363rd Virtual Poetry Circle
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Welcome to the 363rd Virtual Poetry Circle!
Remember, this is just for fun and is not meant to be stressful.
Keep in mind what Molly Peacock’s book suggested.
Look at a line, a stanza, sentences, and images; describe what you like or don’t like; and offer an opinion. If you missed my review of her book, check it out here.
Today’s poem is from John Koethe:
Sally's Hair
It’s like living in a light bulb, with the leaves Like filaments and the sky a shell of thin, transparent glass Enclosing the late heaven of a summer day, a canopy Of incandescent blue above the dappled sunlight golden on the grass.
I took the train back from Poughkeepsie to New York And in the Port Authority, there at the Suburban Transit window, She asked, "Is this the bus to Princeton?"--which it was. "Do you know Geoffrey Love?" I said I did. She had the blondest hair,
Which fell across her shoulders, and a dress of almost phosphorescent blue. She liked Ayn Rand. We went down to the Village for a drink, Where I contrived to miss the last bus to New Jersey, and at 3 a.m. we Walked around and found a cheap hotel I hadn't enough money for
And fooled around on its dilapidated couch. An early morning bus (She’d come to see her brother), dinner plans and missed connections And a message on his door about the Jersey shore. Next day A summer dormitory room, my roommates gone: "Are you," she asked,
"A hedonist?" I guessed so. Then she had to catch her plane. Sally-Sally Roche. She called that night from Florida, And then I never heard from her again. I wonder where she is now, Who she is now. That was thirty-seven years ago
And I’m too old to be surprised again. The days are open, Life conceals no depths, no mysteries, the sky is everywhere, The leaves are all ablaze with light, the blond light Of a summer afternoon that made me think again of Sally's hair.
What do you think?