07.05.02 - 2:25 p.m.

Poem About Morning

� � � by William Meredith

Whether it's sunny or not, it's sure
To be enormously complex -
Trees or streets outdoors, indoors whoever you share,
And yourself, thirsty, hungry, washing,
An attitude towards sex.
No wonder half of you wants to stay
With your head dark and wishing
Rather than take it all on again:
Weren't you duped yesterday?
Things are not orderly here, no matter what they say.

But the clock goes off, if you have a dog
It wags, if you get up now you'll be less
Late. Life is some kind of loathsome hag
Who is forever threatening to turn beautiful.
Now she gives you a quick toothpaste kiss
And puts a glass of cold cranberry juice,
Like a big fake garnet, in your hand.
Cranberry juice! You're lucky, on the whole,
But there is a great deal about it you don't understand.

Ooookay. Hee, it's probably plagarism for me to reprint that in its entirety, but I wanted to keep that particular poem someplace... safe. I love that poem. It captures some strange essence of life that you can only capture in poems, mingling the mundane with the profound (or potentially, self-referential awareness that passes for profundity) and somehow invoking the weird deliciousness of life that most everyone really does share, in the morning, first getting up (thirsty, hungry, washing/An attitude towards sex) rolling outta bed, dashing off the remnants of sleep, half-animal and reduced to one's most base needs, which drive one.

Then, the interlude, recollection of sleep and dream and something blissful about that oblivion, where there isn't a sun, and aren't any trees except for those you made (No wonder half of your wants to stay/With your head dark and wishing). And... wishing, hee. Not dreaming, wishing, and that's sort of what you do, when you go back to bed, when you lose the civilized skin and turn your back on the world to tunnel under and cocoon. you... heee.

The whole stanza is turned around once more - why are you wishing, why do you need to wish? - because you were duped yesterday. It's never as simple as it seems (Things are not orderly here) and the world's a little... messy, hard to capture, difficult to understand.

But the clock goes off, if you have a dog
It wags, if you get up now you'll be less
Late...

Heee.... and that's just like the conversation you have with yourself, not in words so much as urges. When you wake, and you hit the snooze button, and roll over, and wish, or cycle something through your mind, and then the world intrudes again and you just hafta get going. You dog wags, and maybe you can be less late. Not that you won't be late... just a little less late than usual.

Now, the next two lines are my favorites, but what's even better is the little stupid line-break trick before it, because the Late left lingering from the earlier line softens the flat statement, sorta insulates it from our irony meters, our detectors of declarative intent kinda things. whatever it is that makes one cringe when one reads some poor, bald line pretending toward profundity.

and of course, the toothpaste kiss pulls you back from the bring of that sort of reductionist profundity, right smack dab into the (complex) ordinary.

hmmm. actually, i don't like the cranberry juice/like a big fake garnet. I know you need something descriptive of cranberry juice, but i never think gee, cranberry juice is like a big fake garnet! i might think big gaudy jewel more than that. or uhm. well, anyway. i just don't like that line, it feels forced, and not nearly as natural as the rest of the poem...

hee, but this one (Cranberry juice! You're lucky, on the whole,) i love. cranberry juice! it's so, startled, a little in awe, and then it segues so easily into the last line bridging the mundane physical (cranberry juice) and the abstract beautifully.

so. hee. if you like the poem, you should buy Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems by William Meredith.