Wednesday, May 07, 2008

May

It snowed several times in April, but I think spring is really here now. I saw a magnolia in bloom this morning. Here is a poem.

What the May Sunlight Falls On

Two cops drinking coffee
on a terrace
under a Starbuck's sign;

A Powerball billboard,
down to fifteen million --
hardly worth buying a ticket;

An Indian woman -- hawk nose
and long, black hair --
wearing a Mille Lacs Grand Casino jacket;

Trees opening fresh green
and red leaves
by the fake-gothic Minneapolis Club;

Me with silver hair
hauling heavy bags home
on the 94;

All in the soft May sunlight
that makes almost
everything shine.

I notice that two of my little stanzas are about gambling, one is about law enforcement and one is about a club for rich people. What does this say?

Post script: I reread this. It's not a great poem. But I enjoyed the day when I wrote it, and I enjoyed the sights I describe.

Second post script: I found two more stanzas in my notebook and added them; and I tinkered with punctuation and line breaks.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I notice that two of my little stanzas are about gambling, one is about law enforcement and one is about a club for rich people. What does this say?

It says you were in the Twin Cities in May; sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

6:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

We had sleety snow last night up in Crosslake, Eleanor. Bah!

I dunno, Theresa. Sometimes a cigar is a sex toy. It's more telling that Eleanor noticed the gambling and law/criminal aspects of the poem, than that they are there in the first place--after all, one could easily say that the poem is about things you can spend your money on: simple pleasures like coffee, a ticket to imagine by, a leather jacket, or an opulent if ill-designed club.

6:08 AM  

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