Sinister: ummm.. Tuesday poem?

[poetry place2]

Regular viewers may have noticed that there was no poem yesterday, and
foolishly presumed that I, like, forgot or something. Zut alors! In fact I
was respecting sarah's student march by holding my own one day poetry
strike. Nary a metaphor nor a metonym crossed my electronic picket line... 

The old list is getting a bit quiet again, n'est ce pas? A couple of
promising threads, tho'... PE Teachers: For too long have we meekly
accepted the propaganda that PE teachers are "hard, but fair" Bullet
Baxter-from-Grange-Hill-types. My teacher, Mr Biggerstaff, once fractured
my mate Derek's skull with a hockey ball, and is now wanted in three
countries. 

Also, someone starting a fanzine mentioned bus trips. I think we oughta
start ink-travelogues, like polaroids, but about your favourite routemaster
journey. Having moved to SE London, where the underground is but a vague
rumour, my life has been immeasureably improved by the 188 which takes me
from the mean streets of Bermondsey over Waterloo bridge every morning.
It's wonderful...

Enough blather

This week's poem is by James Tate. He's American, has won the Pulitzer
prize, and is a kind of goofball surrealist, along the lines of Joseph
Cornell or Donald Barthelme. His selected poems are published in the UK by
carcanet, and are terrific. In no way does the melancholy of this poem
reflect the fact that the only Valentines I got last Saturday were
emails...

----------------------------------------------------------------------

James Tate
Coda

Love is not worth so much;
I regret everything.
Now on our backs
in Fayetteville, Arkansas,
the stars are falling
into our cracked eyes.

With my good arm
I reach for the sky,
and let the air out of the moon.
It goes whizzing off
to shrivel and sink
in the ocean.

You cannot weep;
I cannot do anything
that once held an ounce
of meaning for us.
I cover you 
with pine needles.

When morning comes,
I will build a cathedral
around our bodies.
And the crickets,
who sing with their knees,
will come there
in the night to be sad,
when they can sing no more.

-------------------------------------------------
Stephen
xxxxxxx

Chairman of the official "Unholy Trinity" fanclub (London chapter)
The Poetry Society Website: http://www.poetrysoc.com
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