"Why I Like You" by John Jenkins [Introduced by Thomas Moody]

John Jenkins is often associated with the "Generation of 68", a loose collection of poets who began publishing towards the end of the 1960s and, in the words of John Tranter, "rose to public notice on the crest of a wave of poetry readings, ‘underground’ magazines, and a generally expressed antagonism to the established mainstream of poetry at that time, which they saw as too conservative." Jenkins has published over fifteen collections of poetry, several in collaboration with Ken Bolton, including The Ferrara Poems and Poems of Relative Unlikelihood.

 

                                                                  Ken Bolton (left) and John Jenkins circa 1990

"Why I Like You" is the type of love poem we all wish we could write more frequently: exuberant without being mawkish, inventive, funny—a statement of love which generates its authenticity from imagination and embellishment. How could anyone refuse being compared to a the beauty of "a tropical / avalanche in a glass full of gold"?

 

Why I Like You

                                                        
Just let me say
that I like you because
you fell from the sky

as beautiful as a tropical
avalanche in a glass full of gold.

Another reason
is your energy.

It often happens...
Before I've slept in after breakfast
you've already showered, walked the dogs,
and made a little aeroplane out of an ice-cube.

Should I also mention
that you remind me
of starlight pulsing
between the spokes of a bicycle?
You whirr around so fast it leaves me breathless! 

Or say, "I like you because
you celebrate the motors of flesh and air."
Should I also say that?
Well, I couldn't imagine you ever earnest or dull.

And it is really
a coincidence
that la douceur fleurie des etoiles
(a quote from Rimbaud)
also reminds me of you?
Is it just a coincidence when
lost in our husky sled
we could wake up any moment in Cuba?

And really, I'm wild too
about your little joke
when you dip the entire universe
into a can of blue paint
so everything is my favourite colour.

I also like you
for your teeth
which are useful for untying knots

and because of Tasmania
the love-shaped island
between your thighs,

and for your eyes
which rhyme and are green
tiny traffic lights
saying yes yes when we kiss!

 

Comments

[Bruno Anthony]

Beautiful:
"and because of Tasmania
the love-shaped island
between your thighs"

[John Jenkins]

I wrote this for my partner Shan, a woman of course! Cheers, John Jenkins