Time's Revenges
2007; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 115; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/sew.2007.0041
ISSN1934-421X
Autores ResumoTime's Revenges William Bedford Clark The New Widow's Aubade Something in the attic makes itself known With flurried rasps—a squirrel half-grown Or Norway rat; downstairs our cat patrols The den and moans; the hall clock tolls Some quarter-hour; the fridge kicks in and hums Anew (louder). Though spongy crumbs Of Hansel-Gretel dreams resist first light, Again I've made it through the night. Now coffee's on, half-dressed you search the yard For Morning News (one must look hard In unmown grass), then leave the paper wrapped. That squirrel or rat will go untrapped. For RB (with whatever apologies may be due) Always a joker, time comes across kind, And the old poet's gush of white bright hair Promises much—more than his words will bear By reading's end. He breaks each vatic line With sotto voce growls against the war, Right-wing flagmen, America the whore. Off to one side, a barefoot boyish man Declines on a low hard bench, teasing riffs From—no lie—a tall sitar. Music drifts . . . [End Page 176] A ghostly peacock's pale denuded fan. The poet implies we'd do well to shoot Every oil-pimping son at Brown & Root. The sitar preens beneath the nasal rant. You'd like to leave; decorum says you can't. Old Carmichael —The Oklahoma City Zoo, ca. 1956 Emphatic, tapered like a concert grand, The Arctic bear, not now quite white, Ivoried by age or carbon-drift, began His roll-shoulder stroll. Swinging right, He'd lift his nose (black too, those clawsome paws!) Into each corner of his cage— A quick step back, a slight strategic pause: A tired old hoofer dragged onstage. Day after day, from noon to leaning dark, He paced the same precise box-trot In a twelve-by-twelve pen in Lincoln Park. Some ursine Zen retreat from thought? Perhaps. We children watched with nascent guilt, But glad for double rows of bars, a cube well-built. William Bedford Clark, who professes English at Texas A&M University, is chiefly known for his scholarship and criticism.
Referência(s)