An abecedarian poem for “S”

A Poem for S.

BY JESSICA GREENBAUM

Because you used to leaf through the dictionary,

Casually, as someone might in a barber shop, and

Devotedly, as someone might in a sanctuary,

Each letter would still have your attention if not

For the responsibilities life has tightly fit, like

Gears around the cog of you, like so many petals

Hinged on a daisy. That’s why I’ll just use your

Initial. Do you know that in one treasured story, a

Jewish ancestor, horseback in the woods at Yom

Kippur, and stranded without a prayer book,

Looked into the darkness and realized he had

Merely to name the alphabet to ask forgiveness—

No congregation of figures needed, he could speak

One letter at a time because all of creation

Proceeded from those. He fed his horse, and then

Quietly, because it was from his heart, he

Recited them slowly, from aleph to tav. Within those

Sounds, all others were born, all manner of

Trials, actions, emotions, everything needed to

Understand who he was, had been, how flaws

Venerate the human being, how aspirations return

Without spite. Now for you, may your wife’s

X-ray return with good news, may we raise our

Zarfs to both your names in the Great Book of Life.

Source: Poetry (July/August 2012)

You whom I could not save / Listen to me

Dedication

BY CZESLAW MILOSZ

TRANSLATED BY CZESLAW MILOSZ

You whom I could not save

Listen to me.   

Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.   

I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.   

I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.

What strengthened me, for you was lethal.   

You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one,   

Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty;   

Blind force with accomplished shape.

Here is a valley of shallow Polish rivers. And an immense bridge   

Going into white fog. Here is a broken city;   

And the wind throws the screams of gulls on your grave   

When I am talking with you.

What is poetry which does not save   

Nations or people?   

A connivance with official lies,   

A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,   

Readings for sophomore girls.

That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,   

That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,   

In this and only this I find salvation.

They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds   

To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds.   

I put this book here for you, who once lived   

So that you should visit us no more.   

Warsaw, 1945

First of 300 rolls off the assembly line

On June 30, 1953, workers at a Chevrolet plant in Flint, Michigan, watch as the first completed Corvette, a two-seater sports car that would become an American icon, rolls off the assembly line. It was one of just 300 Corvettes made that year.

On the occasion of receiving my latest biopsy result

Skin Cancer

BY MARK JARMAN

Balmy overcast nights of late September;

Palms standing out in street light, house light;

Full moon penetrating the cloud-film

With an explosive halo, a ring almost half the sky;

Air like a towel draped over shoulders;

Lightness or gravity deferred like a moral question;

The incense in the house lit; the young people

Moving from the front door into the half-dark

And back, or up the stairs to glimpse the lovers’ shoes

Outside the master bedroom; the youngest speculating;

The taste of beer, familiar as salt water;

Each window holding a sea view, charcoal

With shifting bars of white; the fog filling in

Like the haze of distance itself, pushing close, blurring.

As if the passage into life were through such houses,

Surrounded by some version of ocean weather,

Lit beads of fog or wind so stripped it burns the throat;

Mildew-spreading, spray-laden breezes and the beach sun

Making each grain of stucco cast a shadow;

An ideal landscape sheared of its nostalgia;

S. with his black hair, buck teeth, unsunned skin,

Joking and disappearing; F. doing exactly the same

But dying, a corkscrew motion through green water;

And C. not looking back from the car door,

Reappearing beside the East River, rich, owned, smiling at last.

Swains. and nymphs. And news that came with the sea damp,

Of steady pipe-corrosions, black corners,

Moisture working through sand lots, through slab floors,

Slowly, with chemical, with molecular intricacy,

Then, bursting alive: the shrieked confessions

Of the wild parents; the cliff collapse; the kidnap;

The cache of photos; the letter; the weapon; the haunted dream;

The sudden close-up of the loved one’s degradation.

Weather a part of it all, permeating and sanctifying,

Infiltrating and destroying; the sun disc,

Cool behind the veil of afternoon cloud,

With sun spots like flies crawling across it;

The slow empurpling of skin all summer;

The glorious learned flesh and the rich pallor

Of the untouched places in the first nakedness;

The working of the lesion now in late life,

Soon to be known by the body, even the one

Enduring the bareness of the inland plains,

The cold fronts out of Canada, a sickness

For home that feels no different from health.

