We could’ve celebrated National Poetry Month with a series of decorative, commemorative plates. But in the end, it seemed a tad more intuitive to celebrate with actual poetry (though we have nothing against plates, Plate Fans!).
Today’s poem is by Michael Teig (Poetry Fellow ’08), about a common phenomenon of Spring’s warmer temperatures: the lazy man.
I ABANDONED MY PLANS. I HAD NO PLANS.
Some men are so lazy
they should be revered as saints.
Not improved. Not working.
No lift or tilt.
Trying to put on one sock
in the morning they are one man.
A centipede of trouble.
He pretends
to be hit with a stick.
He looks at the world
as though it arrived in an airplane.
The new world’s new, quickening sun
taps the stadium whose retractable roof
pulls back till a single crow comes out,
sideways, slurring over the skyline and wires.
It lays out evidence and empty space:
A woman beside you sleeping. A little clerk
hurrying past like all the capitals of Europe.
Drowsy projectionist, the sun
does nothing but ticket the leaves.
Some men are so beautiful that their insides
are lined with the skin of lions,
with the narrow skin of birds.
With no help from me,
the names of ships, with
the teeth of mice, the overdue snow.
Michael Teig is the author Big Back Yard (BOA Editions, 2003) and is a co-founder and editor-at-large of jubilat.
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