[lit-ideas] Re: some other Sunday poem
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 20:29:01 -0800
In looking at this again, I wonder if it is an "occasional poem," a poem
designed to capture an actual event you wanted to remember or commemorate. I
have put some of my own "occasional poems" in my trash directory eventually
because,probably, I'm uncomfortable with the genre. I would rather develop
the "sunsplashed chassis turning enough to give me the gold and fire in its
windows" and forget the bus. But then, if I do that, it becomes more
lyrical and less occasional -- a poem I'll enjoy more but I may eventually
forget the occasion that inspired it.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Eric Yost
Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 11:52 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] some other Sunday poem
Sunset on a Bus
1
At Hellertown stop
the first in hours,
Park View Terrace
issues two commands.
2
At a gas station angling back,
Regular Plus Super
explains what America wants
-participation-
like other down-to-earth stops,
where to refuse to play or revise rules
is to be killed or sent to terrible rooms.
3
Dark weather of our times, you think,
but the sky sheds itself in orange fire,
Under blazing tangerine clouds,
cars flock fast in spot-lit packs,
trickle into granite scars and ridges,
in a boundless blue bowl of orange.
4
Enormous controlled disappointment
flags these tamed valleys and hills
with chambered brawls of people,
hungry weeds, and brawny corn.
What clouds my eyes had hurt me --
possums in piles by the road's edge,
cement mart at a crossroads drooping
against green corridors of farm work,
yellow and burnt shale night beyond,
microwave pods, blocks of dark soy,
vines aching shadows on transformers,
hawks winding down the innocent soil,
winding down as a witness, except for
one cab harvester combining a wet row,
its sunsplashed chassis turning enough
to give me the gold and fire in its windows.
[throwaway 2001]
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