It was late September. I’d just poured a glass of wine, begun to think. I had sent the postman and his donkey out of the barn and into the static. And as I heard my father (someone dying of love, someone from whom time had taken flags and honking cars, the various and gathered families) howl down the spiral staircase Come all ye faithless, I drove into town to drink tea in the cafe.
Carol Ann Duffy, “Mrs Midas”
Rod Jellema, “Letter to Myra Sklarew, Visiting Mekounida, on the Island of Evvoia, in Greece”
Curtis Bauer, “A Splinter Becoming a Burning Plank”
Kevin Clark, “Radio Fate”
Louise Glück, “The Balcony”
Gary Soto, “Envying the Children of San Francisco”
David St. John, “The Swan at Sheffield Park”
Albert Goldbarth, “Reality Organization”
C. D. Wright, “The Secret Life of Musical Instruments”
Robert Hass, “Happiness”
NOTE: As regular readers of Diary Poems know by now, if they didn’t before, a cento is a poem made up of lines borrowed from other poems (in this case, with a few liberties taken in matters of punctuation). The title of this cento is taken from a poem by Joseph Millar.
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". . . out of the barn / and into the static ..."
This is just so delicious. I first saw "attic" then "static" then had to think about it. Thanks so much for the digression and the poem.
I’ve got to try one of these. This is marvelous.