THE POETRY CHALLENGE
Who writes THE BEST POETRY
in America today?
(c) copyright 2007, David B. Axelrod
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THE POETRY CHALLENGE Who writes THE BEST POETRY in America today?
(c) copyright 2007, David B. Axelrod |
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Old Age Can Be Heroic Searching for Absolutes Nice, Stupid People World Poem
OLD AGE CAN BE HEROIC My grandfather, when he was young and working as a junkman, could carry cast iron stoves across the room, his arms spread-eagled, the weight across his shoulders. As he grew blindly older, walking itself became a matter of carrying a great burden. Crossing the street, retired, he passed men working and fell until he spread his arms to catch himself at the armpits, into an open grate. The men who lifted him complained of his weight, but he, bruised and embarrassed, said that he forgave them. SEARCHING FOR ABSOLUTES Buying steak I tease the bloody textures on the plastic wrap, admiring the droplets behind their drip-proof seal. Lugging my life through self-service aisles, I see Walt and Allen, both, among the bargains: Marrow and meal, greens and glassware, coffee spoons unmetaphoric, 5 off the price as market- euphoric. Intensity among the canned goods and sweetly scented sprays. I wait with cart amid the patient hoards to make my declaration. The freckle-faced girl, her fingers bouncing over my private things, pushes me into double bags. Keeper of the gate, she calls me to account. In haste I pay, wiping the bloody scent onto my pants, and haul myself away: it is not for men to ask for love or justice. Tonight, I will think of her freckled thighs as I fry my meat and potatoes. NICE, STUPID PEOPLE (In the hospital, Dec. ,'69.) Nice, stupid people come into my room to clean, make beds, offer all their sympathy in a slow "Hello, how are you?" In their broom-closet brains the world is locked in clear, un- thinking patterns. I lie alone in bed, hear only voices crying to be led, knowing people's kindness, like their wash- clothes, comes like an order. If I were called "the enemy" they would rush to see me dead. WORLD POEM It is zero but hot inside our house and I am absorbed in a jet of cloud created by the vaporizer we have bought. I aim it at you across the dim-lit living room and you complain, call me to the screen. Plugged in, we watch men circling in space two-hundred thousand miles away: Picture the earth full-blown, swirling in darkness-the cloudy globe we see in color from Apollo and the serene vacuum that surrounds three captured men. Picture their vital signs detected and transmitted to us across decaying darkness. Zero outside: we keep within our capsuled world, gazing at the lunar sea, or across the icy fields where the fence posts are fangs devouring the moon.
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