The good, the average, the bad, and the worst

I began living on this planet shortly after FDR’s death and in the early days of Truman’s presidency. 

Since that time, this country has had some good presidents, some average presidents, and some bad presidents. The current president seems like the worst of the bunch.

Last night’s debate put the objective spotlight on President Biden. And it’s very clear to me now that the country is in desperate straits because an incompetent, stubborn, and dangerous old fool is in the White House. And he wants four more years! God help us.

Well, that’s my opinion. Tell me if you think I’m wrong. 

Going forward with my reading plans, I will be giving more attention to American presidencies since 1945. I will begin by rereading the relevant portion of the book shown below. Hey, perhaps I will be less anxious about the future if I immerse myself in the past.

It will look as though I am flying into myself

Death

BY BILL KNOTT

Going to sleep, I cross my hands on my chest.   

They will place my hands like this.   

It will look as though I am flying into myself.

"Death" from Asheville Poetry Review 10, no. 1.  

Copyright 2003 by Bill Knott

Once upon a time in the White House

Last night I watched the so-called debate between a former president and the current president. I was appalled by what I witnessed. God help us all in the United States. 

But enough about that subject. Today there is this:

June 28, 1972 — President Nixon announces that no more draftees will be sent to Vietnam unless they volunteer for such duty. He also announced that a force of 10,000 troops would be withdrawn by September 1, which would leave a total of 39,000 in Vietnam. (Source: History.com) 

Recommended Reading:

POTUS orders U.S. air and naval forces to South Korea

On June 27, 1950, President Harry S. Truman announces that he is ordering U.S. air and naval forces to South Korea to aid the democratic nation in repulsing an invasion by communist North Korea. The United States was undertaking the major military operation, he explained, to enforce a United Nations... read more

Recommended Reading:

Wednesday’s poem on Gawgawgamie River Soup

On the occasion of the poet’s birthday

“Autobiographia Literaria” by Frank O’Hara

When I was a child
I played by myself in a
corner of the schoolyard
all alone.

I hated dolls and I
hated games, animals were
not friendly and birds
flew away.

If anyone was looking
for me I hid behind a
tree and cried out "I am
an orphan."

And here I am, the
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine!

"Autobiographia Literaria" by Frank O'Hara, from The Selected Poems of Frank O'Hara. © Vintage Books. 

Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing makes history in Ohio

On the morning of June 26, 1974, at a supermarket in Troy, Ohio, a pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum becomes the first grocery item scanned with a Universal Product Code, or UPC. The result of years of scientific experimentation and industry cooperation, the UPC barcode would go on to be used well beyond the grocery checkout counter, becoming a ubiquitous feature of modern commerce, with billions of barcodes scanned daily. (Source: History.com)

Life must go on; I forget just why

Lament

BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

Listen, children:

Your father is dead.

From his old coats

I'll make you little jackets;

I'll make you little trousers

From his old pants.

There'll be in his pockets

Things he used to put there,

Keys and pennies

Covered with tobacco;

Dan shall have the pennies

To save in his bank;

Anne shall have the keys

To make a pretty noise with.

Life must go on,

And the dead be forgotten;

Life must go on,

Though good men die;

Anne, eat your breakfast;

Dan, take your medicine;

Life must go on;

I forget just why.

Remembering “the greatest Packard of them all”

The last Packard—the classic American luxury car with the famously enigmatic slogan “Ask the Man Who Owns One”—rolls off the production line at Packard’s plant in Detroit, Michigan on June 25, 1956. (Source: History.com)

Baseball: It looks easy from a distance…

Baseball

by John Updike

It looks easy from a distance,
easy and lazy, even,
until you stand up to the plate
and see the fastball sailing inside,
an inch from your chin,
or circle in the outfield
straining to get a bead
on a small black dot
a city block or more high,
a dark star that could fall
on your head like a leaden meteor.

The grass, the dirt, the deadly hops
between your feet and overeager glove:
football can be learned,
and basketball finessed, but
there is no hiding from baseball
the fact that some are chosen
and some are not—those whose mitts
feel too left-handed,
who are scared at third base
of the pulled line drive,
and at first base are scared
of the shortstop's wild throw
that stretches you out like a gutted deer.

