It’s been difficult to ditch the English wayof tapping out syllables. I liberated myselffrom that whole mapping of rhyme schemebut I still gravitate helplessly toward that godforsaken rhyming couplet at the end. Claude McKay adopted the whole shebangand wrote the most significant sonnetsof the twentieth century, as Beyoncé hasschooled us about the true roots ofContinue reading “#526: An American Sonnet”
Tag Archives: A poem a day for a month
#525: On the Impending TikTok Ban
The following is just an essay disguised as a poem. I sometimes have the suspicion that most of my poems are just essays in disguise. I’m just writing sentences and then breaking them into lines. It looks like a duck, but it doesn’t walk or quack like a duck. It doesn’t smell like a duck.Continue reading “#525: On the Impending TikTok Ban”
#524: Naming a Dog
I’ve always thought that a good name for a dogwould be the noises your modem used to makewhen connecting to the internet, that kindof R2D2 series of seven beepsfollowed by white noise: Beedoobeepbeepboodeeboo:Kkkkhhhhaaaaaaaaahhhhh. It would be funrunning around the housecalling for the dog, or in the park, introducingthe dog to other dogswith dog names suchContinue reading “#524: Naming a Dog”
#523: The leaves came into the oak trees today…
The leaves came into the oak trees todayand I almost missed it. I looked up andin a moment they sprouted into fullbloom as if on cue. This was no time lapsetrick of technology, no, just my eyesdeciding that they should turn up the gazeskyward to the tops of these gloriousbeings. And, Christ, I almost missedContinue reading “#523: The leaves came into the oak trees today…”
#522: An “Epic” Poem in Response to the Proust Questionnaire
I don’t know that this makes a good poem, but it did, I think, have therapeutic value. Know thyself. That’s what Socrates says, anyway. It’s a big job, it turns out. I am outside on a clear day; in woods, or by water, birdsong everywhere, music and good drink, with someonewho loves me, or inContinue reading “#522: An “Epic” Poem in Response to the Proust Questionnaire”
#521: Sonnet for Project MA
Over the last year and a half or so, I have rediscovered the joy of it, the making of music with a good friend, a friend I had not seen for twenty-five years. From three thousand miles away, he’d begin.He’d send me these tracks, a bass and a click, some keyboard flourishes, and I’d importthemContinue reading “#521: Sonnet for Project MA”
#520: A Sonnet in Response to Anthony Fantano’s Review of “The Tortured Poets Department” by Taylor Swift, Written in the Second Person, in Service of the Concluding Couplet, and Not to Hide the Fact that I Liked the Record
You try not to be influenced by him;he’s smart, knowledgeable, a bit verbose, but often he’s critical of things you like,and mostly, mostly, you’re okay with that. But his bad review of the new Tay Tay made you doubt your own sense of what is good, made you think you had drunk of the Kool-Aid.HisContinue reading “#520: A Sonnet in Response to Anthony Fantano’s Review of “The Tortured Poets Department” by Taylor Swift, Written in the Second Person, in Service of the Concluding Couplet, and Not to Hide the Fact that I Liked the Record”
#519: I am not waving, but drowning
(after Stevie Smith) I am not waving, but drowning, and youkeep waving, like an idiot savant,when all I need now is a rescue line, a rope, a tube, anything that will float.Don’t you walk away; I’m not quite dead yet, the water has not yet entered my lungsand I am still gasping my last breathswhileContinue reading “#519: I am not waving, but drowning”
#518: Sonnet After Beers, with Laundry
The washer and the dryer now sing songswhen the cycle is done, and I don’t knowwhy that was a necessary feature, as if it’s not enough to hear them stop. I’m doing laundry in the basement nowafter having had a few I.P.A.sand exhausted late night YouTube views ofcomedy shows and the most recent newsall concerningContinue reading “#518: Sonnet After Beers, with Laundry”
#517: A Few Notes to Superheroes
Don’t quit your day job. It’s good of you, to look after us. But sometimesI wonder if our villainsare so outsized becauseyou are grown so massivewith your flying and yourweb-making and all your fancy gadgets andan armored black suit. Which came first? It strikes me that therewere no Jokers or Penguinsor Luthors or Goblinsuntil youContinue reading “#517: A Few Notes to Superheroes”
michael jarmer 