“National Poetry Month” (Page 4)

A poem about yesterday’s birthday composer: “Rachmaninoff” by Peter Halstead On top of fluted spines Between the massing pools Of dark chromatic lines And using blood for fuel Follow all the signs And signatures Read the fine print On the flapping label In the search for love So the incidentals Of the dim rule On the page above Take the clouded hint Or later on you’ll Tend to bluff In the no man’s land Of the intellectual Handcuffed to chance And lost in jewels: A dream of hell With inhuman hands. Source. Peter Halstead is a poet, pianist, and photographer whoDown the rabbit hole….

I want to post a poem each day this month! Here is the first, a poem about writing poetry, by Seamus Heaney. Note how he compares his own work–writing, with the pen as his tool–with that of his father, who is digging up potatoes in the garden. It’s a metaphor that works in a lot of ways: if one characterizes writing as “digging”, then one sees writing as a way of delving deep into the regions of the mind as digging is a way of delving deep into the regions of the world. But Heaney also sees a disconnect betweenDown the rabbit hole….