Of course, I always like hearing it from you.
That is never a cause for concern.
The problem is I now find myself saying it back
if only because just saying good-bye
then hanging up would make me seem discourteous.
But like Bartleby, I would prefer not to
say it so often, would prefer instead to save it
for special occasions, like shouting it out as I leaped
into the red mouth of a volcano
with you standing helplessly on the smoking rim,
or while we are desperately clasping hands
before our plane plunges into the Gulf of Mexico,
which are only two of the examples I had in mind,
but enough, as it turns out, to make me
want to say it to you right now,
and what better place than in the final couplet
of a poem where, as every student knows, it really counts.
Unholy Sonnet #1
Death, one thing you can be proud of
is all the room you manage to take up
in this Concordance to the Poems of John Donne,
edited by Homer Carroll Combs and published in 1945.
Mighty and dreadful are your tall columns here,
(though soul and love put you in deep shade)
for you outnumber man and outscore even life itself,
and you are roughly tied with God and, strangely, eyes.
But no one likes the way you swell,
not even in these scholarly rows,
where from the complex fields of his poems
each word has returned to the alphabet with a sigh.
And lovelier than you are the ones that only once he tried:
syllable and porcelain, but also beach, cup, snail, lamp, and pie.
If This Were a Job I’d Be Fired
When you wake up with nothing,
but you are nonetheless drawn to your sunny chair
near the French doors, it may be necessary
to turn to some of the others to get you going.
So I opened a book of Gerald Stern
but I didn’t want to face my age
by writing about my childhood in the 1940s.
Then I read two little Merwins
which made me feel I should apply
for a position in a corner sandwich shop.
And it only took one Simic,
which ended with a couple on a rooftop
watching a child on fire leap from a window,
to get me to replace the cap on my pen,
put on some sweatpants and go for a walk
around the lake to think of a new career,
but not before I told you all about it
in well, look at this, five quatrains—
better than nothing for a weekday,
I thought, as I headed merrily out the door.
Friends in the Dark
Signs and countersigns should be established
to determine your friends in the dark.
—Robert Rogers, Rules for Ranging
Such a ripe opportunity is presented here
to expand what Rogers meant,
making those friends our own friends and the dark, The Dark.
But is there not enough in this early manual
on guerrilla warfare written in 1758
in the midst of the French and Indian War
and still in use to this day
by those who must cross on foot
the unfriendly fields and woods of combat?
Yes, given the common guile of the world, we might
send one or two men forward to scout
the area and avoid traps before breaking camp.
And as far as being attacked from the rear goes,
sure, immediately reverse order,
and the same goes if attacked from the flank
as we often are, blindsided by a friend
in the dark or right in the face
outside a motel in the glow of a drink machine.
But why not honor the literal for a change,
let the rules speak for themselves,
and not get all periwinkle with allegory?
In the light of rule #20—
avoid passing lakes too close to the edge
as the enemy could trap you against the water’s edge—
could we not stop to absorb
the plight of these hungry rangers
lost in the wilds up and down the Canadian border,
wind rustling the maples, the scent of rain
and danger, and no one having a clue
that their fighting would one day be written down?
Avoid regular river fords
as these are often watched by the enemy,
may make us think of the times we have been wounded
by an arrow while wading through life,
but tonight let’s just heed the rules of Rogers
and look for a better place to cross a river.
No, not the river of life,
a real river, the one we cannot see
there is so much to hack through to get to its bank.
Flying Over West Texas at Christmas
Oh, little town far below
with a ruler line of a road running through you,
you anonymous cluster of houses and barns,
miniaturized by this altitude
in a land as parched as Bethlehem
might have been somewhere around the year zero—
a beautiful song should be written about you
which choirs could sing in their lofts
and carolers standing in a semicircle
could carol in front of houses topped with snow.
For surely some admirable person was born
within the waffle-iron grid of your streets,
who then went on to perform some small miracles,
placing a hand on the head of a child
or shaking a cigarette out of the pack for a stranger.
But maybe it is best not to compose a hymn
or chisel into tablets the code of his behavior
or convene a tribunal of men in robes to explain his words.
Let us not press the gold leaf of his name
onto a page of vellum or hang his image from a nail.
