Dog-Eared Notebook

2008-08-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

Title: "Lament"
Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke
Year:

Everything is far
and long gone by.
I think that the star
glittering above me
has been dead for a million years.
I think there were tears
in the car I heard pass
and something terrible was said.
A clock has stopped striking in the house
across the road...
When did it start?...
I would like to step out of my heart
an go walking beneath the enormous sky.
I would like to pray.
And surely of all the stars that perished
long ago,
one still exists.
I think that I know
which one it is--
which one, at the end of its beam in the sky,
stands like a white city...

Myth

2008-03-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

Title: "Myth"
Poet: Natasha Trethewey
Year: (Can be found in her new Pulitzer-prize winning book, "Native Guard.")

I was asleep while you were dying.
It's as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow
I make between my slumber and my waking,
the Erebus I keep you in, still trying
not to let go. You'll be dead again tomorrow,
but in dreams you live. So I try taking
you back into morning. Sleep-heavy, turning,
my eyes open, I find you do not follow.
Again and again, this constant forsaking.
*
Again and again, this constant forsaking:
my eyes open, I find you do not follow.
You back into morning, sleep-heavy, turning.
But in dreams you live. So I try taking,
not to let go. You'll be dead again tomorrow.
The Erebus I keep you in -- still, trying --
I make between my slumber and my waking.
It's as if you slipped through some rift, a hallow.
I was asleep while you were dying.

"Love Song: I and Thou"

2007-12-14T23:43:00.000-08:00

Title: "Love Song: I and Thou"
Poet: Alan Dugan
Year: 1961
Form:

Nothing is plumb, level or square:
the studs are bowed, the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
any other piece without a gap
or pinch, and bent nails
dance all over the surfacing
like maggots. By Christ
I am no carpenter. I built
the roof for myself, the walls
for myself, the floors
for myself, and got
hung up in it myself. I
danced with a purple thumb
at this house-warming, drunk
with my prime whiskey: rage.
Oh I spat rage's nails
into the frame-up of my work:
it held. It settled plumb,
level, solid, square and true
for that great moment. Then
it screamed and went on through,
skewing as wrong the other way.
God damned it. This is hell,
but I planned it, I sawed it,
I nailed it, and I
will live in it until it kills me.
I can nail my left palm
to the left-hand cross-piece but
I can't do everything myself.
I need a hand to nail the right,
a help, a love, a you, a wife.

"Design"

2007-12-11T21:34:00.000-08:00

Title: "Design"
Poet: Robert Frost
Year: 1936
Form: Sonnet

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
on a white heal-all, holding up a moth
like a white piece of rigid satin cloth==
assorted characters of death and blight
mixed ready to begin the morning right,
like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
a snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
and dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
the wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

"What Do Women Want"

2007-12-10T19:13:00.000-08:00

Title: "What Do Women Want"
Poet: Kim Addonizio
Year: 2000
Form: Free Verse

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their cafe, past the Guerra brothers
sling pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.

(Just for all of you, a video done by Kim herself reading this poem)