"Hear My Prayer, O Lord... " [by Barbara Hamby]

Garrison Keillor chose Barbara Hamby's poem "Hear My Prayer, O Lord... " for "The Writer's Almanac" on January 10, 2022:

Hear my prayer, O Lord, though all I do all day is watch
old black-and-white movies on TV. Speak to me
through William Powell or Myrna Loy, solve the mystery
of my sloth. Show me the way to take a walk or catch
a cold, anything but read another exposé
of the Kennedys. Teach me to sing or at least play
the piano. For ten years I took lessons, and all
I learned was to hate Bach. Shake me up or down. Call
me names. Break my ears with AC/DC—I deserve far
worse. Rebuke me in front of my ersatz friends. Who cares?
They don't like me much anyway. Make me fat in lieu
of thin. Give me a break or don't. I'm a hundred million
molecules in search of an author. If that's you, thank you
for my skin. Without it I'd be in worse shape than I'm in.

Barbara Hamby, "Hear My Prayer, O Lord" from the poem cycle entitled "9 Sonnets from the Psalms" and from All-Night Lingo Tango. © 2009. Aired by permission of University of Pittsburgh Press.

Comments

[Maria]

“Show me the way to take a walk or catch a cold.” I see parallels to yesterday’s Blog on the Grand Illusion.

[Terence Winch]

Terrific poem.

[Phyllis Rosenzweig]

Painfully relatable.

[Susan Francis Campbell]

"Speak to me
through William Powell or Myrna Loy"

Good poem!

[lally]

bingo! wonderfully poignant whimsicality

[David Schloss]

A charming witty serious meditation on an existential theme. Deserved to be chosen by Keillor.