The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 6/3/08

[BlueIris]

"Shot Glass"

I'll never forget the day this beautiful woman
right out in the office said I was "sneaky":

I didn't know I was sneaky: I didn't feel
sneaky: but there are mechanisms below our

mechanisms, so I assume the lady was right:
living with that has not helped my progress

in the world, if there is any such thing;
progress, I mean: also it has hurt my image

of myself: I have used up so much fellow-
feeling on the general—all of which I have

forgotten specifically about, as have the
fellows—no offices, no clear images or

demonstrations—I don't understand why that
one remark holds its place ungivingly in me:

and now to talk about it, admit to the world
(my reading public, as it happens) that I am

scarred by an old, old wound about to heal and
about to bleed: this may do confessional good

but I will no longer appear perfect to others:
conceivably, that could be a good thing:

others may be scarred, too, but who wants to
be like them: one should: perhaps I really

do, because lonely splendor is devastatingly
shiny but basically hard and cold, marble

walls and glistening floors: one comfort,
which I am reluctant to relish, is that the

lady is now dead—surely, I am sorry about that,
she was a person of intelligence and

discernment, which is one reason she hurt me
so bad—well, but I mean, she won't hurt

anybody else: she probably did enough good
in her life that the world will forgive her:

I am trying to forgive her myself: after all
she left me some room for improvement and

a sense of what to work on. . . .

—A. R. Ammons

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear BlueIris...

Ah, this is lovely!

The meanderings of a poetic mind, as it mulls over the meanings and possible interpretations of a random comment by someone who has already vanished out of her life...

Funny how much we can be affected by a tossed-off comment, isn't it?

Thank you!

:hug:

[BlueIris]

2. Yep. nt

[BlueIris]

3. Kick.

[Westegg]

4. Ah, Archie! I took a class from him...

...at Cornell. He was one of the walking deities in Ithaca back then, in the '80s. Carl Sagan was another! Hans Bethe! William Kennedy! Archie would sit in the Temple of Zeus (the English Department hangout) is his tweed jacket, his lame and stolid Ithaca bagel and processed tin of cream-cheese, a notebook in front of him. Taking in his surroundings. Writing, always writing, I assume. He was a sweet guy, once you got over the image. They often are. They often aren't.

[BlueIris]

5. I have yet to meet a mean poet. But I've met some damn mean playwrights.

*cough* Tony Kushner *cough*

[BlueIris]

6. Kick.