David Lehman
Operation Memory
We were smoking some of this knockout weed when Operation Memory was announced. To his separate bed Each soldier went, counting backwards from a hundred With a needle in his arm. And there I
April 24
Did you know that Evian spelled backwards is naive? I myself was unaware of this fact until last Tuesday night When John Ashbery, Marc Cohen, and Eugene Richie Gave a poetry reading and I
To The Author Of Glare
There comes a time when the story turns into twenty Different stories and soon after that he academy of shadows Retreats to the cave of a solitary boy in a thriving Metropolis where no
March 1
I could stare for hours At her, the woman stepping Out of her bath, breasts Bare, towel around her waist, Before I knew she was you In that one-bedroom in The Village sunny and
January 31 (The sky is crumbling…)
The sky is crumbling into millions of paper dots The wind blows in my face So I duck into my favorite barber shop And listen to Vivaldi and look in the mirror Reflecting the
January 1
Some people confuse inspiration with lightning Not me I know it comes from the lungs and air You breathe it in you breathe it out it circulates It’s the breath of my being the
March 30
Eighty-one degrees a record high for the day Which is not my birthday but will do until The eleventh of June comes around and I know What I want: a wide-brimmed Panama hat With
To William Holden
(July 15) We know who The guards are In those POW Movies with brutal But easy to Fool fat Germans Or sadistic Japanese Who never smiled They’re the grown-ups We’re the kids That’s the
October 16
What can you say about the Mets Down three games to none One run down with six outs to go Cedeno singles steals second Mora walks They pull off a double steal And Olerud
May 26
In Rotterdam I’m Going to speak about The state of poetry On a panel with a Pole And a Turk. It’s worth Being alive to utter That sentence. A German from Furth, My father’s
Ninth Inning
He woke up in New York City on Valentine’s Day, Speeding. The body in the booth next to his was still warm, Was gone. He had bought her a sweater, a box of chocolate
Fifth Amendment
The fear of perjuring herself turned into a tacit Admission of her guilt. Yet she had the skill And the luck to elude her implacable pursuers. God was everywhere like a faceless guard in
January 2
The old war is over the new one has begun Between drivers and pedestrians on a Friday In New York light is the variable and structure The content according to Rodrigo Moynihan’s Self-portraits at
With Tenure
If Ezra Pound were alive today (and he is) He’d be teaching At a small college in the Pacific Northwest And attending the annual convention Of writing instructors in St. Louis And railing against
April 21
I’m a very average person, And I think most people are. I vote with the common man. I have two kids, a boy and a girl. Last Sunday I played golf with the boss.