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1987-08-06
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«RHA«FR»Michael Finley. 2096 Dayton Ave, St Paul MN 55104 646-4642
»«RFA«FR»[c] 1987 by Michael Finley
»
Copyright 1987 by Michael Finley Writing Services * 612/646-4642
«MDBO»REMAINDERED POEMS«MDNM»
Copies of one of my books went on sale at Odegard Books,
Or to put it more properly, remaindered,
Marked down from three ninety five to just the ninety five,
And it hit me that this gambit by the bookstore
Was just what people had been waiting for.
Sure, you expect people to hold back,
Especially at today's prices. Three ninety five is
A piece of change, no doubt about it,
And there must be people who thumb the book
And pat it with one hand as if weighing the
Poems against the expense, the expense against
The poems, take one step toward the cashier
And then fail in their purpose, put the book back
In the rack, and pick up a copy of American Poetry Review,
Beautiful things wonderfully said,
For under three dollars, a wonderful buy, instead.
But who could balk at ninety five cents,
Why, that's less than a dollar with a nickel left over,
You could buy the poems and have enough to
Handle the sales tax, nineteen for the poet and
One for the State of Minnesota and its beautiful
Forests and waterfowl.
[Actually, all nineteen don't go to the poet. I was
Promised a ten percent royalty, which meant forty cents
On the full price, and the fine print here says
When a book goes remainder there isn't really
Any royalty at all, but I don't care, I didn't
Write them for the forty cents, you see,
I wrote them for this feeling I'm having right now
Of breaking through, of getting out,
Of seeing the birds I'd stored in the box
Fly out of it, white wings fair
clapping the morning air.]
Ninety five cents for thirty five poems,
That's less than three pennies apiece. Here's one
About some weeds growing in sidewalk cracks,
So what, it's only six lines long but at three cents
Who's going to complain? Here's another,
A beautiful lyric, a love poem connecting
To the Italian futurist movement of the nineteen-teens,
It was published in a number of respected magazines,
For less than three cents you won't need a vacation tour
This year, just read the words and feel their awful power.
Or the final poem, I call it "The Light," which was all
My life in sonnet length, how there were things
I thought I always wanted, but when I got the they were
Different, or I was unable to recognize them -- such pathos
As would melt the stony heart, and I lay it all down
For you, vulnerable, small, the shattered clown,
The paper trembles with the grief of truth,
Because here it is, softcover renascence,
And all it costs is three lousy cents.
My ear to the ground I can detect the build
Of momentum, people swearing off bad habits forever,
People afraid to look one another in the eye
Now looking and seeing the pain and love that had been there
All along, now reaching out, fingertips touching,
The sting of tear collecting in the corners
Of millions and thousands, the soft collapse
Of a hundred brittle barriers of reason and attitude
Finally available, the incandescent word
At prices the masses can afford.
Let us go now, you and I, to Odegards.
For life has many sales but few true bargains.
Let us take the silver coins and hand them to the person
And remember to ask for the receipt, if you're a poet
Your whole life is deductible.
Oh daughters of Homer gather round his knees
And hear him sing his saltstrong songs.
There are myriad of you there,
A speckled galaxy of brave little lights,
Fresh washed garments tucked under your knees,
Eager for instruction and keen for meaning,
He cannot see you but he hears you breathing.
# # #
«RHA«FR»Michael Finley. 2096 Dayton Ave, St Paul MN 55104 646-4642
»«RFA«FR»[c] 1987 by Michael Finley
»
I HATE IT MORE THAN YOU DO, MARIANNE
«FR»"Imaginary gardens with real toads in them."
«FL»
I hate it more than you do, Marianne, I hate
The sighing and heaving and jockeying
For position. I hate the having
To get into the mood, the
Chase, the coy
Cultivation
Of op-
Posites.
I hate the
Strutting that precedes
The first move, I hate the feigned
Surprise that follows. I hate the protestations
Of no, no, as if this was not what you wanted,
All you wanted, all along, to be prodded
And forced through the hoop
One more time, and
The accent
And null,
And
The accent and
Null, till the element
Spurts from the unit out into
Its grin of decay, and afterward,
The depleted sag and the limping off stage,
The slight curl of smoke, propitation to gods who
Couldn't care less,
And yet,
When the fit is good,
And one's hands encompass
The soft arc of the dreamed for,
The sought after circles, and all spins
Round as new as youth and as right as truth,
Like the rise and crescendo of flat stones skipped
On the water's face and I behold anew how your slim bones
Gleam platinum in the glad light of earth,
And I enter you again with a smile,
And I think the world has no
Need of this, nor
May you, but
I do.
#
«RHA«FR»Michael Finley. 2096 Dayton Ave, St Paul MN 55104 646-4642
»«RFA«FR»[c] 1987 by Michael Finley
»
THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT'S REAR
The shoeshop salesman talked him into it.
You're in great shape, Mr. President,
Why not try the Spandex look,
It cleaves to the flesh like a second skin,
Like Baryshnikov, in taupe, in black, in blue?
A simple man who'd done well in school,
The president didn't know what Lycra«MDSU»TM«MDNM» was,
But back home he slid into it instead of his sweats,
Felt the sleek squeeze hug his loins
Like a shell clamping his embryo tightly about him,
Imagined muscle where there was only pressure,
A girdle from the crab nebula pinching him in,
Taut, a Pan in blue, an athlete.
Hit the path up Summit Avenue, jogging slowly,
Cool air upon him like a sail, like
The first stares of passersby, eyes drawn
To the university president's rear,
Bobbing like a pair of punchdrunk fighters,
Dyad debate, hemispheric waltz, blue as heaven,
As Windex on a skylight to the stars,
Blue on the butt like the tongue of a hanged man.
He nods at the lawyer kneeling in his roses,
Waves at the carpool of deans and department heads
Turning the corner, senses the turning
Of gray heads within.
He clenches his president's ass,
His president's jaw, reflects upon the skills
That brought him thus far,
His ability with groups,
A knack for consensus eluding most others,
A civilized sense of The clothedness of things,
Of the asslessness of mind
Rectangulated from nature, of the comity of wool
That tents the sagacious man's angles and globes.
People who don't even realize
He is the president of a major university
Are turning to watch him acclerate, buzz,
Bluebottle fly pawing the screen,
Middle-aged man pretending all is right in the world,
And one is not naked and one's ass is not blue,
Nor one's crack flapping open like the death of kindness.
Loopholes, tatters, hedges, hands,
Anything to hide one's shame
behind, untint the hue of blue suffused,
The bare haunch of protocol, nice guy
Running stiff-legged as a stork,
Faster than he has ever run before.
# # #