July 2017
William Greenway
whgreenway@ysu.edu
whgreenway@ysu.edu
Some wag somewhere said that being a poet is all well and good, but what do you do with the other 23½ hours in the day? Whitman replies that you loaf and invite your soul. (Or you can lead poetry writing workshops, if you can get ‘em.)
Close Captions
Obviously a real person on a keyboard,
always lagging behind, him/her racing time
and losing, why they’re called crawlers.
So we have to de-cypher the dance
of Latino polk, how the ice and snow
in the morning will make a kind of
mice tour, that the crime was premedicated,
the motive cloudish, someone else
tarnishing words at home.
So glad these don’t crawl beneath us
as we walk and talk, our mouths moving
but the wrong birds coming out—dove
instead of love, our movements and motives
constantly missing screwed.
Instead, o heavenly typist
make our last words be a tome, cloudish,
untarnished, and premedicated.
Lost and Found
How Ellen Finally Found Happiness!
the magazine gushes in 16 point type
under the grinning celebrity face
in Technicolor on the glossy cover.
If it was lost, one wonders where
she had it in the first place,
and why, and where she’s found it now:
Disney World, Tahiti, Chucky Cheese’s,
Poughkeepsie, Youngstown, the back seat
of a Lincoln Continental?
If so, maybe she could tell the rest of us,
and what it consists of: love, money,
booze, drugs, chocolate, the back seat
of a Lincoln Continental,
all of the above,
and all at once?
We’re all ears, Ellen, especially those of us
packing our bags yet again, preparing
a Saturday Night Special at the kitchen table,
tumbling from the wagon (all
going off so easily).
But then there’s always another birth, wedding,
degree, or new job to be found.
And then, of course, the loss.
© 2017 William Greenway
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