Better to fly over this little town with nothing
but the hope that someone visits his grave
once a year, pushing open the low iron gate
then making her way toward him
through the rows of the others
before bending to prop up some flowers before the stone.
Last Meal
The waiter was dressed in black
and wore a hood,
and when we pleaded for a little more time,
he raised his pencil over his order pad.
And later when he came back
to ask if we were finished,
we shook our heads no,
our forks trembling over our empty plates.
A Word About Transitions
Moreover is not a good way to begin a poem
though many start somewhere in the middle.
Secondly should not be placed
at the opening of your second stanza.
Furthermore should be regarded
as a word to avoid,
Aforementioned is rarely found
in poems at all and for good reason.
Most steer clear of notwithstanding
and the same goes for
nevertheless, however,
as a consequence, in any event,
subsequently,
and as we have seen in the previous chapters.
Finally’s appearance at the top
of the final stanza is not going to help.
All of which suggests (another no-no)
that poems don’t need to tell us where we are
or what is soon to
come.
For example, the white bowl of lemons
on a table by a window
is fine all by itself
and, in conclusion, so are
seven elephants standing in the rain.
The Names
(for the victims of September 11th
and their survivors)
Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A fine rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name—
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner—
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O’Connor.
When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.
Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
In the evening—weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds—
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.
Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in green rows in a field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.
To all the editors who have ushered
my poems into print, especially
David Ebershoff
Daniel Menaker
Ed Ochester
Joseph Parisi
Don Paterson
Miller Williams
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author is grateful to the editors of the following periodicals where some of these poems first appeared:
American Arts Quarterly: “Carrara”
The Atlantic: “Orient,” “Osprey”
Barnes and Noble Review: “Note to Antonín Dvorák”
Boulevard: “After the Funeral,” “Elusive,” “Here and There”
The Cortland Review: “Lines Written in a Garden in Herefordshire”
Ecotone: “Best Fall”
Five Points: “To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl”
The Georgia Review: “Drinking Alone”
The Gettysburg Review: “The Music of the Spheres,” “Villanelle”
Harper’s: “The Sandhill Cranes of Nebraska”
New Ohio Review: “All Eyes,” “The Suggestion Box”
The New York Times: “The Names”
The New Yorker: “Catholicism”
Poetry: “Cheerios,” “Irish Poetry,” “Report from the Subtropics”
A Public Space: “Lincoln”
Raritan: “Unholy Sonnet #1,” “Biographical Notes on the Haiku Poets”
Shenandoah: “Sunday Walk”
Slate: “Foundling”
Smithsonian Magazine: “The Deep,” “The Unfortunate Traveler”
The Southampton Review: “Foundling,” “Flying Over West Texas at Christmas,” “Heraclitus on Vacation,” “Lines Written at Flying Point Beach,” “Looking for a Friend in a Crowd of Arriving Passengers,” “Lucky Bastards”
Southern Poetry Review: “Promenade”
The Times Literary Supplement: “Last Meal”
Tin House: “A Word About Transitions”
“Foundling” was selected by Denise Duhamel for The Best American Poetry 2013
“Here and There” was selected by Kevin Young for The Best American Poetry 2011
“Unholy Sonnet #1” was reprinted in Harper’s
The translation of the Hadrian epigraph is by W. S. Merwin and appeared in Poetry and in The Shadow of Sirius.
For her help with many aspects of this book’s coming into being, my gratitude to Suzannah Gilman.
BY BILLY COLLINS
Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems
Horoscopes for the Dead
Ballistics
The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems
Nine Horses
Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems
Picnic, Lightning
The Art of Drowning
Questions About Angels
The Apple That Astonished Paris
EDITED BY BILLY COLLINS
Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds
(illustrations by David Allen Sibley)
180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day
Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry
About the Author
BILLY COLLINS is the author of ten collections of poetry, including Horoscopes for the Dead, Ballistics, The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems, Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room, Questions About Angels, The Apple That Astonished Paris, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. He is also the editor of Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, and Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds. A distinguished professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York and a distinguished Fellow at the Winter Park Institute of Rollins College, he was Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and Poet Laureate of New York State from 2004 to 2006. He divides his time between New York and Florida, and speaks regularly around the country and the world.
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Aimless Love Page 12