Poetry Friday: Poems for a Book Character

Photo by Mary Lee Hahn. May be used with attribution.

I still haven't quite recovered from reading The Goldfinch. (My gobstopped review is here.)

This is a poem the main character, Theo, would appreciate. It fits with his world view. Mine, too, on the days when I choose not to think about the truth of our existence here.

Fire
by Wyatt Townley

It's only the body
It's only a hip joint
It's just a bulging disc
It's only weather
It's only your heart
It's a shoulder who needs it
This happens all the time
It's very common
It's unusual
For people your age
For people your age
You're in great shape
Remarkable shape
It's nothing you did
The main thing is
It's temporary
It's only a doll
In a house that's burning

But Theo would also like this one, knowing, as he did, the power of art to change our lives.

Archaic Torso of Apollo

by Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by Stephen Mitchell

We cannot know his legendary head 

with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso 

is still suffused with brilliance from inside, 

like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low, 

gleams in all its power. Otherwise 

the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could 

a smile run through the placid hips and thighs 

to that dark center where procreation flared. 

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced 

beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders 

and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur: 

would not, from all the borders of itself, 

burst like a star: for here there is no place 

that does not see you. You must change your life.

Anastasia has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week via Poet! Poet!, but on Pinterest HERE.