april is national poetry month!
you can sign up to receive a poem-a-day...and i will post/link to a new poem every day as well...
i'll start things off with a favorite of mine.
it stuns me every time i read it. to me, it's like a hopper painting, or a scene in a noir film...
more than anything, i love the every day, ordinary day intimacy of it...
this is the kind of moment i love to steal and savor.
hope you love it too. feel free to share your thoughts...
"Pie"
by X.J. Kennedy
Whoever dined in this café before us
Took just a forkful of his cherry pie.
We sit with it between us. Let it lie
Until the overworked waitperson comes
To pick it up and brush away the crumbs.
You look at it. I look at it. I stare
At you. You do not look at me at all.
Somewhere, a crash as unwashed dishes fall.
The clatter of a dropped knife splits the air.
Second-hand smoke infiltrates everywhere.
Your fingers clench the handle of a cup
A stranger drained. I almost catch your eye
For a split second. The abandoned pie
Squats on its plate before us, seeping red
Like a thing not yet altogether dead.
hope you love it too. feel free to share your thoughts...
"Pie"
by X.J. Kennedy
Whoever dined in this café before us
Took just a forkful of his cherry pie.
We sit with it between us. Let it lie
Until the overworked waitperson comes
To pick it up and brush away the crumbs.
You look at it. I look at it. I stare
At you. You do not look at me at all.
Somewhere, a crash as unwashed dishes fall.
The clatter of a dropped knife splits the air.
Second-hand smoke infiltrates everywhere.
Your fingers clench the handle of a cup
A stranger drained. I almost catch your eye
For a split second. The abandoned pie
Squats on its plate before us, seeping red
Like a thing not yet altogether dead.
find "pie", and more, in the lords of misrule...
brief x.j. kennedy article (from 2006) here...
even more daily poetry via writer's almanac here...
