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Open Poetry #17
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POETS AND PLACES, Part III
| Open Poetry #17 |
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POETS AND PLACES, Part III |
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Glenn Logan Member
since 2001-10-10
Posts 111Virginia |
Can we still see this city now that Carl Sandburg is under ground? He stands anew in the Lake at Chicago, bidding us enter, bidding us follow; still waters run deep, dead poets don't die, especially those as American as apple pie. What about New Jersey? Do poets still wander the bleak back streets of Camden, now that the great bearded bard has lusted after his last pretty boy, and found the green grass growing over him, immortally? Have rocking singers followed his lead? Does his work live yet in a stomping beat and barbaric yarp? that he answers from his poets' heaven with the sound of a harp? And in Paterson, the ghost of Doctor Williams still strolls the streets with fountain pen and pad in hand, marching to his own one-man band. And of course New York: We can still see old Gotham through The Master, Henry James, even though he can now do no more than help Ms. Maisie push up daisies in Washington Square. We see old New York also when dying O. Henry ironically sings, "I'm afraid to go home in the dark." But does Stephen Crane's poor sweet Maggie still stroll the lonely city streets? Does she smile at me beneath the quivering gas light, or have I foolishly given her a fright? And in that wonderful Ghost Town of the Mind, do Damon Runyon's guys and dolls haunt Broadway? Do they hang out at Sardi's, and bet on slow horses? Do they wisecrack a lot, and call each other names like "Jersey Joey," "Broadway Bobby" and "Nathan Detroit?" Above all, are the odds on life still six-to-five against? Reminding us, perhaps, that though everyone dies, not everyone lives: the more you put in, the more life gives. On California's Big Sur, poet Robinson Jeffers, though long gone, still runs with Tamar along the beach, while old four-eyed Henry Miller still lusts after yet another sweet young treat. And in Georgia, that master story teller Erskine Caldwell has got a brand new plot under a chinaberry tree in God's Little Acre. Meanwhile in Mississippi, master novelist Bill Faulkner has gone "a fur piece" after spiking his bourbon with much too much water. But leaving Bourbon Street, in old New Orleans, can we still find the streetcar we desire, now that Tennessee Williams has descended with Orpheus to the land of eternal poetic fire? So we do remember - but will Joyce Kilmer kill us if we chop down his old chestnut tree? Will Dos Passos give us a transfer from Manhattan to D.C.? Will we meet old Ambrose Bierce fishing at Owl Creek Bridge? And worst of all, will we still have to share the Brooklyn Heights with Walt Whitman in pink tights? The pale horse and its rider long ago gave Washington Irving a terrible fright, so he arranged his pillows "for another weary night." But we can still ride with ole pumpkinhead, and sympathize with skin-and-bones, and poor sleepy Rip Van Winkle, while Melville's faithful scrivener Bartleby takes notes, and Edgar Poe's Raven keeps steady watch from Athena's pretty pallid bust. And although Poe himself has been taken by the Grim Reaper's gnarly hand, led away screaming to the Silent Land, his stories are still read, his poems are still sung, and there's hardly anyone who doesn't love Annabelle Lee, and who doesn't still pine for that Kingdom by the Sea? NOTE: This is from my book, "Prayers to a Dead God:125 Poems," which was published this past spring. More of my poems can be found at: http://www.geocities.com/glennlogan/index.html http://www.poetrypages/pages/glennlogan http://mywebsite.netscape.com/glopganpoet/gloganpoet.html |
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| © Copyright 2001 Glenn Logan - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Congratulations on the publication! This was a marvelous read...I would only entreat you to go back and edit so that each thread is caught up in the other and can be easily accessed.... this was wonderful!!!  Thank you! |
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Sudhir Iyer Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943Mumbai, India : now in Belgium |
APPLAUSE..... thanks for such a wonderful reading experience... regards, sudhir |
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