Want to know something funny that I did? A couple of days ago, I took some folded poems out of a little notebook, which I have not used for a while, and laid them on my editing desk. On the top of the stack was a poem called The Black Dog, which I wrote in 1999. Maybe I’ll post it below. Anyway, today as I was standing by that desk, looking out the window, I moved that poem aside and began reading the next.

It was beautiful, it was brilliant. It was called Japan, clear as a bell rung for no reason but love. I thought to myself, Damn, this is good. Why haven’t I tried to get this published?

I read the whole poem, enraptured with my sadly neglected genius. I got to the end. It said Billy Collins. You may remember he was made US Poet Laureate in 2001. Good grief. I guess I printed and carried around a few of his poems for a while, for inspiration. Here’s his poem, Japan.

And since I apparently never finished The Black Dog, here’s another old (1998) poem from me.

EXISTENTIAL DOG

Little friend asleep on the floor
between the taciturn piano
and the stone cold fire,
you speak and the night retreats
as far as the curb and lifts
from the roof to hide behind
the shivering stars.

I cannot
cry out and chase the darkness
back. But I can climb
into the thin air of snowmelt,
close my eyes to see the forest,
the full moon and the cold lake.
Then descend in sadness smelling
gasoline, and hear my clock resume
its unrelenting drive.

The clock
hides his face in shadows,
in the magic lantern specters
of my wild, angry hands.
I smash it, make tonight
a Ferris wheel fluorescent, burning
in the East, driven by a storm.

© 1998 by Kyle Kimberlin

Today is the birthday of James Wright, one of my most favorite poets. I remember reading this poem in college in the mid-80s, and feeling a kind of happiness, a tender love of the intimate power of words, such that I trembled and was almost carried away.

A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more, they begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

James Wright