nightdog_barks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nightdog_barks) wrote2010-04-19 01:58 pm
nightdog_barks) wrote2010-04-19 01:58 pm
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Poem #14 for Poetry Month -- "Phase 3: Final Interview, a Few Last Questions"
From the American writer J. Allyn Rosser, this is a poem that asks some hilarious difficult questions.
Phase 3: Final Interview, a Few Last Questions
If a stranger getting on a train you’re leaving
makes as if to put his cigarette out in your eye,
do you let the doors close behind you with sorrow
for what some woman must have done to his life
or do you just hate him hate him
or do you hate yourself for letting him make you
hate him? Is this one of those hatreds
you’re allowed to have, that you can justify?
Do you shield your eyes on the next platform
or do you smile valiantly, chin up, unsquinting?
If you know the words to a song you hear sung
uncertainly on the street at dusk by a stranger,
is it right to sing along, is it an invasion
or an obligation to connect, only connect,
even if he’s wearing spurs and chains
and aims a spurt of spittle at your foot?
If some of your best friends wear chains,
should you mention it? With how wide a smile?
Should you invite him home to play the record,
or in the next world will you regret it,
or worse, regret it if you don’t, why worse,
or in the next world is there no regret?
No looking back? No next world?
If a butler in the familiar and shabby livery
of someone else’s trouble brings you a message
on a silver plate -- and stands waiting --
should you fling it into the fire unread?
Should you excuse yourself and leave by the back door,
should you read it and swallow the return
address, and murder the butler, and leave
with too little money to make it back in case
the desire to help should ever seize you again?
It’s not important, you virtually already
have the job but we’d still like to know.
~ J. Allyn Rosser
From Misery Prefigured, Southern Illinois University Press, 2001
Online source here.
Phase 3: Final Interview, a Few Last Questions
If a stranger getting on a train you’re leaving
makes as if to put his cigarette out in your eye,
do you let the doors close behind you with sorrow
for what some woman must have done to his life
or do you just hate him hate him
or do you hate yourself for letting him make you
hate him? Is this one of those hatreds
you’re allowed to have, that you can justify?
Do you shield your eyes on the next platform
or do you smile valiantly, chin up, unsquinting?
If you know the words to a song you hear sung
uncertainly on the street at dusk by a stranger,
is it right to sing along, is it an invasion
or an obligation to connect, only connect,
even if he’s wearing spurs and chains
and aims a spurt of spittle at your foot?
If some of your best friends wear chains,
should you mention it? With how wide a smile?
Should you invite him home to play the record,
or in the next world will you regret it,
or worse, regret it if you don’t, why worse,
or in the next world is there no regret?
No looking back? No next world?
If a butler in the familiar and shabby livery
of someone else’s trouble brings you a message
on a silver plate -- and stands waiting --
should you fling it into the fire unread?
Should you excuse yourself and leave by the back door,
should you read it and swallow the return
address, and murder the butler, and leave
with too little money to make it back in case
the desire to help should ever seize you again?
It’s not important, you virtually already
have the job but we’d still like to know.
~ J. Allyn Rosser
From Misery Prefigured, Southern Illinois University Press, 2001
Online source here.
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I love the images in this, especially the "shabby livery of someone else's trouble."
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:-P