Two Poems (by Mitch Sisskind)

 

Yeats/Koch

1. 

Eagerly I await my Yeats book -- that is,
The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats 
Which I've ordered on Amazon from 
A Goodwill store in San Francisco. 

 

2.
Koch said, 'I want you all to write
An imitation of a poet you like but
I forbid you to imitate W.B. Yeats
And I'll flunk anyone who does.'

 

3. 
After Yeats' proposal of marriage
Was turned down by Maud Gonne
He proposed to her daughter Iseult
And I believe he was quite serious. 

 

4, 

On cold windy days Yeats liked 
To wrap himself in a rug and sit 

On the beach in a deck chair

Until dinnertime rolled around.

 

5. 

Beckett compared impotence to 
Putting a pillow in a pillow case
While Yeats said it was like trying
To put oysters in a vending machine.

6. 
After Yeats was rejected by Iseult
He married Georgie Hyde-Lees
Who was half his age and whose
Automatic writing fascinated him.

 

7. 
Koch admired Yeats' six-line poem
'A Deep-Sworn Vow' which made me
Wonder at the time and even now 
I wonder but in a quite different way.

 

8. 
Today a book arrived from Amazon 
Which was not Yeats' Collected Poems
But I still have the Bible and Koch said,
'It's not called the good book for nothing.'

 

 

 

Ungeverschmutzig

 

When we say something is ungeverschmutzig

We mean that it's dirty -- not morally dirty

Of which maybe you can imagine examples

But physically foul like one time a big lizard

Ran into my car when I left the door open

And it went under the dashboard and died

So you can imagine the rest or once in NYC

There was something ungeverschmutzig

And I cleaned it up because I knew that if

I didn't do it nobody else would! Schmutzig

Means normally or moderately dirty and

Verschmutzig means it is getting dirtier

And finally there is ungeverschmutzig

Which is so nauseating it's unbelievable.

 

Comments

[Molly Arden]

The poems are excellent. My one question: what book arrived from Amazon? and was it too a good book?

[mitch sisskind]

Thanks for your message, Molly! The book that arrived was the first volume of three volume bio of Franz Liszt by Alan Walker. Wonderful, magnificent books that I had previously gotten from the library but now will purchase used because the library is closed. And praise God just tonight the Yeats book arrived! Be well.

[slope]

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