Cover
Click image to order
Never miss a post
Your email address:*
Name: 
Please enter all required fields
Correct invalid entries

Categories

From the Archive

Perfection Wasted [by John Updike]

 

John UpdikeAnd another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market —
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.

from the archive; first posted January 29, 2009. John Updike (March 18, 1932 - January 27, 2009) was dying when he wrote the poem. 


April 14, 2025

April 11, 2025

April 10, 2025

April 08, 2025

April 04, 2025

April 03, 2025

March 29, 2025

March 26, 2025

March 25, 2025

March 21, 2025

February 27, 2025

February 26, 2025

February 21, 2025

February 18, 2025

February 11, 2025

February 10, 2025

January 22, 2025

January 14, 2025

December 27, 2024

Cover
click image to order your copy
That Ship Has Sailed
Click image to order
BAP ad
Cover
"Lively and affectionate" Publishers Weekly

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

StatCounter

  • StatCounter