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Waiting -- Raymond Carver

(Poem #163)Waiting
 Left off the highway and
 down the hill. At the
 bottom, hang another left.
 Keep bearing left. The road
 will make a Y. Left again.
 There's a creek on the left.
 Keep going. Just before
 the road ends, there'll be
 another road. Take it
 and no other. Otherwise,
 your life will be ruined
 forever. There's a log house
 with a shake roof, on the left.
 It's not that house. It's 
 the next house, just over
 a rise. The house
 where trees are laden with
 fruit. Where phlox, forsythia,
 and marigold grow. It's
 the house where the woman
 stands in the doorway
 wearing the sun in her hair. The one
 who's been waiting
 all this time.
 The woman who loves you.
 The one who can say,
 "What's kept you?"
-- Raymond Carver

Letter to N.Y. -- Elizabeth Bishop

(Poem #162)Letter to N.Y.
 In your next letter I wish you'd say
 where you are going and what you are doing; 
 how are the plays, and after the plays 
 what other pleasures you're pursuing:
 
 taking cabs in the middle of the night, 
 driving as if to save your soul 
 where the road goes round and round the park 
 and the meter glares like a moral owl,
 
 and the trees look so queer and green
 standing alone in big black caves 
 and suddenly you're in a different place 
 where everything seems to happen in waves,
 
 and most of the jokes you just can't catch, 
 like dirty words rubbed off a slate, 
 and the songs are loud but somehow dim 
 and it gets so terribly late,
 
 and coming out of the brownstone house 
 to the gray sidewalk, the watered street, 
 one side of the buildings rises with the sun 
 like a glistening field of wheat.
 
 —Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid 
 if it's wheat it's none of your sowing, 
 nevertheless I'd like to know
 what you are doing and where you are going.
-- Elizabeth Bishop

I Knew a Woman -- Theodore Roethke

(Poem #161)I Knew a Woman
 I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
 When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
 Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
 The shapes a bright container can contain!
 Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
 Or English poets who grew up on Greek
 (I'd have them sing in a chorus, cheek to cheek).
 
 How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
 She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;
 She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;
 I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
 She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
 Coming behind her for her pretty sake
 (But what prodigious mowing we did make).
 
 Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
 Her full lips pursed, the errant notes to seize;
 She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
 My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
 Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
 Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
 (She moved in circles, and those circles moved).
 
 Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
 I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
 What's freedom for? To know eternity.
 I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
 But who would count eternity in days?
 These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
 (I measure time by how a body sways).
-- Theodore Roethke

Man Writes Poem -- Jay Leeming

(Poem #160)Man Writes Poem
 This just in: a man has begun writing a poem
 in a small room in Brooklyn. His curtains
 are apparently blowing in the breeze. We go now 
 to our man Harry on the scene, what's
 
 the story down there Harry? "Well Chuck
 he has begun the second stanza and seems 
 to be doing fine, he's using a blue pen, most 
 poets these days use blue or black ink so blue
 
 is a fine choice. His curtains are indeed blowing 
 in a breeze of some kind and what's more his radiator
 is 'whistling' somewhat. No metaphors have been written yet,
 but I'm sure he's rummaging around down there
 
 in the tin cans of his soul and will turn up something 
 for us soon. Hang on—just breaking news here Chuck, 
 there are 'birds singing' outside his window, and a car
 with a bad muffler has just gone by. Yes ... definitely
 
 a confirmation on the singing birds." Excuse me Harry 
 but the poem seems to be taking on a very auditory quality
 at this point wouldn't you say? "Yes Chuck, you're right,
 but after years of experience I would hesitate to predict
 
 exactly where this poem is going to go. Why I remember
 being on the scene with Frost in '47, and with Stevens in '53,
 and if there's one thing about poems these days it's that
 hang on, something's happening here, he's just compared the curtains
 
 to his mother, and he's described the radiator as 'Roaring deep 
 with the red walrus of History.' Now that's a key line,
 especially appearing here, somewhat late in the poem,
 when all of the similes are about to go home. In fact he seems 
 
 a bit knocked out with the effort of writing that line,
 and who wouldn't be? Looks like ... yes, he's put down his pen
 and has gone to brush his teeth. Back to you Chuck." Well 
 thanks Harry. Wow, the life of the artist. That's it for now,
 
 but we'll keep you informed of more details as they arise. 
-- Jay Leeming