El Ten Eleven – My Only Swerving
Archive | Mick’s Picks RSS feed for this section
Your Dog Dies
22 Novit gets run over by a van.
you find it at the side of the road
and bury it.
you feel bad about it.
you feel bad personally,
but you feel bad for your daughter
because it was her pet,
and she loved it so.
she used to croon to it
and let her sleep in her bed.
you write a poem about it.
you call it a poem for your daughter,
about the dog getting run over by a van
and how you looked after it,
took it out into the woods
and buried it deep,deep,
and that poem turns out so good
and you’re almost glad the little dog
was run over, or else you’d never
have written that good poem.
then you sit down to write
a poem about writing a poem
about the death of that dog,
but while you’re writing you
hear a woman scream
your name, your first name,
both syllables,
and your heart stops.
after a minute, you continue writing.
she screams again.
you wonder how long this can go on.
~Raymond Carver
Poems for the Fall
27 OctCrow Hill Autumn
Cold Wind.
First snow of winter in October
Silent as crystals.
All that falls from above comes over
The north hill-
Bent and bruised poplars, beeches
The weeds, Queen Anne’s lace.
Apple trees.
Golden delicious sunlight glistens
Off their skins, delicate snow,
And I can only listen to the crisp crunch,
Biting into them the sound of snowfall.
The sunlight lingers on each flake
In a bed of reflection,
Like a winter lake sleeping.
Dormant is a long time
For each cotton stalk.
Songbirds are silent
On these days, reserved,
For a distant look
Into a life
Spilled on the road.
Limbo of Infants
November is forever falling leaves
As long as I can remember
The scattered piles of the day’s labor
Undone by the icy wind
Whispering words of childhood names:
Rover, Polo, Oxen free.
Of all the seasons I prefer the autumn
Sending her children forth,
Each one a wish,
A lifetime.
These curled corpses of spring
End up on the embers of a distant fire.
~S.D. Hildebrand
Nuclear Polio Vaccination 