Classic and Contemporary Poetry
HOMILY, by JAMES HARRISON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: These simple rules to live within - a black Last Line: He crumples as paper but rises daily from the dead. Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim Subject(s): Wisdom | ||||||||
These simple rules to live within - a black pen at night, a gold pen in daylight, avoid blue food and ten-ounce shots of whiskey, don't point a gun at yourself, don't snipe with the cri-cri-cri of a becassine, don't use gas for starter fluid, don't read dirty magazines in front of stewardesses - it happens all the time; it's time to stop cleaning your plate, forget the birthdays of the dead, give all you can to the poor. This might go on and on and will: who can choose between the animal in the road and the ditch? A magnum for lunch is a little too much but not enough for dinner. Polish the actual stars at night as an invisible man pets a dog, an actual man a memory-dog lost under the morning glory trellis forty years ago. Dance with yourself with all your heart and soul, and occasionally others, but don't eat all the berries birds eat or you'll die. Kiss yourself in the mirror but don't fall in love with photos of ladies in magazines. Don't fall in love as if you were falling through the floor in an abandoned house, or off a dock at night, or down a crevasse covered with false snow, a cow floundering in quicksand while the other cows watch without particular interest, backward off a crumbling cornice. Don't fall in love with two at once. From the ceiling you can see this circle of three, though one might be elsewhere. He is rended, he rends himself, he dances, he whirls so hard everything he is flies off. He crumples as paper but rises daily from the dead. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HOPE IS NOT FOR THE WISE by ROBINSON JEFFERS SEVEN TWILIGHTS: 5 by CONRAD AIKEN SONG: NOW THAT SHE IS HERE; FOR JOE-ANNE by HAYDEN CARRUTH WISE: HAVING THE ABILITY TO PERCEIVE AND ADOPT THE BEST by LUCILLE CLIFTON WISDOM COMETH WITH THE YEARS by COUNTEE CULLEN FOR RANDALL JARRELL, 1914-1965 by NORMAN DUBIE THE MORTAL WORDS OF ZWEIK by PHILIP LEVINE THE IDEA OF BALANCE IS TO BE FOUND IN HERONS AND LOONS by JAMES HARRISON |
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