February 4: Valentine's Day, Adonis, "Song"

I haven't written a poem in a while.  I've been scribbling ideas for poems in my journal, but I've not sat down and written a poem in a few months.  That happens sometimes when life gets busy.  Since the beginning of the semester, I've had trouble just putting out a couple blog posts a day.

On Valentine's Day, I will be finding out whether I will be the next Poet Laureate of the U. P.  I'm going to tape an episode of a local news program, and the top three finalists will be present.  And then, I'm imagining, somebody will tear open an envelope, and the name of the winner will be announced.

I hold no expectations.  I know I got votes, or else I wouldn't be in the final three.  But winning is not something that I'm prepared for.  For the next ten days, I'm going to be practicing my Oscar loser face.  You know what I'm talking about--when they announce the winners at the Academy Awards, and all the losers sit in their seats, faces stretched in a weird rictus of a smile, clapping politely.

At least Saint Marty might get a new poem out of the experience.  

The last poem from the Poet of the Week, Adonis.

Song

by:  Adonis

          from “Elegy for the First Century”

 

Bells on our eyelashes

and the death throes of words,

and I among fields of speech,

a knight on a horse made of dirt.

My lungs are my poetry, my eyes a book,

and I, under the skin of words,

on the beaming banks of foam,

a poet who sang and died

leaving this singed elegy

before the faces of poets,

for birds at the edge of sky.