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Radio
I left it
on when I
left the house
for the pleasure
of coming back
ten hours later
to the greatness
of Teddy Wilson
"After You've Gone"
on the piano
in the corner
of the bedroom
as I enter
in the dark
from New and Selected Poems by David Lehman
Did the poem get cut off here? It is much shorter than its model. I know, because my dog is named Ben Jonson.
I wish the poet would have continued and not stopped with the aspic, just when dinner is getting going. No cigars after dinner with Wittgenstein?
Posted by: Kent L Johnson | January 09, 2021 at 04:30 PM
This poem really taught me something about the great linguistic philosopher and professor Wittgenstein. But what does it mean to eat rthe same food every day? Is this a parable like the hunger artist of Franz Kafka in reverse? Or is it a search for constancy in a universe of "uncertainty" and inconstant fortune?
Posted by: Mack Dodson | January 09, 2021 at 08:35 PM
Hey, Mack,
a bit of advice:
Don't kill yourself trying to figure it out.
Posted by: Kent L Johnson | January 09, 2021 at 10:35 PM
Mack Dodson may be on to something. A. J. Ayer's 1984 book on W. is excellent. Favorite sentence: "To the extent that they are worth mentioning in this company, such French philosophers as Derrida and Foucault have busied themselves with sociology or with literary criticism." The verb in that sentence is perfectly chosen.
Posted by: David Lehman | January 10, 2021 at 09:29 AM