Moving Picture
When two take gas
by mutual consent
and the cops come in
when the walls are broken down
and the doctor pays respects
by closing the books
and the neighbors stand about
sniffing and afraid
and the papers run a brief
under a whiskey ad
and the news is read
eating ice cream or a fruit
and the paper is used
to wrap peelings
and the garbage man
dumps the barrel
into the truck
and the paper flares
in the furnace and sinks back
charred and is scooped up
[...] Read more
poem by David Ignatow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
I Close My Eyes
I close my eyes like a good little boy at night in bed,
as I was told to do by my mother when she lived,
and before bed I brush my teeth and slip on my pajamas,
as I was told, and look forward to tomorrow.
I do all things required of me to make me a citizen of sterling worth.
I keep a job and come home each evening for dinner. I arrive at the
same time on the same train to give my family a sense of order.
I obey traffic signals. I am cordial to strangers, I answer my
mail promptly. I keep a balanced checking account. Why can’t I
live forever?
poem by David Ignatow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Rescue The Dead
Finally, to forgo love is to kiss a leaf,
is to let rain fall nakedly upon your head,
is to respect fire,
is to study man's eyes and his gestures
as he talks,
is to set bread upon the table
and a knife discreetly by,
is to pass through crowds
like a crowd of oneself.
Not to love is to live.
To love is to be led away
into a forest where the secret grave
is dug, singing, praising darkness
under the trees.
To live is to sign your name,
is to ignore the dead,
is to carry a wallet
and shake hands.
[...] Read more
poem by David Ignatow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
That's The Sum Of It
I don't know which to mourn. Both have died on me, my wife and
my car. I feel strongly about my car, but I am also affected by my,
wife. Without my car, I can't leave the house to keep myself from
being alone. My wife gave me two children, both of whom, of course,
no longer live with us, as was to be expected, as we in our youth left
our parents behind. With my car, I could visit my children, when they
are not too busy.
Before she died, my wife urged me to find another woman. It's advice
I'd like to take up but not without a car. Without a car. I cannot find
myself another woman. That's the sum of it.
poem by David Ignatow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Information
This tree has two million and seventy-five thousand leaves.
Perhaps I missed a leaf or two but I do feel triumphant
at having persisted in counting by hand branch by branch
and marked down on paper with pencil each total.
Adding them up was a pleasure I could understand;
I did something on my own that was not dependent on others,
and to count leaves is not less meaningful than to count the stars,
as astronomers are always doing.
They want the facts to be sure they have them all.
It would help them to know whether the world is finite.
I discovered one tree that is finite.
I must try counting the hairs on my head, and you too.
We could swap information.
poem by David Ignatow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
At This Moment
I'm very pleased to be a body. Can there be someone without a body?
As you hold mine I feel firmly assured that bodies are the right thing
and I think all life is a body. I'm happy about trees, grass and water,
especially with the sun shining on it. I slip into it, a summer pleasure.
I have hurt the body. That's when I know I need it most in its whole
condition. If I could prove it to you by giving pain you would agree
but I prefer you with your body pressed to mine as if to say it is how
we know. Think, when two must separate how sad it is for each then
having to find another way to affirm their bodies. Knock one against
another or tree or rock and there's your pain. Now we have our arms
filled with each other. Could we not grow old in this posture and be
buried as one body which others would do for us tenderly?
poem by David Ignatow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Coupling
Wherever he looks, standing still in the city,
are people born of coupling, walking in gray suits
and ties, in long dresses and coiffed hair,
speaking elegantly, of themselves and of each other,
forgetting for the moment their origin,
perhaps wishing not to know or to remember.
They dress as if having been born in a clothing store.
They were born of men and women naked
and gyrating from the hips
and with movements up and down
and with climactic yells,
as if losing their lives
in the pleasure and so glad,
so wildly glad.
From this rises the child
from between the wet crotch, blood and mucus,
He stands upright and pronounces himself
humankind and steps from bed and clothes himself
[...] Read more
poem by David Ignatow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Play Again
Late in 1962 New York newspapers reported the story of a nine-year-
old child being raped on a roof, and hurled twenty stories to the
ground.
I draw near to the roof's edge
and seek someone to lift
and hurl me out into vacant air.
I want to turn over and over
rapidly in my plunge, my mouth
open to scream but air rushing
upwards jams my throat.
I am seeking the peace
I never once gave up on
and this is the final way to find it. The living
share me among them. They taste
me on the ground, they taste me
in the air descending. They taste
me screaming, nine years old.
I have playmates
and I leave behind my skull
[...] Read more
poem by David Ignatow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
On Freedom
In a dream I'm no longer in love. I breathe deeply this sense of freedom,
and I vow never again to seal myself in, but I am reminded it is myself I love
also and that too is a kind of sealed condition. I am committed to taking
care of my body and its home accommodations, its clothes and neat
appearance that I admire in the mirror, yet I would like to know what it
would be like freed of brushing my teeth, washing my neck and face and
between my toes. I'd like to know, as I neglect to move my bowels, and
stay away from food that could sustain my health, and do not change my
underwear, and let odors rise from my crotch and armpit. I stick out my
tongue at the image in the mirror showing me my ragged beard and sunken
eyes and hollow cheeks, free of my self-love at last, and I sink onto the
bathroom floor, feeling life begin to seep out of me, I who haven't eaten
since last month. I'm dying and I'm free.
poem by David Ignatow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Here In Bed
Here in bed behind a brick wall
I can make order and meaning,
but how do I begin? How do I
emerge without panic
to the sounds and mass
of people in the street?
Are they human who stare
as I pass by, as if sizing me up
for a mugging or a filthy proposition,
and am I human to have to be
frightened and on guard?
It's people I'm afraid of, afraid
of my own kind, knowing their angers
and schemes and violent needs, knowing
through knowledge of myself
that I have learned to resist,
but when I can't I have seen
the havoc I have made.
[...] Read more
poem by David Ignatow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!