William Matthews: Все стихи поэта | Poetree

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Eyes:

Eyes:

the only parts of the body the same

size at birth as they'll always be.

"That's why all babies are beautiful,"

Thurber used to say as he grew

blind -- not dark, he'd go on

to explain, but floating in a pale

light always, a kind of candlelit

murk from a sourceless light.

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by William Matthews

Dire Cure

Dire Cure

"First, do no harm," the Hippocratic

Oath begins, but before she might enjoy

such balm, the docs had to harm her tumor.

It was large, rare, and so anomalous

in its behavior that at first they mis-

diagnosed it. "Your wife will die of it

within a year." But in ten days or so

I sat beside her bed with hot-and-sour

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by William Matthews

On The Porch At The Frost Place, Franconia, N H

On The Porch At The Frost Place, Franconia, N H

So here the great man stood,

fermenting malice and poems

we have to be nearly as fierce

against ourselves as he

not to misread by their disguises.

Blue in dawn haze, the tamarack

across the road is new since Frost

and thirty feet tall already.

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by William Matthews

Homer's Seeing-Eye Dog

Homer's Seeing-Eye Dog

Most of the time he worked, a sort of sleep

with a purpose, so far as I could tell.

How he got from the dark of sleep

to the dark of waking up I'll never know;

the lax sprawl sleep allowed him

began to set from the edges in,

like a custard, and then he was awake,

me too, of course, wriggling my ears

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by William Matthews

Mingus At The Showplace

Mingus At The Showplace

I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen

and so I swung into action and wrote a poem

and it was miserable, for that was how I thought

poetry worked: you digested experience shat

literature. It was 1960 at The Showplace, long since

defunct, on West 4th st., and I sat at the bar,

casting beer money from a reel of ones,

the kid in the city, big ears like a puppy.

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by William Matthews

The Blues

The Blues

What did I think, a storm clutching a clarinet

and boarding a downtown bus, headed for lessons?

I had pieces to learn by heart, but at twelve

you think the heart and memory are different.

"'It's a poor sort of memory that only works

backwards,' the Queen remarked." Alice in Wonderland.

Although I knew the way music can fill a room,

even with loneliness, which is of course a kind

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by William Matthews

Job Interview

Job Interview

Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife

He would have written sonnets all his life?

DON JUAN, III, 63-4

"Where do you see yourself five years from now?"

the eldest male member (or is "male member"

a redundancy?) of the committee

asked me. "Not here," I thought. A good thing I

speak fluent Fog. I craved that job like some

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by William Matthews

Poem (The lump of coal my parents teased)

Poem (The lump of coal my parents teased)

The lump of coal my parents teased

I'd find in my Christmas stocking

turned out each year to be an orange,

for I was their sunshine.

Now I have one C. gave me,

a dense node of sleeping fire.

I keep it where I read and write.

"You're on chummy terms with dread,"

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by William Matthews

A Poetry Reading At West Point

A Poetry Reading At West Point

I read to the entire plebe class,

in two batches. Twice the hall filled

with bodies dressed alike, each toting

a copy of my book. What would my

shrink say, if I had one, about

such a dream, if it were a dream?

Question and answer time.

"Sir," a cadet yelled from the balcony,

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by William Matthews

No Return

No Return

I like divorce. I love to compose

letters of resignation; now and then

I send one in and leave in a lemon-

hued Huff or a Snit with four on the floor.

Do you like the scent of a hollyhock?

To each his own. I love a burning bridge.

I like to watch the small boat go over

the falls — it swirls in a circle

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by William Matthews