酷我-北美枫

[LavenderSwing]

"News Headlines from the Homer Noble Farm"
Paul Muldoon
from The New Yorker

I
That case-hardened cop.
A bull moose in a boghole
brought him to a stop.

II
From his grassy knoll
he has you in his crosshairs,
the accomplice mole.

III
This sword once a share.
This forest a fresh-faced farm.
This stone once a stair.

IV
The birch crooks her arm,
as if somewhat more inclined
to welcome the swarm.

V
He has, you will find,
two modes only, the chipmunk:
fast-forward; rewind.

VI
The smell, like a skunk,
of coffee about to perk.
Thelonious Monk.

VII
They're the poker work
of some sort of woodpecker,
these holes in the bark.

VIII
My new fact checker
claims that pilus means "pestle."
My old fact checker.

IX
The Rose and Thistle.
Where the hummingbird drops in
to wet his whistle.

X
Behind the wood bin
a garter snake snaps itself,
showing us some skin.

XI
Like most bits of delf,
the turtle's seen at its best
on one's neighbor's shelf.

XII
Riding two abreast
on their stripped-down, souped-up bikes,
bears in leather vests.

XIII
The eye-shaded shrike.
BIRD BODIES BURIED IN BOG's
a headline he'll spike.

XIV
Steady, like a log
riding a sawmill's spillway,
the steady coydog.

XV
The cornet he plays
was Bolden's, then Beiderbecke's,
this lonesome blue jay.

XVI
Some fresh auto wreck.
Slumped over a horn. Sump pool.
The frog's neck-braced neck.

XVII
Brillo pads? Steel wool?
The regurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgitations, what,
of a long-eared owl?

XVIII
The jet with the jot.
The drive-in screen with the sky.
The blood with the blot.

XIX
How all seems to vie,
not just my sleeping laptop
with the first firefly.

This poem is a series of haiku, but it breaks the rule of "3 unrhymed lines." In fact, the poem is written in terza rima. Go to www.paulmuldoon.net to hear him recite and explain this poem. Muldoon won the Pulitzer in 2003 for Moy Sand and Gravel.

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"News Headlines from the Homer Noble Farm"
Paul Muldoon
from The New Yorker

I
That case-hardened cop.
A bull moose in a boghole
brought him to a stop.

II
From his grassy knoll
he has you in his crosshairs,
the accomplice mole.

III
This sword once a share.
This forest a fresh-faced farm.
This stone once a stair.

IV
The birch crooks her arm,
as if somewhat more inclined
to welcome the swarm.

V
He has, you will find,
two modes only, the chipmunk:
fast-forward; rewind.

VI
The smell, like a skunk,
of coffee about to perk.
Thelonious Monk.

VII
They're the poker work
of some sort of woodpecker,
these holes in the bark.

VIII
My new fact checker
claims that pilus means "pestle."
My old fact checker.

IX
The Rose and Thistle.
Where the hummingbird drops in
to wet his whistle.

X
Behind the wood bin
a garter snake snaps itself,
showing us some skin.

XI
Like most bits of delf,
the turtle's seen at its best
on one's neighbor's shelf.

XII
Riding two abreast
on their stripped-down, souped-up bikes,
bears in leather vests.

XIII
The eye-shaded shrike.
BIRD BODIES BURIED IN BOG's
a headline he'll spike.

XIV
Steady, like a log
riding a sawmill's spillway,
the steady coydog.

XV
The cornet he plays
was Bolden's, then Beiderbecke's,
this lonesome blue jay.

XVI
Some fresh auto wreck.
Slumped over a horn. Sump pool.
The frog's neck-braced neck.

XVII
Brillo pads? Steel wool?
The regurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgitations, what,
of a long-eared owl?

XVIII
The jet with the jot.
The drive-in screen with the sky.
The blood with the blot.

XIX
How all seems to vie,
not just my sleeping laptop
with the first firefly.

This poem is a series of haiku, but it breaks the rule of "3 unrhymed lines." In fact, the poem is written in terza rima. Go to www.paulmuldoon.net to hear him recite and explain this poem. Muldoon won the Pulitzer in 2003 for Moy Sand and Gravel.

[LavenderSwing]

QUOOF by Paul Muldoon

How often have I carried our family word
for the hot water bottle
to a strange bed,
as my father would juggle a red-hot half-brick
in an old sock
to his childhood settle.
I have taken it into so many lovely heads
or laid it between us like a sword.

An hotel room in New York City
with a girl who spoke hardly any English,
my hand on her breast
like the smoldering one-off spoor of the yeti
or some other shy beast
that has yet to enter the language.

[[我还没有昵称]]

QUOOF by Paul Muldoon

How often have I carried our family word
for the hot water bottle
to a strange bed,
as my father would juggle a red-hot half-brick
in an old sock
to his childhood settle.
I have taken it into so many lovely heads
or laid it between us like a sword.

An hotel room in New York City
with a girl who spoke hardly any English,
my hand on her breast
like the smoldering one-off spoor of the yeti
or some other shy beast
that has yet to enter the language.

[LavenderSwing]

Cradle Song for Asher"
Paul Muldoon

When they cut your birth cord yesterday
it was I who drifted away.

Now I hear your name (in Hebrew, "blest")
as yet another release of ballast

and see, beyond your wicker
gondola, campfires, cities, whole continents flicker.

"Redknots"
Paul Muldoon

The day our son is due is the very day
the redknots are meant to touch down
on their long haul
from Chile to the Arctic Circle,
where they'll nest on the tundra
within a few feet
of where they were hatched.
Forty or fifty thousand of them
are meant to drop in along Delaware Bay.

They time their arrival on these shores
to coincide with the horseshoe crabs
laying their eggs in the sand.
Smallish birds to begin with,
the redknots have now lost half their weight.
Eating the eggs of the horseshoe crabs
is what gives them the strength to go on,
forty or fifty thousand of them getting up all at once
as if for a rock concert encore.

In this particular poem, only the first and last lines of each 9-line stanza rhyme (it is one of the few poems in Moy Sand and Gravel that do not have a formal pattern or rhyme scheme). The rhyming lines enclose each stanza, like the shell of an egg

[[我还没有昵称]]

Cradle Song for Asher"
Paul Muldoon

When they cut your birth cord yesterday
it was I who drifted away.

Now I hear your name (in Hebrew, "blest")
as yet another release of ballast

and see, beyond your wicker
gondola, campfires, cities, whole continents flicker.

"Redknots"
Paul Muldoon

The day our son is due is the very day
the redknots are meant to touch down
on their long haul
from Chile to the Arctic Circle,
where they'll nest on the tundra
within a few feet
of where they were hatched.
Forty or fifty thousand of them
are meant to drop in along Delaware Bay.

They time their arrival on these shores
to coincide with the horseshoe crabs
laying their eggs in the sand.
Smallish birds to begin with,
the redknots have now lost half their weight.
Eating the eggs of the horseshoe crabs
is what gives them the strength to go on,
forty or fifty thousand of them getting up all at once
as if for a rock concert encore.

In this particular poem, only the first and last lines of each 9-line stanza rhyme (it is one of the few poems in Moy Sand and Gravel that do not have a formal pattern or rhyme scheme). The rhyming lines enclose each stanza, like the shell of an egg