Poem-A-Day: E.H. by John Koethe

E.H. by John Koethe   "Sometimes I stand in the middle of the floor, Not going left, not going right." -- Stephen Sondheim   I like to get drunk and I like to write. I search for ways in and can't find them, But that doesn't mean they're not there. What isn't There is the life between the words, the life that existed Beyond the words, the life I don't have anymore. In Michigan the feelings soaked the page, Yet now they seem diminished in the telling And no longer in our time, no longer of our place, But in another country, one of an imagination Anchored in a style; no longer in the stream Or swamp, where the fishing was tragic.   I (whichever I this is) saw Follies last year. The Weismann Girls come back to stand for what they were And aren't anymore, in a theatre slated for demolition. Sally is a prisoner of her rage and her imagination, Pining for the magic of what might have been Until the spell breaks, leaving her alone on the stage Amid the shards of her illusions. As she looks around For what she is, all she can find is her age:  "I'm forty-nine. That's all I am."   Why do I get so angry? Why do I assume The characters I love, the characters I love and hate? There's a corruption from which I've never recovered That diminishes me each day, until I can't tell which I am Anymore, the mask or the face. The boat in Havana: Last time was the last time. The stirring begins each night And continues through the day here in a home that isn't home, With Michigan far away, the finca far away, alone In the vestibule in the early morning light, imagining The feeling of cool steel against my forehead And the sound of two drawers slamming. I'm sixty-two. That's all I am.         Copyright © 2013 by John Koethe. Used with permission of the author.   About This Poem "I was reading an interesting book called Hemingway's Boat by Paul Hendrickson around the same time I saw a revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies on Broadway. My way of writing is basically associative, and Hemingway and Sondheim's character Sally seemed to me pathetic and heartbreaking in different ways, and I wound up putting them together in this poem."    --John Koethe Most Recent Book by Koethe ROTC Kills: Poems (Harper Perennial, 2012)           September 20, 2013   John Koethe's books include ROTC Kills (Harper Perennial, 2012) and Ninety-fifth Street (Harper Perennial, 2009), which received the 2010 Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets. Koethe is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.  Related Poems Mirrors by Tada Chimako One Train May Hide Another by Kenneth Koch Reading Novalis in Montana by Melissa Kwasny Poem-A-Day Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the  Poem-A-Day Archive.         Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.

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