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--- M I C H A E L   M A G E E  


Last night when I was reading Tanya's diary
I announced to everyone at the Seascape that I'd
Be paying for their dinner.  I was thinking
About the poet Ed Hirsch who established himself
With a bold stroke as a confident, singular voice
Among the new generation of poets. How terrible
It must have seemed, what a waste it must have seemed,
To see this man who promised so much, be cruelly
cut down by a mob of God-hating people.

First I listened to the conversation. Next I listened To the words and the idioms and wrote them down At once. I listened to some people, of how This came about. I listened to the world, And how it cried in fear. Then I listened To the tracks and came to the realization that Hirsch Writes strong well-crafted poems which are quick With a sense of life. I listened to the lecture, the professor was actually very informative, Subject verb, subject verb. I listened to the tape every time I went grocery shopping.

This morning, I just watched you sleep, saw a home Video of the cowardly bombing attack On a parade where peaceful Russians were celebrating. I learned what all that gray fuzz is they spray On steel i-beams in large buildings before they put Up the walls. Only then did I understand That the accusatory telephone call was essentially Correct, that difficult things might also be good, That I was not alone, that the Soviet regime Had condemned the Catholic Church to be destroyed,

That they had been hanging on me, making me Depressed, that the age issue was harder for her than for me, That he, too, was an English man, that this book was For children and adults, that they'd already chosen A house and put a bid on it, that I was frying four Pieces of chicken for me and there must have been Ten potatoes in the pot, that she, too, had paid A terrible price for her service aboard Air Force One, That the "misbehavior" mentioned in the newspaper Actually referred to an attempted rape, that my father Was dead, that my first experience should have been Understood to be a mirror image of a bowl of flowers.

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