The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Sun 2/3/2008)

[RetroLounge]

Counting Placemats

         "Lust is grief that has turned over in bed
          to look the other way."

                         Donald Hall


This is how a poet explains
shaving the beard of loss
with a quick screw and a long shrug.
Living on -- when nothing grows
except a root that leads to past.
A lonely verse, an empty house
of extra rooms he needs
to fill with laughter and bones.
Dinner for two was the dream.
Dinner for one is the truth.
She'd beckon you to love again,
to oil the wok, to fry wild onions
and chard. She wouldn't
want you stewing here
like nuts that have no meat.

There is nothing the dead can say
to lift the sinking chin
of what remains on stretching roads
as they point toward rattling ribs.
Her name is etched in every hour,
on all four posters of the bed.
Your heart will always be a cave
and she the torch that fizzled,
snuffed, and dropped from
reaching fingertips.
Palettes stocked with brand new blood
won't bring your favorite portrait back.
Climax inside foreign thighs,
a second-place certificate.
But she would want you to dance.
Any ballet in the dust to crush
the cherry burning your skin.

Janet I. Buck

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JANET BUCK is a six-time Pushcart Nominee. Her poetry has recently appeared in CrossConnect, Poetry Magazine.com, The Montserrat Review, Offcourse, The Pedestal Magazine, PoetryBay, Coelacanth, Impetus, Wicked Alice, Retort Magazine, Megaera, The Rose & Thorn, Red River Review, Facets Magazine, and hundreds of journals worldwide. Janet's second print collection, Tickets to a Closing Play, was the winner of the 2002 Gival Press Poetry Award; the book is scheduled for publication in October of 2003.

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:hi:

RL

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. For some reason

I find this one hard to believe. Not to say it isn't nicely written. :donut:

[RetroLounge]

2. It's written about Donald Hall

and his late wife, Jane Kenyon.

RL

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. ok

to me, it does not say good things about her. Perhaps, I am taking that last part the wrong way.

[RetroLounge]

5. I believe the last part is about the next woman

after his wife had died...

I think it's about moving on, and the impossibility of doing so sometimes...

At least that's my take on it.

RL

[Tuesday Afternoon]

7. oh...reread it

I thought it was her. It is him, having trouble moving forward.

I don't know that last line bugs me. meh.

[lizziegrace]

4. I was hoping this was about the death of someone loved

anything else didn't make any sense.

I'm glad you clarified.

So she wouldn't want him to go on alone but he'd be settling with anyone else?

[RetroLounge]

6. Yeah, that might be it...

"So she wouldn't want him to go on alone but he'd be settling with anyone else."

or he would feel like it's settling...

RL

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. My dear Retro...

Love after loss...

Beautifully put...

I appreciate your clarification in the other posts!

:hug:

[BlueIris]

9. The author has an interesting bio. nt