Mid-winter Reading

[PrinceMyshkin]

Who first invented that fiction, "Adulthood"?
What does it mean? Christ
on a pogo-stick! what haven't we tried
to blaspheme? That record
won't play any longer...

These are the long, slow days
of the middle of our lives,
when we realize, as in a play or novel,
that all of the major characters
have been introduced, plot

and counterplot have been set adrift
and we, and the author, dream
of some other book
until suddenly, we awake
and reach, in a panic, for

--the theme!
What happened to the bloody theme?

[Sweets America]

Kind of cynical. Nice poem, I heard your voice. Not my favorite of your poems, but I still like it. :)

[PrinceMyshkin]

Kind of cynical. Nice poem, I heard your voice. Not my favorite of your poems, but I still like it. :)

Well, it joins a long list of my poems that are not your favourites! Which reminds me of this comment by Calvin Trillin, who writes about food in The New Yorker:


"The remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served us nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found."

[asilef73]

lol. i love it. i live it. nicely done.

[motherhubbard]

Jerry, I loved it! what a great question. This really made me smile and I'll have to be sure mom knows about this one- What happened to the bloody theme? that's just great!

[firefangled]

Like Prince and Rilke, I always also wonder who we still are in these plays.

Very true poem, Prince.