Two Poems
Becoming Boring
Not too long after the shocking realization
that you can be satisfied, comes the news
that your home and your friends aren’t special
except that they have to do with you
It’s the opposite of having your mind blown
So you scan the news every single devil-fucking day
for a justification of what you’ve done or what you want to do
So you go out and look for a woman
whose beauty lacks the thousand things
that would tire you after a year
It’s an old man’s excuse for beauty
You take to heart
the ineptifying complexity of the current civilization
and a half-hearted compassion toward the hordes who thwart you
You take it to a tv full of voices like tinkling water,
like muffled, troubled breathing
who confirm that Jesus went back on his meds
and the age muddled on
From a Honeymoon
for Samantha
The hardly noticed parkway arches on the Southern State
pressed us into a larger, more common existence,
which we blessed with our caressing passage
At an elbow in the way, in the Princess Diner,
the ceremony and party passed, I looked at my tired but beaming bride,
and could discern the reassuring curve of a further shore
Both of us arrived, both of us carved a little more from the mists
Overjoyed, I cried a little, over my omelet,
that we had found our way to the fulfillment
of an unspoken promise, to the rest of our lives
In a trailer park on the edge of the Atlantic,
the clouds graze and sparrows swirl in wild, pre-migratory clouds
a fishing boat lingers by the shore
And not knowing where to begin my gratitude,
I start with the tumbling hooves of the tidestones
and the calmness of the day, when the wind
picks up its never-finished work tentatively
At a family restaurant near the end of land,
a boy I met in the waves asks if I’ll be back next summer
and I say I’ll see him then
All around us, mothers and fathers
talk boogie boards and sand dollars with the kids,
and conspire to keep them close for one more summer,
to hold some sunswept memory against the erosion
of the decades, against death
My bride smiles at me, and I’m again overwhelmed,
this time over french fries
That a moment, a look, a touch could become a life
in such a lucky way astonishes and frightens me,
but reassures someone just a little smarter than me,
whose joy is my overjoy, and whose clarity
reaches me once in a while
—Colin Dodds, Brooklyn, NY
