David Graham
Rebel Angel
It is not permitted
so I do it anyway.
Look at me, so punk
walking right off the path,
littering like a maple,
arriving well after
the movie's begun.
Sometimes in my
secret heart I burn
the flag not for any
reason but just because
it's my head, not yours,
and I am governor
here as well as priest,
rodeo clown, beat cop,
watchdog and
funny uncle. Look
out, world, I'm putting
pepper in my milk.
I'm sneezing to
the wild wind
and painting my dog
Day-Glo blue--not really
but I'm saying it
just the same, and that's
something you never
did, I bet. I amble right
past Keep Out and No
Entry and Staff Only
Beyond This Point
as if such signs were
made of day old oatmeal.
I've half a mind to sit nude
in the June garden
with my beloved, reciting
Paradise Lost together
just like William Blake
and his wife, whose name
was Catherine Sophia, and
who was surely some kind
of a saint, just as I'm sure
William knew very well
that Sophia means wisdom.
At Fifty-Eight
On my birthday I want nothing
but more of everything. More damn snow,
more coffee jitters, more wind fluting
down the chimney insanely. More news
to sigh and shake my head over. I want
a little salt and pepper to taste, and more
if I feel like it. More walks in the woods
with my lifetime love, counting deer
as the owl counts us. More time than
a dog has, more than we need or deserve.
More than I deserve, certainly. Yes.
And when the larder is full, the bed
brimful with easy flow, air electric
with all air brings and every sign
on the road leads to repletion and
plenty and copious fullness, then,
then I say more. I say more.
Bio
David Graham is the author of six collections of poems, including Stutter Monk and Common Waters from Flume Press, and an essay anthology co-edited with Kate Sontag: After Confession: Poetry as Autobiography (Graywolf Press). Individual poems, essays, and reviews have appeared widely in journals and anthologies as well as online.