Poem for the Day: January 6th, 2022

The Snow Is Deep on the Ground by Kenneth Patchen

The snow is deep on the ground.   
Always the light falls
Softly down on the hair of my belovèd.

This is a good world.
The war has failed.
God shall not forget us.
Who made the snow waits where love is.

Only a few go mad.
The sky moves in its whiteness
Like the withered hand of an old king.   
God shall not forget us.
Who made the sky knows of our love.

The snow is beautiful on the ground.   
And always the lights of heaven glow   
Softly down on the hair of my belovèd.

© 1943 Kenneth Patchen. Today’s poem is taken from Collected Poems by Kenneth Patchen, which was published by New Directions Publishing Corporation and is available to purchase wherever books are sold.

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Poem for the Day: November 17th, 2021

*A Coney Island of the Mind: Poems* by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

In Golden Gate Park That Day… by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

In Golden Gate Park that day
                           a man and his wife were coming along   
         thru the enormous meadow
                           which was the meadow of the world   
He was wearing green suspenders
                              and carrying an old beat-up flute
                                                                        in one hand   
      while his wife had a bunch of grapes
                                  which she kept handing out
                                                                         individually   
                                                      to various squirrels
                                                                           as if each   
                                                             were a little joke

      And then the two of them came on
                                                thru the enormous meadow   
which was the meadow of the world
                                                 and then
            at a very still spot where the trees dreamed
         and seemed to have been waiting thru all time
                                                                            for them   
             they sat down together on the grass
                                              without looking at each other   
                and ate oranges
                                    without looking at each other
                                                            and put the peels   
             in a basket which they seemed
                                       to have brought for that purpose   
                  without looking at each other

      And then
                  he took his shirt and undershirt off   
       but kept his hat on
                                    sideways
                                                and without saying anything   
             fell asleep under it
                                           And his wife just sat there looking   
at the birds which flew about
   calling to each other
                           in the stilly air
      as if they were questioning existence
                   or trying to recall something forgotten

But then finally
                   she too lay down flat
                                                and just lay there looking up   
                                                                               at nothing   
                        yet fingering the old flute
                                                                which nobody played
                            and finally looking over
                                                                at him
                  without any particular expression
                                                               except a certain awful look   
                        of terrible depression

© 1958 Lawrence Ferlinghetti. “In Golden Gate Park That Day…” first appeared in Ferlinghetti’s collection A Coney Island of the Mind: Poems, which was published in 1958 by New Directions Publishing Corporation.

Poem for the Day: November 16th, 2021

Retired Ballerinas, Central Park West by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Retired ballerinas on winter afternoons   
          walking their dogs
                      in Central Park West
    (or their cats on leashes—
       the cats themselves old highwire artists)   
The ballerinas
                leap and pirouette
                           through Columbus Circle   
         while winos on park benches
               (laid back like drunken Goudonovs)   
            hear the taxis trumpet together
               like horsemen of the apocalypse   
                               in the dusk of the gods   
It is the final witching hour
                when swains are full of swan songs   
    And all return through the dark dusk   
                to their bright cells
                                  in glass highrises
      or sit down to oval cigarettes and cakes   
                              in the Russian Tea Room   
    or climb four flights to back rooms
                                 in Westside brownstones   
               where faded playbill photos
                        fall peeling from their frames   
                            like last year’s autumn leaves

© 1981 Lawrence Ferlinghetti. “Retired Ballerinas, Central Park West” appears in Ferlinghetti’s collection These Are My Rivers: New and Selected Poems, which was published in 1993 by New Directions Publishing Corporation.