Poetry Reading…

Poetry Reading

SAINT POEM AT THE UAG, ALBANY NY

    To be a boxer, or not to be there
    at all. O Muse, where are our teeming crowds?
    Twelve people in the room, eight seats to spare
    it’s time to start this cultural affair.
    Half came inside because it started raining,
    the rest are relatives. O Muse.

    The women here would love to rant and rave,
    but that’s for boxing. Here they must behave.
    Dante’s Infemo is ringside nowadays.
    Likewise his Paradise. O Muse.

    Oh, not to be a boxer but a poet,
    one sentenced to hard shelleying for life,
    for lack of muscles forced to show the world
    the sonnet that may make the high-school reading lists
    with luck. O Muse,
    O bobtailed angel, Pegasus.

    In the first row, a sweet old man’s soft snore:
    he dreams his wife’s alive again. What’s more,
    she’s making him that tart she used to bake.
    Aflame, but carefully-don’t burn his cake!
    we start to read. O Muse.

    – Wislawa Szymborska

    _________________

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