POETRY MONDAY: June 2, 2008
Michael Waters
It’s my pleasure this month to introduce the distinguished poet Michael Waters, whose publications include eight collections of poetry and numerous anthologies and critical works. Among his awards are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Maryland Arts Council, three Pushcart Prizes, and residencies in Ireland, Switzerland and on Malta. His readings, workshops and visiting professorships have taken him throughout the U.S. and abroad, including Prague, Baghdad, Iasi (Romania) and Toulouse. A longtime professor of English at Salisbury University in Maryland, Michael Waters will be assuming a similar position at Monmouth University in New Jersey in September 2008.
Here, then, are three poems from Michael Waters’ book Parthenopi: New and Selected Poems (BOA Editions) that he is pleased to share with us.
Irene Willis
Poetry Editor
MONOPOLY
The loneliness of two people
together, rolling dice
as if their luck might change,
arrives with the breeze
of moths fanning a lampshade,
casual, without voice—
so the radio keeps reciting
those brokenhearted syllables
that tumble through the open
window onto the wet street.
When I glance up, I can see
the woman dancing, alone,
while her husband swaps deeds,
steers a miniature, silver
racer along the boardwalk
or, worse, drags a worn shoe
onto Baltic Avenue, past peep-shows
where couples simulate sex
on screens flecked with grime.
This game seems crazy to her
because it holds the boredom
back only a few minutes, because
no one can possess the night.
Her husband thinks she’s silly,
so the board is folded,
the money stacked by color,
and water runs in the bathroom
for a long time. But, in bed,
they pull each other close,
and why not?—each hauling
the other like found junk,
hoping to become something more
valuable, less bankrupt,
before the slow irony of dawn,
before the next cast of moon.
Together, in their yellow room,
they level their account:
a little motion that might pass
for travel, an overwhelming
desire to win without luck.
DOGS IN THE STORM
after Akhmatova
When this slow heart was raging
and I could tell no one, especially you,
I would abandon the exhaustion of sheets,
this woman tossing like damp leaves,
and storm a few miles into the country.
I wanted to memorize the silhouette
of each branch, the chorus of stars,
the uproar of the willows’ shadows,
the stiff mailboxes bearing witness
to such immense drift and flux.
I wanted not to think about you.
But each time some stray bitch
came limping along the highway,
eyes iced shut in wind, nose
scenting the hunger of wild couplings,
I wondered: Whose lost lover is this?
And how far away is my distant brother
who howls for us both in such savage moonlight?
THE INARTICULATE
Touching your face, I am like a boy
who bags groceries, mindless on Saturday,
jumbling cans of wax beans and condensed milk
among frozen meats, the ribboned beef
and chops like maps of continental drift,
extremes of weather and hemisphere,
egg carton perched like a Napoleonic hat,
till he touches something awakened by water,
a soothing skin, eggplant or melon or cool snow pea,
and he pauses, turning it in his hand,
this announcement of color, purple or green,
the raucous rills of the aisles overflowing,
and by now the shopper is staring
when the check-out lady turns and says,
“Jimmy, is anything the matter?”
Touching your face, I am like that boy
brought back to his body, steeped
in the moment, fulfilled but unable to speak.