john baker — Sat, 02 May 2009 07:46:27 +0000

Margarita G. Smith, the sister of Carson McCullers, remembers “best one evening at a university lecture. After she had recited Stone Is Not Stone in her gentle Southern voice, there was a long silence. Then suddenly a young student stood up and said, ‘Mrs McCullers, I love you.’

Stone Is Not Stone
There was a time when stone was stone
And a face on the street was a finished face.
Between the Thing, myself and God alone
There was an instant symmetry.
Since you have altered all my world this trinity is twisted:

Stone is not stone
And faces like the fractioned characters in dreams are incomplete
Until in the child’s inchoate face
I recognize your exiled eyes.
The soldier climbs the glaring stair leaving your shadow.
Tonight, this torn room sleeps
Beneath the starlight bent by you.

A Poem by Charles Bukowski

john baker — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 11:53:40 +0000

thoughts on being 71

having worn life like a red
flower,
I have reached here,
sitting in slippers and shorts while
listening to
Ravel.
time for a good cigar.
I note the wedding ring on one of
my fingers as I light
up.

also,
it’s better now, death is closer,
I no longer have to look for it,
no longer have to challenge
it, taunt it, play with it.
it’s right here with me
like a pet cat or a wall
calendar.

I’ve had a good run.
I can toss it in without regret.

odd, though, I feel no different
than I did at 35 or 47 or 62:
I am only truly conscious of my
age when I look into a
mirror:
ridiculous
baleful eyes, grinning
stupid mouth.

it’s nice, my friend, the
lightning flashes about
me,
I’ve washed up on the golden
shore.
everything here is miracle,
a hard miracle,
as was what
preceded
this.

but there’s nothing worse than
some old guy
talking about what he
did.

well, yes, there is:
a bunch of old guys talking about
it.

I stay away from them.
and you stay away from me.

that space is all we’ll ever really
need.
any of
us.

Poem: “thoughts on being 71,” by Charles Bukowski from Open All Night: New Poems (Black Sparrow Press).