Poetics
You know the old story Ann Landers
About the housewife in her basement doing the wash?
She's wearing her nightie, and she thinks, "Well, hell,
I might's well put this in as well," and
Being dripped on by a leaky pipe puts
Her son's football helmet;
The meter reader happens to walk throughand "Lady," he gravely says, "I sure hope your team wins."A story many times told in many ways,
The set of random accidents redeemed By one more accident, as though
Were the order that was before the creation came.
That is the way things happen in the world:
A joke, a disappointment satisfied,
As we walk through doing our daily round,
Reading the meter, making things add up.
Howard Nemerov was born on February 29th, 1920 in New York.
He died of cancer at his home in University City,
Missouri on July 5th 1991.
Howard Nemerov
Other author posts
The View From An Attic Window
Among the high-branching, leafless boughs Above the roof-peaks of the town, Snowflakes unnumberably come down I watched out of the attic window The laced sway of family trees, Intricate genealogies Whose strict, reserved gentility,
September The First Day Of School
My child and I hold hands on the way to school, And when I leave him at the first-grade He cries a little but is brave; he Let go
The Vacuum
The house is so quiet now The vacuum cleaner sulks in the corner closet, Its bag limp as a stopped lung, its mouth Grinning into the floor, maybe at my Slovenly life, my dog-dead youth I’ve lived this way long enough, But when my ol...
Style
Flaubert wanted to write a About nothing It was to have no And be sustained upon the style alone,
