5.01.2006

new poem, finally!

this is one of the three poems i brought to diane's on saturday; it is the only one to come out finished.

i'm still looking for a better title than poem, because, let's face it, i am not frank o'hara (although i adore his work) and i can't get away with calling this poem poem; it's not that kind of poem.

POEM

for the man who drives the chariot of the sun


The truth is I loved the running:

each step
a small shadow broken by your glow,
each step taken slower than the last.

So that even now, months later,
you are breaking across me as the aurora borealis
and saying

I don’t know why I let myself go down this road
and I am thinking of Bob Dylan
singing Baby Let Me Follow You Down, of Creeley
saying O, Love, where are you leading me now;

I am not yet brave enough to ask
what it is you are chasing
when you chase after me.

I love these moments, you say, but moments like these don’t last forever.

It’s enough to make me stop, to turn and face you.
God, the terror of that instant!

And what to tell you—that now we’re immortal,

that we’ll be petrified in this moment, this tiny light-storm pulsing where you hand now rests?






2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i love this kind of poetry - with lyrics and quotes built in. i often write like this simply because i'm so inspired by other's work... especially music. this is beautiful.

michaelf said...

this may seem too obvious & reductive - but 'thinking of bob' is a nice title i think - it opens out from the actual use of that phrase & is ambiguous anyway when u quote bob creeley as well .. like bob is some quality even bigger than dylan & creeley combined!