Things were difficult
and I was impatient.
You were trying to explain
why I must reorganize the files
on my computer, why
they all have to have project numbers,
why I can’t put them
where they’ve always been,
what the tax consultant said,
what you need for your report
to the Board of Directors,
and it boiled down to my files
have to be re-filed, and they
have to have titles with no more
than twelve letters to leave room
for project numbers,
and I said, Well, dammit.
And you said, Don’t talk like that.
You sounded pained
and I was mean to you.
I was bored and tired
and mad, and you were
trying hard. Later,
I went out in the rain.
I went to the mall
and bought us both really
expensive pillows. Down
pillows with 100 per cent
cotton covers, 400 thread count.
I have lusted after them for years,
ever since Mama told me
that she asked Grandma,
who was 86 and dying,
“If you could have anything
in the world, what would it be?”
and Grandma answered,
“A down pillow” and Mama
didn’t have enough money.
I bought two down pillows for us all,
to say I’m sorry.
I don’t know if I have a single favorite, but this e.e. cummings poem is high on my list:
Buffalo Bill ’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blue-eyed boy
Mister Death
I don’t usually like free verse, but the form is so right for this one – you can see the slowly vanishing road to nowhere in the blurring of lines and stanzas into each other, even the way the title merges with the rest of the poem.
honour corruption villainy holiness
riding in fragrance of sunlight(side by side
all in a singing wonder of blossoming yes
riding) to him who died that death should be dead
humblest and proudest eagerly wandering
(equally all alive in miraculous day)
merrily moving through sweet forgiveness of spring
(over the under the gift of the earth of the sky
knight and ploughman pardoner wife and nun
merchant frere clerk somnour miller and reve
and geoffrey and all)come up from the never of when
come into the now of forever come riding alive
down while crylessly drifting through vast most
nothing’s own nothing children go of dust
You’ve saved me the trouble of digging up one of my favorites.
There are others mentioned above that I enjoy. But I’ll always treasure this poem called “Goblin Market” by C. Rossetti (poet, artists’ model, teacher, nun-practically):
Maybe not quite free-verse…I argued about this in school, but close, given her contemporaries.
