a request, and "Appeal to the Grammarians" by Paul Violi

[wicked-sassy.livejournal.com]

Good morning. I have a request and a poem for you all.

The request:

what's your favorite love poem? I'm looking for verse that isn't classic (so, not something like "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...").

The poem [via Poetry Daily]:

Appeal to the Grammarians by Paul Violi

We, the naturally hopeful,
Need a simple sign
For the myriad ways we're capsized.
We who love precise language
Need a finer way to convey
Disappointment and perplexity.
For speechlessness and all its inflections,
For up-ended expectations,
For every time we're ambushed
By trivial or stupefying irony,
For pure incredulity, we need
The inverted exclamation point.
For the dropped smile, the limp handshake,
For whoever has just unwrapped a dumb gift
Or taken the first sip of a flat beer,
Or felt love or pond ice
Give way underfoot, we deserve it.
We need it for the air pocket, the scratch shot,
The child whose ball doesn't bounce back,
The flat tire at journey's outset,
The odyssey that ends up in Weehawken.
But mainly because I need it—here and now
As I sit outside the Caffe Reggio
Staring at my espresso and cannoli
After this middle-aged couple
Came strolling by and he suddenly
Veered and sneezed all over my table
And she said to him, "See, that's why
I don't like to eat outside."

Comments

[visoka.livejournal.com]

"Consolation for Tamar"

(on the occasion of her breaking an ancient pot)

You know I am no archeologist, Tamar,
And that to me it is all one dust or another.
Still, it must mean something to survive the weather
Of the Ages-earthquake, flood, and war-

Only to shatter in your very hands.
Perhaps it was gravity, or maybe fated-
Although I wonder if it had not waited
Those years in drawers, aeons in distant lands,

And in your fingers' music, just a little
Was emboldened by your blood, and so forgot
That it was not a rosebud, but a pot,
And, trying to unfold for you, was brittle.

-- A. E. Stallings

[wicked-sassy.livejournal.com]

lovely. "that it was not a rosebud, but a pot." thank you!

[amativus.livejournal.com]

THAT IS SO GOOD. Thank you!

[visoka.livejournal.com]

:D You're welcome. I'm quite taken with it.