i am enjoying cover poem week.
its fun to ruminate about words and people.
its fun to remember what it is i like about poetry.
its fun to share new people with others.
the only problem is picking which people to share.
i only have two more days until my annual limerick week starts, so i really have two more cover poems to post.
for these two days i've considered rimbaud, corso, burroughs, neruda, sexton and maybe even a little blake. maybe they will get their day eventually.
but i've decided that the next two days should be for my top two poets: billy collins and charles bukowski. these are the ones that helped me decide what kind of poet i want to be. perhaps even what kind of person i want to be.
billy collins carries a great deal of sentimentality with me.
for two years i carried his book "sailing alone around the room" in my back pocket.
i still read him to almost every new friend i make.
billy collins means a lot to me.
here is one of my favorites:
"purity"
my favorite time to write is in the late afternoon,
weekdays, particularly wednesdays.
this is how i go about it:
i take a fresh pot of tea into my study and close the door.
then i remove my clothes and leave them in a pile
as if i had melted to death and my legacy consisted of only
a white shirt, a pair of pants, and a pot of cold tea.
then i remove my flesh and hang it over a chair.
i slide it off my bones like a silken garment.
i do this so that what i write will be pure,
completly rinsed of the carnal,
uncontaminated by the preoccunpations of the body.
finally i remove each of my organs and arrange them
on a small table near the window.
i do not want to hear their ancient rhythms
when i am trying to tap out my own drumbeat.
now i sit down at the desk, ready to begin.
i am entirely pure: nothing but a skeleton and a typewriter.
i should mention that sometimes i leave my penis on.
i find it difficult to ignore the temptation.
the i am a skeleton with a penis at a typewriter.
in this condition i write extraordinary love poems,
most of them exploiting the connection between sex
and death.
i am concentration itself: i exist in a universe
where there is nothing but sex, death, and typewriting.
after a spell of this i remove my penis too.
then i am all skull and bones typing into the afternoon.
just the absolute essentials, no flounces.
now i write only about death, most classical of themes
in language light as the air between my ribs.
afterward, i reward myself by going for a drive at sunset.
i replace my organs and slip back inot my flesh
and clothes. then i back the car out of the garage
and speed through woods on winding country roads,
passing stone walls, farmhouses, and frozen ponds,
all perfectly arranged like words in a farmhouse sonnet.
10:16 a.m. - 2007-03-15
Recent entries:
Awake in My Tiny Cage - 2014-11-03
God. - 2014-10-27
I remember me. - 2014-10-17
The Paper - 2014-10-13
A Post About Not Doing Anything - 2014-10-12
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