Sailing On

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BobBradshaw
Posts: 2683
Joined: 03 Jun 2016, 21:03

Sailing On

#1 Post by BobBradshaw » 02 May 2023, 02:28

…the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
—W.H. Auden, Musee des Beaux Arts



Sailing On

It’s like the afternoon the Owl Cafe
was giving out free green beer
on St. Patrick’s Day. All the homeless
and poets(it was hard to tell
the difference) rushed down there.

Today the poets are at the dock
for a grant paid cruise to the Caribbean.
Everyone’s dragging trunks
packed with botched poems.
Are you a poet, son?

a man dressed in navy regalia
—or as a Ritz doorman—asks.
Yes. He squints at me, sun in his eyes.
How many books have you published?
I hem and haw, cough up

a big wad of nasty phlegm.
Ever publish in the New Yorker?
The Prairie Schooner? Poetry
Northwest? Well, don’t worry.
I can issue you a boarding pass

if you graduated, even at the bottom
of your class, from the University
of Iowa
…Workshop? I fill in.
Who’d want to be a poet anyway?
he sighs.

(Why does he sigh? Is he a poet?)
He goes on. What’s a poet but some nut
who chops his lines up
--cause he can't rhyme--and calls it free verse?
Someone who pauses when he reads aloud

at the end of every line—
as if he’s reached a sidewalk’s end,
where he looks both ways—
a heavy traffic speeding by,
derelicts behind every wheel—

before slipping a foot cautiously
onto the next icy line.
Give it up, son. It’s embarrassing
to be a poet. If you’ve ever
joined a poetry workshop

you did it for the reason
my uncle joined a Lonelyhearts Club
—to commiserate with others.
Confess, lad. Don’t you belong
to workshops?


I nod as the ship’s pulling away.
My scruffy friends, who paid
publishers to print their books
the way sinners once paid
the church indulgences,

are waving at me like the rich
wave to the dock’s indigent strangers.
I’m becoming more
and more diminished in their eyes
as they put distance between us.

Even if I were something amazing,
a Pulitzer winning poet
falling from the sky,
they would have somewhere free
to get to--and sail calmly on.

RamanathanSiva
Posts: 127
Joined: 28 Aug 2020, 23:11

Re: Sailing On

#2 Post by RamanathanSiva » 02 May 2023, 21:43

I think the poem ends here.

I’m becoming more
and more diminished in their eyes
as they put distance between us.

BobBradshaw
Posts: 2683
Joined: 03 Jun 2016, 21:03

Re: Sailing On

#3 Post by BobBradshaw » 02 May 2023, 21:48

Thank you, Siva. I need to think about it, and consider which stanza is best to close on.

RamanathanSiva
Posts: 127
Joined: 28 Aug 2020, 23:11

Re: Sailing On

#4 Post by RamanathanSiva » 02 May 2023, 21:56

You wouldn't like to open with this?

Even if I were something amazing,
a Pulitzer winning poet
falling from the sky,
they would have somewhere free
to get to--and sail calmly on.

I am not trying to manipulate, just thinking of a memorable first stanza.

BobBradshaw
Posts: 2683
Joined: 03 Jun 2016, 21:03

Re: Sailing On

#5 Post by BobBradshaw » 03 May 2023, 00:41

That's an interesting suggestion! maybe

RamanathanSiva
Posts: 127
Joined: 28 Aug 2020, 23:11

Re: Sailing On

#6 Post by RamanathanSiva » 03 May 2023, 04:49

This cannot be an opening stanza. There is no introduction in this.

FranktheFrank
Posts: 1983
Joined: 02 Mar 2016, 18:07
Location: Between the mountains and the sea

Re: Sailing On

#7 Post by FranktheFrank » 04 May 2023, 02:02

It is often a pleasure to read your ramblings, Bob.
I have though this way myself, what makes us poets
men who chop up lines and call it free verse.
Who makes us poets but some transient zine
that posts our work because it has nothing better to do.
And yet we go on, writing for prosperity. At least our work
is not full of profanity and debauchery as much as we would like
to live that wastrel life of Bukowski. We ordinary mortals
can only post portions of a mundane life or imaginary lives.
Imaginary, we live other peoples lives again, and again
better their lives than our own.

Really enjoyed.
First class ramblings.

RamanathanSiva
Posts: 127
Joined: 28 Aug 2020, 23:11

Re: Sailing On

#8 Post by RamanathanSiva » 04 May 2023, 03:55

I think the poem has reached its final stage.

RamanathanSiva
Posts: 127
Joined: 28 Aug 2020, 23:11

Re: Sailing On

#9 Post by RamanathanSiva » 04 May 2023, 09:36

Frank, Bob never rambles, his poems are well crafted. If at all anybody rambles then it is you and I.

S

BobBradshaw
Posts: 2683
Joined: 03 Jun 2016, 21:03

Re: Sailing On

#10 Post by BobBradshaw » 08 May 2023, 23:37

Thanks, guys, for liking this.

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