thanks, Mark, delicious affectionate imitation...
Goodness, now he's 80!
Max
Quoting Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>:
> On the occasion of Emily Dickinson's birthday, and a day before Jerome
> Rothenberg's 80th, "Two Poems, after Emily Dickinson," written when he was
> about 20. From his collection "Retrievals: Uncollected & New Poems
> 1955-2010," available (at a discount) at junctionpress.com.
>
> Note the final wicked slant rhyme.
>
>
>
> Two Poems, after Emily Dickinson
>
> 1
> The last train left at five o’clock,
> Somehow we missed the way;
> We’ll have to sit in waiting rooms
> until eternity.
>
> Tickets form an ark of snow,
> Water comes in drops,
> While this earth-bound passenger
> Studies secret maps,
>
> Inquires at the agent’s door
> If the next train leaves,
> Anxious to reduce delay
> To a term of weeks.
>
> When it chanced, we couldn’t tell
> That it would always be
> This waiting in a busy room
> For immortality.
>
> 2
> The birds attain superior life
> The others never find;
> I wish my obligations
> Might dabble with the wind.
>
> Within his strictest tenement
> Deciduous to rise,
> That wing confining aviary
> To me were Paradise.
>
> But mapping bounds of heaven,
> Topographers will pause
> Before they reach that other house,
> And justify the jaws.
>
> Essential circumscription,
> I find its premise odd,
> Which grants necessity of bird,
> But contradicts the cat.
>
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