But Truly Write - poem

  

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

But Truly Write

 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 21

 

…poems are gatherings of words, in good order, in simple order, plain and appealing.

 

-Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook, p. 77

 

A line of contemporary prosetry

Is a catalogue of florid structures and worn-out cliches

Pancaked with adverbs and tiresome metaphors

Flung down in a confusion of unconnected gasps

 

If you have something to say, then say it

Then tidy up the lines – like washing your face

With soap and water and a cotton towel

And then admire the sunlit, fresh-air truth

 

Craft your lines of transcendent poetry

As clean sharp-edg’ed truth in well-scrubbed words

Dentistry and Dogs - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Dentistry and Dogs

 

What would the world be like without dogs?

 

-Mary Oliver

 

Our little bit of the world was frozen that day

At the dentist’s office something that makes something else

Do something else was frozen and would not work

And so I waited with Mary’s book about dogs

 

Dog is one of the messengers of that rich and still magical first world.

 

The frost was still upon the windowsill

As an hour passed for me and Mary’s dogs

Their adventures in the woods, their lonely times

Their happy glances into their human’s eyes

 

Our new dog, named for the beloved poet, / ate a book

 

Even though the something else was frozen in ice

Our little bit of the world was warmer for a time

 

Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased

 

 

Quotes from Mary Oliver, Dog Songs, Penguin, New York: 2013