The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Sun 9/21/2008)

[RetroLounge]

To a Friend Accused of a Crime He May Have Committed

We’ll never know for sure now,
you in your garage with the motor on
and the tailpipe clogged and the door closed,
three days before the trial. Your wife
found you after she found the note,
and this morning the numinous beauty
of low fog in our field has taken on
a strange gloom, a lone deer grazing there
with an alertness that you must have had
many days of your life, lest you be caught.

For twenty-five years we knew you
to be a man who could charm a room,
yet stand up at a faculty meeting
and press an argument, not back down.
When we dined with you, you loved
to tell us all the places you’d been.
How stupid of you to allow
your computer to be repaired,
the hard facts on the hard drive—
all those boys, girls, this other life.

What brilliance, though, to have concealed it
for so long. And how nearby desperation
always must have been. I’ll remember your face
now as a thing with a veil, what I so admire
in poker players. You were not one of those.
When word first got out, we called you,
said we were there for you. In our minds
you remained a friend. We didn’t call again.

When does a friend cease being a friend?
After which betrayal, yours or ours?
Or do we just go on in the muck and the mud
holding ourselves up the best we can?
That’s what we’re asking ourselves,
the fog lifting a little, the newspaper
with your photo in it open on our table.

Stephen Dunn

******************

:hi:

RL

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. okay

:donut: :hi:

heavy reading for a Sunday Morning. Damn.

[RetroLounge]

4. ...

:hi:

RL

[Haole Girl]

2. So much said in such a short poem

Wow.

Thanks, RL.

:hi:

[RetroLounge]

6. ...

:hi:

RL

[Chorophyll]

3. That is just amazingly good.

No whistles and bells, just beautiful language.

ETA: :hi:

[RetroLounge]

10. ...

:hi:

RL

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. My dear Retro...

How sad, and how perfectly beautiful, all at once...

It feels more like prose poetry to me...

It's such a complete portrait, that I feel as though I've been dropped down into that world and now nothing else exists.

Thank you!

:hi:

[RetroLounge]

11. ...

:hi:

RL

[Guava Jelly]

7. I'd say the moment that the truth was revealed

is a very good time to cease being his friend.
Do you have any poems about puppies or butterflies? :P

[RetroLounge]

9. Life is never that cut and dried, is it?

:shrug:

puppies and butterflies are for Hallmark Cards. :D

RL

[Guava Jelly]

12. No it isn't

Although sometimes it feels pretty nice to get a card :)

[lizziegrace]

8. Wow...

x(

[RetroLounge]

13. ...

:hi:

RL