The Reason Why We Have Donald Trump Now is Because Most Americans Hated George Plimpton so Much

Got up and took tylenol in the middle of the night
and slept in my bathrobe. Horribly cold and kind of prickly.
Sore from my 90-minute yoga class yesterday—something about
the "slow-flow" pace really kicked my butt.

Tells me something.

Sitting here at my usual station,

reading a poem about always being under surveillance

by people who show up everywhere I go—how do they do it?
It's amazing how certain people seem to be just in your life—

your "karass," Vonnegut called it. You

continually meet them in the oddest places -

like in New Orlean leaving a bar, when neither of you

ever set foot in New Orleans before. But there are other people
with whom I interact every day,
whom I didn’t even know two years ago.

Some I’ve worked with closely,
some I’ve helped in various ways,
and they’ve helped me. What a charming fellow
that George Plimpton guy must have been!

his life a total

mad social whirl—friend of Jackie Onassis.

So, was Plimpton the one who did the NY Times International Cookbook?

No, that was Craig Claiborne. I think it was Plimpton who played percussion
for Bernstein once. Bernstein was all over his ass—
made Plimpton regret his audacity.

People come into my life,
and some of them work and abide
with me in precious ways that make me
watch for and await their presence.
I'm under surveillance, myself,

but I wander off radar sometimes,
just to kind of lend a hand in some way somewhere.
And what worries me a tiny bit, and also makes me happy,
is that when you choose to help someone,
you're committed for life.

January, Almost Rural

It is a blizzard tonight, and after dinner

we go out, walk to the corner

against stinging snow,

the cat bounding after,

and cross, stepping over dark tire ruts,

up the side street to the corner house

in which an old poor couple live.

Their yard full of roses in the summer,

now the holiday is over,

they have changed their yard decorations

from manger scene to polar bear and penguins

and snow man with red-light-bulb nose—

plywood flats carved out with a jig saw.

My daughters disturb

the inviolate blanket in front of their house,

then we start back because of the cold,

the cat taking refuge in the bushes,

and cross again

to our undecorated house,

the girls frisking, rolling in the snow,

I going around to the garage to get firewood,

then back again to the front

where my wife is taking the younger in.

The older wants to stay out,

so we go back around,

I plodding down the walk,

she plowing into the drifts.

She makes an angel.

I take her hands as she rises,

help her not to mar the whirring form.

Inside by the fire, I turn the radio on,

some modern orchestral piece,

then Brahms's Third,

playing as I write this—

my life struck through with miracle,

even if I don't feel it.

1987

Villanelle for Lorriann Centineo

I want to write a freaking villanelle.
(Why should Lorriann have all the fun?)
If you would buy them, I’d have dreams to sell.

When I hear the sledges ringing with the bells,
I can’t pretend I think my work is done:
I want to write a freaking villanelle.

But I’m not sure that you can hear me well,
though I squeeze my words out louder than a gun.
If you would buy them, I’d have dreams to sell.

But what you’d think you’re buying, who can tell?
I fry my fish and slap it on a bun.
That’s how I’ll serve my freaking villanelle.

Maybe you think my lines don’t really gell.
Maybe you think I’m just sucking my thumb.
But if you would buy them, I’d have dreams to sell.

The lambkins are a-leaping in the dell.

The larks are singing with the deaf and dumb.
And I’ve done wrote my freaking villanelle.
Get out your wallet! I have dreams to sell.

Exposed

What
do
I want
to shine my
light on this fine day?
But let me say, I feel exposed!

When
there’s
too much
light on you,
you can lose color.
Your features become indistinct.

That’s
one
problem.
Another
is that people grow
weary of your bright shining face.

It’s
sad
when you
know you’re no
more the dark room that
people grope for elephants in.

Still,
you
have to
stand blanched and
naked in the light.
I doubt if you'll outshine the sun.

January 1, 2018: What Are You Writing Now, Max?

Is there anything that could not be a poem?
—It gets embarrassing, Chief!
I don’t even want to mention this stuff in my report!

“Poem” is such an affected word!
Leonard Ungar (renowned remnant of the Southern Agrarian school)
didn’t pronounce the “e” in “poem” at all—

just the plosive “po,”
then blowing a little air out of his nose on the “’m”:
Po’m.

It’s best if you loose your breath on the percussive “po,”
and then pull your belly in a bit on the cunning “’m.”
So you need both an out- and an in-breath to say “po’m.”

“Po’m” 
is a complete Ying-Yang 
unto itself!

That’s why we’re all so reverent about poetry,
always invoking our devout little cones of silence.
So that no one will be able
 to understand us when we write.

Poems for Advent 2017

Dec 3 Awaken — To Wake Up the Dead

Dec 4 Journey — Journey to the Center of the Heart

Dec 5 Gather — Gathering the Limbs of Osiris

Dec 6 Simplify — Plumb Simple

Dec 7 Heal — White Heal-all, White Spider

Dec 8 Mend — O Lord, Thou Pluckest Me Out

Dec 9 Focus — Pho  

Dec 10 Prepare — Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord

Dec 11 Messenger — Annunciation

Dec 12 Watch

Dec 13 Voice — The Voice of God

Dec 14 Wilderness

Dec 15 Trust — Trust, a Blessed Comfort

Dec 16 Among — Word Made Flesh

Dec 17 Light — Ooohhh, Pretty Little Baby

Dec 18 Dazzle — Dazzle-Eyes

Dec 19 Open — Open Wide (The Immaculate Conception)

Dec 20 Embrace — More than a Hug, or What Jesus Needed Most

Dec 21 Renew — Revolt

Dec 22 Greeting — Hello!

Dec 23 Child — Madonna and Child

Dec 24 Belief — Believe (Children Go Where I Send Thee)

Dec 25 Celebrate — Shout for Joy

Epilogue — The Birth of Mary (from the Infancy Gospel of James)

Reading Finnegan's Wake

What’s the best news this morning?
Somebody in Joyce says that, I’ll find out who.
Think of James Joyce, dictating
Finnegan’s Wake to Samuel Becket.
“Come in,” said Joyce to whomever was
at the door, and Becket wrote it down.

Joyce ended up liking “Come in,” so they kept it.
What a chuckle sandwich it must have been for them,
day after day! But now the only way to read Finnegan’s Wake
is to have it on your computer and do searches on it.
Even better: a Finnegan’s Wake concordance!
Of course, there are several on the internet.

I want to look up “Milton,” because he dictated
his works too. Bingo! I get—
Finnegan’s Wake lines: 1  Elucidations found: 2;
096.19 four of them, in Milton’s Park
under lovely Father Whisperer;
the elucidations being—

-096.10+ ing jackass.
Harick! Harick! The rose is white in the darick!;
-096.02+ And Sunfella’s nose
has got rhinocertitis from haunting the roes.
And now I’m on a dead-end page
titled Fweets of Fin (milton) with FW text.

I can click [Search Engine]
to go to the Search Engine Room.
Then I can search on the string, “milton”—
Finnegan’s Wake lines found: 42, including—
Her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching
for the fruit, she pluck’d, she eat.

Coded 052.25, and when I click, I get—
(shooting at empty stout bottles
Annie Oakley: American sharpshooter Nice!!!
So, without my typography, would you know whether “Nice!!!”
is part of Finnegan’s Wake, or just my interjection?
No you wouldn’t.