The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Sat 11/1/2008)

[RetroLounge]

Storm Window

She sat writing little poems of mist.
And he in an armchair, reading
blood-red leather novels.
Their three-legged white cat
wandering between them.
Twenty-four champagne glasses
sparkling on the shelf.
Never a one to be broken.
And two stone dogs on either side
of the driveway.
For these reasons
they have gone on precisely,
undetected, for centuries.

Mary Ruefle

***************



Mary Ruefle is the author of several volumes of poetry, most recently A Little White Shadow (Wave Books, 2006), an art book of "erasures", a variation on found poetry; Tristimania (Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 2003), Among the Musk Ox People (2002); Apparition Hill (2001); Cold Pluto (2001); Post Meridian (2000); Cold Pluto (1996); The Adamant (1989), winner of the 1988 Iowa Poetry Prize; Life Without Speaking (1987); and Memling's Veil (1982).

About Ruefle's poems, the poet Tony Hoagland has said, "Her work combines the spiritual desperation of Dickinson with the rhetorical virtuosity of Wallace Stevens. The result (for those with ears to hear) is a poetry at once ornate and intense; linguistically marvelous, yes, but also as visceral as anything you are likely to encounter."

She is the recipient of both National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim fellowships as well as both an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature and a Whiting Foundation Writer's Award. She lives in Vermont, where she is a professor at Vermont College's MFA program.


***************
:hi:

RL

[lizziegrace]

1. Seems like a rather boring existence

:(

Trains running on parallel tracks...

[RetroLounge]

2. Wait! What? Trains are Boring?

:spank:

:D

:hi:

RL

[lizziegrace]

4. Allow me to re-phrase that

two parallel tracks, empty and overgrown with weeds. Not a train in sight. :P

Better??

;)

[RetroLounge]

6. More realistic, anyhow...

:hug:

RL

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. My dear Retro!

Looks like lives of extreme self-control...

Lots hidden under the surface...

Thank you!

:hi:

[RetroLounge]

9. ...

:hi:

RL

[Tuesday Afternoon]

5. wonder how come the cat only has 3 legs...don't see that very often

3-legged dogs, yes but, I don't recall ever seeing a 3-legged cat.

"little poems of mist"
"blood-red leather novels"
"for centuries" (oh.my.)

very nice and mysterious, this one. Thanks, Retro :donut: :hi:

[RetroLounge]

10. You are welcome!

:hi:

RL

[blueraven95]

7. ...

:hi:



I hope you had a pleasant Halloween!

[RetroLounge]

11. Uneventful...

Kids went with their mom.

I worked the store.

Went to bed early.

:hi:

RL

[blueraven95]

12. doesn't sound too bad to me

but, yes, uneventful.

[RetroLounge]

13. Oh, it was just fine.

I got to go over to their mom's place later and raid their candy buckets...

:D

RL

[blueraven95]

14. that's the way to do it

yum. :9

[RetroLounge]

15. My daughter saved me all her Reeses!

She's been taught well...

:9

RL

[blueraven95]

16. clearly you have an awesome daughter

:woohoo:

[RetroLounge]

17. Oh, yeah...

and my son has candy for me too...

:woohoo:

RL

[blueraven95]

18. that's how you know your kids are raised right

:bounce:

[Chorophyll]

8. Actually, I didn't find this poem all that miserable.

Maybe they're happy in their quiet isolation?

Edited for Freudian slippage.




Nah. :hi:

[RetroLounge]

19. Maybe. Other's happiness is not ours to define.

:hi:

RL