Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Pearls Before Me

(updated)

I set out to read a collection
Of poems by Rodney McKuen;
I decided, through much introspection,
I haven't a clue what I'm doin'.

Anthology catches attention:
The Poems of M. Angelou!
Disbelief kept in willing suspension,
I’m finished by quarter past you.

The next day I wandered unsteady,
in search of some coffeehouse verse;
I savored some rare Ferlinghetti
in landscapes of living - and worse.

If I had met Dorothy Parker,
She likely would not have been there;
A rose is a carnival barker,
But a fawning acquaintance is air.

I wandered the docks of Venezia
To breathe in the scent of Lord Byron;
But signs of his genius grow hazier,
The glimpse of a shimmering siren.

The Poest of poets is creeping
Away from my somnolent prose;
But he'll nevermore catch me weeping -
I'm off to read palms at Thoreau's.

Walt Whitman and I have a wager
About his barbaric old yawp:
When I write my first twenty-pager,
I'll yawp, and he'll yawp, then we'll stop.

When Shelley comes by for a beverage,
I run out and open the gates;
Together we muster our leverage,
And whip up a cocktail for Yeats.

A bell jar can balance a lily,
But not so Miss Sylvia Plath;
She told me my concept was silly,
preferring an aquavit bath.

And now, in the gloom of the gloamin',
While poems play out in their turns,
I wake up and think, "How at home in
This stanza would be Robbie Burns."

But guilty or innocent are we?
"Hurrah!" or "Go jump in a lake"?
Experience tells me it's sorry
You’ve waited so long, William Blake.

4 comments:

ohdawno said...

Love it! Blake, however, is one of my favorite poets and while I'd rather see him elevated, I'm happy he wasn't forgotten!

Tina said...

you hit upon so very many of my favourites: Plath, Shelley, Byron... Sigh

Well done Captain

Nichola said...

You're a genius!

I've tagged you by the way, here:

http://thesoupisgettingcold.blogspot.com/2007/05/eight-random-things.html

The world needs to know eight random things about you. :D

Anonymous said...

Absolutely love your work, Rob. :)
Dude.