« Trace
A Day Without a Poem
I have not written in a long time.
I could make an entire stanza with this sentence:
I have not
written
in a long time
Or tear it up to see what happens next:
In a long time.
This sounds nice,
but what if I combed these few words
for a sonnet
or a pantoum.
Not a bad idea,
but not mine.
A similar poem,
about one sentence,
was written by Ron Padgett,
whom I met in New York,
and who told me he’d learned
two words from his Polish neighbors
in Brooklyn: “good morning” and “oh, fuck” –
but worst of all, even though he knew their meaning,
he always got them mixed up.
I even wanted to write about this,
but nothing came of it,
same as with many other things
I couldn’t
either begin or end,
though usually both.
Each day I write for hours
on the rustling checked pages
whose blizzard roars in the cellar
among tightly-sealed jars.
Translated by Piotr Florczyk