Reading the Masters
still
covered with smoke
from playing pool
late into the A.M, I awoke
in my basement room
and grabbed a pile of books
and began reading Yannis Ritsos
outloud—“to be locked up/
in the leper house. Dear God
how alone they are…”
Then Lucille Clifton,
“say rather I withdrew
to seek within myself
some small assurance
that tragedy while vast
is bearable”—
even when hell is close by—
it always is—for people like us—
but with each syllable
we refuse—
And even death has stopped
work. Look over in the corner,
he is sitting down to listen.
It is he who is asking you
to turn the page.
Blues of the Working Poor
Sister drooping her head,
like the suffering
of lilacs
They tapped you
on the shoulder,
to give you
the already answers.
I want to suggest
an alternate route,
but I can’t remember
whose face to punch.
These blues are not
just scored
by failure
but the need
to shout it wasn’t
and sharpen
your razor.
That shine.
May you, my people,
recall there is an anthem
hidden in the quiet
of the radiator
when the landlord
turns off the heat
in winter.
The dark rain
don’t care.
Your jive
unanswered
prayers.
I am so poor
I can’t afford
to sign my name
for nothing.
Hear my life
spoken of only
in the third person
as if I am incapable
of a conscious decision.
The endless chromatics
of bitter?
Talk all you want.
What is freedom
of speech
but the burden
of one’s lungs
letting out air.
Sean Thomas Dougherty is the author or editor of thirteen books including the forthcoming
All I Ask for Is Longing: Poems 1994- 2014 (2014 BOA Editions) Scything Grace and Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line (2010 BOA Editions). He tours regularly for his poems, teaches part-time when he can get it, and works at a pool hall in Erie, PA.
