[New-Poetry] Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, Auden is Acid . . . etc.

[JforJames at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/5/2007 8:31:59 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
JforJames at aol.com writes:

I half-remember a Pinsky quote from a early book, Explanation of America,  
something like,
'we're all dying, but the pace of it matters.'

or maybe it was this Pinsky poem...
 

DYING


Nothing to be said about it, and everything--
The  change of changes, closer or further away:
The Golden Retriever next door,  Gussie, is dead,

Like Sandy, the Cocker Spaniel from three doors  down
Who died when I was small; and every day
Things that were in my  memory fade and die.

Phrases die out: first, everyone forgets
What  doornails are; then after certain decades
As a dead meaphor, "-dead as a  doornail-" flickers

And fades away.  But someone I know is  dying--
And though one might say glibly, "everyone is,"
The different pace  makes the difference absolute.

The tiny invisible spores in the air we  breathe,
That settle harmlessly on our drinking water
And on our skin,  happen to come together

With certain conditions on the forest  floor,
Or even a shady corner of the lawn--
And overnight the fleshy, pale  stalks gather,

The colorless growth without a leaf or flower;
And  around the stalks, the summer grass keeps growing
With steady pressure, like  the insistent whiskers

That grow between shaves on a face, the  nails
Growing and dying from the toes and fingers
At their own humble  pace, oblivious 

As the nerveless moths that live their night or  two--
Though like a moth a bright soul keeps on beating,
Bored and  impatient in the monster's mouth.

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