Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE POET, by JANE MILLER Poet's Biography First Line: You would procure the oil of forgiveness from the angel Last Line: With great humility, bathed in tears and barefoot. Subject(s): Americanization; Cities; Decay; Modern Man; United States; Urban Life; Rot; Decadence; America | ||||||||
You would procure the oil of forgiveness from the angel at the doors, and get a small branch for a tree that finds no use until it becomes a bridge over a river. You have a premonition, while crossing, about the wood's fate, and rather than step farther, cross on foot. The wood lies dormant for centuries until it's dug up and three victims die on it, scattering the Jews. Unable to discern The cross from those of two thieves, you place them in the pit of the city, in the early hours hold each above your head, and with the third are brought to life zipping between buildings at high speed, shifting into fifth out a disembodied ramp. The thrill in the air is sexual, the ballpark darkened and the hologram of the shut airport glowing, your headlamps trained on mall light in fog made more intimate and infinite by the collapse of time, cement bits swirling your sealed space to the strains of violins. It's the dawn of an era. Time does not improve it. You live in a sunny place and work in a sealed building. IO MPH on Interstate 405 by 2000. The twentieth century, begun in Vienna, has ended in California. ..gas meters on your left and electric meters on your right. Ahead, at the end of a passage, out in the light a flight of concrete stairs. As you climb you see the big towers of the financial district fifty stories high a few blocks away... The sense of entering a city nobly, walking the freeway at night before it's torn down, hearing Portuguese, German, Japanese, French, Chinese, seeing views of the bay, metallic, choppy, and of the suspension bridge, and the ships, this is over. About the demolition, a few warnings, like those about the earthquake. The clack in the streets of Vienna, a carriage door slamming and a continuous fountain, though far away, seem no farther than the broken freeway. The bells of the tower, quiet. The stones smooth and brilliant in moonlight. You are in a car with music and air conditioning and a phone. Softly, the classical station massages you. You know in the back of your head the best of your creative life has been siphoned away by desire and money, desire in general and money in comparison with others, but between one abstraction and another you yourself quietly and fiercely participate in a disappearing place, one you loved and were prepared to enter with great humility, bathed in tears and barefoot. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JULY FOURTH BY THE OCEAN by ROBINSON JEFFERS SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC by ROBINSON JEFFERS SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC by ROBINSON JEFFERS WATCH THE LIGHTS FADE by ROBINSON JEFFERS AFTER TENNYSON by AMBROSE BIERCE MEETING YOU AT THE PIERS by KENNETH KOCH INVOCATION TO THE SOCIAL MUSE by ARCHIBALD MACLEISH A WINTER OF LOVE LETTERS AND A MORNING PRAYER: 5 by JANE MILLER A WINTER OF LOVE LETTERS AND A MORNING PRAYER: 7 by JANE MILLER |
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