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Different Hours
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Different Hours - General Discussion (April 2013)
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message 51:
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Sophia
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Apr 13, 2013 01:33AM
Why, thank you! Yes it is very hard to write about poetry. In my experience all one can 'add' is to analyse how a poet's achieved an effect and then to discern what s/he means. And then because the best poems contain layer upon layer of meaning - they need to be read, again and again.
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The Last HoursThere's some innocence left,
and these are the last hours of an empty afternoon
at the office, and there's the clock
on the wall, and my friend Frank
in the adjacent cubicle selling himself
on the phone.
I'm twenty-five, on the shaky
ladder up, my father's son, corporate,
clean-shaven, and I know only what I don't want,
which is almost everything I have.
A meeting ends.
Men in serious suits, intelligent men
who've been thinking hard about marketing snacks,
move back now to their window offices, worried
or proud. The big boss, Horace,
had called them in to approve this, reject that --
the big boss, a first-name, how's-your-family
kind of assassin, who likes me.
It's 1964.
The sixties haven't begun yet. Cuba is a larger name
than Vietnam. The Soviets are behind
everything that could be wrong. Where I sit
it's exactly nineteen minutes to five. My phone rings.
Horace would like me to stop in
before I leave. Stop in. Code words,
leisurely words, that mean now.
Would I be willing
to take on this? Would X's office, who by the way
is no longer with us, be satisfactory?
About money, will this be enough?
I smile, I say yes and yes and yes,
but -- I don't know from what calm place
this comes -- I'm translating
his beneficence into a lifetime, a life
of selling snacks, talking snack strategy,
thinking snack thoughts.
On the elevator down
it's a small knot, I'd like to say, of joy.
That's how I tell it now, here in the future,
the fear long gone.
By the time I reach the subway it's grown,
it's outsized, an attitude finally come round,
and I say it quietly to myself, I quit,
and keep saying it, knowing I will say it, sure
of nothing else but.
http://chavelaque.blogspot.co.uk/2007...
I'm sorry Goodreads won't allow me to show the layout of this poem in all its glory. I hope you go borrow/buy a copy to see what I'm getting at.I really like this deceptively simple narrative poem. These are some of my favourite lines:
"... my friend Frank
in the adjacent cubicle selling himself
on the phone."
Isn't that what all salesmen do?
And the snack metaphor is stunning!
Sophia wrote: "...And the snack metaphor is stunning! ..."At the minimum, funny and apt -- my stream of consciousness went to Apple, Steve Jobs and John Sculley -- John had been president of PepsiCo (think Fritos as well as soda) when he joined Apple as CEO in 1983.
Story A woman's taking her late-afternoon walk
on Chestnut where no sidewalk exists
and houses with gravel driveways
sit back among the pines. Only the house
with the vicious dog is close to the road.
An electric fence keeps him in check.
When she comes to that house, the woman
always crosses to the other side.
I'm the woman's husband. It's a problem
loving your protagonist too much.
Soon the dog is going to break through
that fence, teeth bared, and go for my wife.
She will be helpless. I'm out of town,
helpless too. Here comes the dog.
What kind of dog? A mad dog, a dog
like one of those teenagers who just loses it
on the playground, kills a teacher.
Something's going to happen that can't happen
in a good story: out of nowhere a car
comes and kills the dog. The dog flies
in the air, lands in a patch of delphiniums.
My wife is crying now. The woman who hit
the dog has gotten out of her car. She holds
both hands to her face. The woman who owns
the dog has run out of her house. Three women
crying in the street, each for different reasons.
All of this is so unlikely; it's as if
I've found myself in a country of pure fact,
miles from truth's more demanding realm.
When I listened to my wife's story on the phone
I knew I'd take it from her, tell it
every which way until it had an order
and a deceptive period at the end. That's what
I always do in the face of helplessness,
make some arrangements if I can.
Praise the odd, serendipitous world.
Nothing I'd be inclined to think of
would have stopped that dog.
Only the facts saved her.
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/...
It took me a little time work this one out... A curious puzzle.
Sophia wrote: "It took me a little time work this one out... A curious puzzle."Oh, I laughed at this one, and then passed it around to my writing friends. It's perfect.
Especially eerie after bomb explosions at the Boston Marathon yesterday? Only this time the "facts" were the poet's fears.
Lily wrote: "Especially eerie after bomb explosions at the Boston Marathon yesterday? Only this time the "facts" were the poet's fears."I didn't take this as anything sad (obviously, since I laughed about it), but as a writer struggling to follow the "rules" of writing - must have a protagonist, must have her struggle, must not be a perfect scenario - and have his wife come home with a completely unbelievable story. If he'd tried to write that, the readers (like me!) would complain.
Thing Two wrote: "If he'd tried to write that, the readers (like me!) would complain...."Thing Two -- but didn't he just write that? At least as far as I as a reader am concerned. I have no idea whether the story attributed to his wife is "true" or no; I only know I have the clever poem I have just read -- which captured real feelings of fear I have had about loved ones, only fortunately to have them often end as has this one. Yes, a laugh is wonderful and appropriate at such times.
But Boston flipped the story. One wanted to be able to laugh, to walk away, to have enjoyed a good marathon. Instead, again, the facts took over the story.
A Postmortem Guide For my eulogist, in advance
Do not praise me for my exceptional serenity.
Can't you see I've turned away
from the large excitements,
and have accepted all the troubles?
Go down to the old cemetery; you'll see
there's nothing definitive to be said.
The dead once were all kinds---
boundary breakers and scalawags,
martyrs of the flesh, and so many
dumb bunnies of duty, unbearably nice.
I've been a little of each.
And, please, resist the temptation
of speaking about virtue.
The seldom-tempted are too fond
of that word, the small-
spirited, the unburdened.
Know that I've admired in others
only the fraught straining
to be good.
Adam's my man and Eve's not to blame.
He bit in; it made no sense to stop.
Still, for accuracy's sake you might say
I oftened stopped,
that I rarely went as far as I dreamed.
And since you know my hardships,
understand that they're mere bump and setback
against history's horror.
Remind those seated, perhaps weeping,
how obscene it is
for some of us to complain.
Tell them I had second chances.
I knew joy.
I was burned by books early
and kept sidling up to the flame.
Tell them that at the end I had no need
for God, who'd become just a story
I once loved, one of many
with concealments and late-night rescues,
high sentence and pomp. The truth is
I learned to live without hope
as well as I could, almost happily,
in the despoiled and radiant now.
You who are one of them, say that I loved
my companions most of all.
In all sincerity, say that they provided
a better way to be alone.
http://steves2cents.blogspot.co.uk/20...
We should all try writing a poem like this! But, whether or not we could write one as good as this is another matter. I particularly like "...say that I loved/my companions most of all./In all sincerity, say that they provided/a better way to be alone."
I think this is a brave and beautiful poem. A wonderful way to start my day-and a Monday at that!
Oh, but this leaves me with such a sad feeling - a melancholy Monday
I'm sorry Thing Two.
Me too-interesting how different people are effected so differently by literature. It always amazes me.
That's the beauty of literature.
Lots of little gems in this poem. My favorite: I was burned by books early and kept sidling up to the flame. I made this into a small sign and hung it in my library.
What a lovely idea.
DonnaR wrote: "Lots of little gems in this poem. My favorite: I was burned by books early and kept sidling up to the flame. I made this into a small sign and hung it in my library."Love it!
