The Trouble with Poetry Read Online Free Page B

water
    and dark shadows in the corners of the room.
    I stood for a while under the big tree
    and listened to the wind and the birds,
    your wind and your birds,
    your dark green woods beyond the clearing.
    This is not what it is like to be you,
    I realized as a few of your magnificent clouds
    flew over the rooftop.
    It is just me thinking about being you.
    And before I headed back down the hill,
    I walked in a circle around your house,
    making an invisible line
    which you would have to cross before dark.

The Centrifuge
    It is difficult to describe what we felt
    after we paid the admission,
    entered the aluminum dome,
    and stood there with our mouths open
    before the machine itself,
    what we had only read about in the papers.
    Huge and glistening it was
    but bolted down and giving nothing away.
    What did it mean?
    we all openly wondered,
    and did another machine exist somewhere else—
    an even mightier one—
    that was designed to be its exact opposite?
    These were not new questions,
    but we asked them earnestly and repeatedly.
    Later, when we were home again—
    a family of six having tea—
    we raised these questions once more,
    knowing that this made us part
    of a great historical discussion
    that included science
    as well as literature and the weather
    not to mention the lodger downstairs,
    who, someone said,
    had been seen earlier leaving the house
    with a suitcase and a tightly furled umbrella.

The Introduction
    I don’t think this next poem
    needs any introduction—
    it’s best to let the work speak for itself.
    Maybe I should just mention
    that whenever I use the word
five
,
    I’m referring to that group of Russian composers
    who came to be known as “The Five,”
    Balakirev, Moussorgsky, Borodin—that crowd.
    Oh—and Hypsicles was a Greek astronomer.
    He did something with the circle.
    That’s about it, but for the record,
    “Grimké” is Angelina Emily Grimké, the abolitionist.
    “Imroz” is that little island near the Dardanelles.
    “Monad”—well, you all know what a monad is.
    There could be a little problem
    with
mastaba
, which is one of those Egyptian
    above-ground sepulchers, sort of brick and limestone.
    And you’re all familiar with helminthology?
    It’s the science of worms.
    Oh, and you will recall that Phoebe Mozee
    is the real name of Annie Oakley.
    Other than that, everything should be obvious.
    Wagga Wagga is in New South Wales.
    Rhyolite is that soft volcanic rock.
    What else?
    Yes,
meranti
is a type of timber, in tropical Asia I think,
    and Rahway is just Rahway, New Jersey.
    The rest of the poem should be clear.
    I’ll just read it and let it speak for itself.
    It’s about the time I went picking wild strawberries.
    It’s called “Picking Wild Strawberries.”

FOUR
 

The Revenant
    I am the dog you put to sleep,
    as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
    come back to tell you this simple thing:
    I never liked you—not one bit.
    When I licked your face,
    I thought of biting off your nose.
    When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
    I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.
    I resented the way you moved,
    your lack of animal grace,
    the way you would sit in a chair to eat,
    a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand.
    I would have run away,
    but I was too weak, a trick you taught me
    while I was learning to sit and heel,
    and—greatest of insults—shake hands without a hand.
    I admit the sight of the leash
    would excite me
    but only because it meant I was about
    to smell things you had never touched.
    You do not want to believe this,
    but I have no reason to lie.
    I hated the car, the rubber toys,
    disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives.
    The jingling of my tags drove me mad.
    You always scratched me in the wrong place.
    All I ever wanted from you
    was food and fresh water in my metal bowls.
    While you slept, I watched you breathe
    as the moon rose in the sky.
    It took all of my strength
    not to raise my head and howl.
    Now I am free of the collar,
    the yellow