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personalpoem #4
I once knew an
elderly man
basil de selicourt who could
do the times
crossword in pen
in ten minutes I mean of course
the london times for
just like
the british stamp the only one
worldwide without its
country
on it there is only one times no
purpose to this rambling but
to
say even easy sudoku boggles
me and that once I helped that
man
pick chickens from a tree I held
them by their warm scaly
legs
upside down a reverse flower
feather bouquet as he handed
them
to me one by one they had been
frightened up there by a fox I
think
© Jacqueline Jackson 2007
Man’s best friend is, of course, woman’s
best friend, too. The Illinois poet, Bruce Guernsey, offers us this
snapshot of a mutually agreed upon dependency that leads to a domestic
communion.
The Lady and the Tramp
As my mother’s memory dims she’s losing her sense of smell and can’t remember the toast blackening the kitchen with smoke or sniff how nasty the breath of the dog that follows her yet from room to room, unable, himself, to hear his own bark.
It’s thus they get around, the wheezing old hound stone deaf baying like a smoke alarm for his amnesiac mistress whose back from petting him is bent forever as they shuffle towards the flaming toaster and split the cindered crisp that’s left.
Poem copyright © 2007 by Bruce Guernsey, whose
newest book, New England Primer, published by Cherry Grove Collections (WordTech
Communications) is due out in 2008. Poem reprinted from Spoon River Poetry Review (Vol.
XXVI, No. 2), by permission of the author. American Life in Poetry is made
possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also
supported by the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln.
Ted Kooser served as the U.S. poet laureate
2004-2006. For more information, go to www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.
This article appears in Nov 29 – Dec 5, 2007.
