Long Island Poets by Robert Long

Author:Robert Long
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504023351
Publisher: The Permanent Press (ORD)

The Long Island Night

Nothing as miserable has happened before.

The Long Island night has refused its moon.

La belle dame sans merci’s next door.

The Prince of Darkness is on the phone.

Certain famous phrases of our time

Have taken on the glitter of poems,

Like “Catch me before I kill again,”

And “Why are you sitting in the dark alone?”

Bay Days

1

The clouds were doing unoriginal things

With grandeur yesterday, moving paintings

From here to there, slowly dispersing

Gangs of angels. Today there’s nothing,

Nothing but a camera taking nothing.

Summer. Weather. Nothing could be clearer.

It is a perfect day, with no cloud cover.

2

The birds’ gradual declensions stop.

The darkness takes the longest time to darken.

Sums of stars add to the overhead.

A city of hunches thickens and grows thin,

Appears and disappears across the water,

Depending on the light’s strange gift for hanging

Scenery. And then for taking it down.

3

Each night, the outlines of that city form

Films of the ideal, illuminations

Of crumpled battlements whose rising argot

Is faintly heard above the motorboats;

Here, the night philosophers break camp

Down to a single-minded tent of parting.

The fire’s out. The animals are gone.

4

Currents, always running, gauged to light

And wind, the depths varying the colors:

A copper milky green, and ink-splash blue

Turned tinsel. A vain castle’s sinking

Into its sewerage system. A particle of sail,

Hurrying to meet its particle of sun,

Shakes the whole slack surface into speed.

5

Decisive laboring: the song recital

The rain was trying to compose this morning

On what the sun had glossed as marginalia.

References to happiness are obsolete

According to the gloomy view this evening,

Which says existence is the only share

Of ardent joy that’s ever in our power.

6

I tried today to make of the wild roses

An untimely bouquet. Opening, falling,

They never last long—in short, they’re dying.

Now I am thinking of taking to drinking

Earlier than usual. Gin. And something.

A potion of petals. They’re thorns by evening.

Wild roses in the trash can in the morning.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.