There is nowhere to hide when the ball's
spotlight swivels your way,
and the chatter around you falls still,
and the mothers on the sidelines,
your own among them, hold their breaths,
and you whiff on a terrible pitch
or in the infield achieve
something with the ball so
ridiculous you blush for years.
It's easy to do. Baseball was
invented in America, where beneath
the good cheer and sly jazz the chance
of failure is everybody's right,
beginning with baseball.

"Baseball" by John Updike, from Endpoint. © Knopf, 2009

Communist armed forces smash into South Korea

On June 25, 1950, armed forces from communist North Korea smash into South Korea, setting off the Korean War. The United States, acting under the auspices of the United Nations, quickly sprang to the defense of South Korea and fought a bloody and frustrating war for the next three years. (Source: History.com)

“This is the time of year…”

The Armadillo

BY ELIZABETH BISHOP

for Robert Lowell

This is the time of year

when almost every night

the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.

Climbing the mountain height,

rising toward a saint

still honored in these parts,

the paper chambers flush and fill with light

that comes and goes, like hearts.

Once up against the sky it's hard

to tell them from the stars—

planets, that is—the tinted ones:

Venus going down, or Mars,

or the pale green one. With a wind,

they flare and falter, wobble and toss;

but if it's still they steer between

the kite sticks of the Southern Cross,

receding, dwindling, solemnly

and steadily forsaking us,

or, in the downdraft from a peak,

suddenly turning dangerous.

Last night another big one fell.

It splattered like an egg of fire

against the cliff behind the house.

The flame ran down. We saw the pair

of owls who nest there flying up

and up, their whirling black-and-white

stained bright pink underneath, until

they shrieked up out of sight.

The ancient owls' nest must have burned.

Hastily, all alone,

a glistening armadillo left the scene,

rose-flecked, head down, tail down,

and then a baby rabbit jumped out,

short-eared, to our surprise.

So soft!—a handful of intangible ash

with fixed, ignited eyes.

Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry!

O falling fire and piercing cry 

and panic, and a weak mailed fist

clenched ignorant against the sky!

Elizabeth Bishop, "The Armadillo" from The Complete Poems 1927-1979. Copyright © 1979 by Elizabeth Bishop. 

King Philip’s War begins with massacre in Massachusetts

June 24, 1675 — In colonial New England, King Philip’s War begins when a band of Wampanoag warriors raid the border settlement of Swansea, Massachusetts, and massacre the English colonists there.

Read more via this link.

The history of an endangered but beloved species

It was on this day in 1868 that the typewriter was patented, by Christopher Sholes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1873, he sold the patent to the Remington Arms Co., a famous gun maker, for $12,000. There had been typewriters before, but they weren't very practical — it took longer to type a letter than to write it by hand. The first commercial typewriter based on Sholes' design went on the market in 1874.

There are a handful of contemporary authors who prefer using a typewriter during their writing process. John Updike used his 76-year-old black lacquered Olivetti MP1 until he died. David Sedaris took his typewriter with him everywhere until surrendering a few years ago to the inconvenience of trying to get it through the airport. Larry McMurtry honored his Swiss Hermes 3000 typewriter in his acceptance speech for Best Screenplay at the Golden Globes in 2006, calling it "a noble instrument of European genius." Paul Auster wrote an homage to his manual Olympia called The Story of My Typewriter (2002). 

(Source: The Writer’s Almanac)

About suffering, they knew no more or less than we do

The Old Masters

BY JOHN BURNSIDE

About suffering, they knew no more or less

than we do, being

housed in luminescence;

a local cumulus

of   feverfew and jade

reduced to void, the tower overthrown,

the bells upturned.

I see one now, impoverished

and old before his time, a lesser man’s

subordinate, or master to a trade

he never asked for.

Burdened by the weight

of  office, or the whim of  some mad king,

he stands alone, above the dark lagoon,

and watches, while the city fades from quartz

to plum, from plum

to cochineal, a restless drift

through subtleties and shades

he cannot

capture, though he magnifies the whole

and loves it all the more, for being

useless, fleeting, governed by no rule,

a headlong and unmasterable now

that slips away, one pier light at a time.

Source: Poetry (October 2020)