Daily Dose

From Poems: 1959 - 2009, by Frederick Seidel

SPIN

A dog named Spinach died today.
In her arms he died away.
Injected with what killed him.
Love is a cup that spilled him.
Spilled all the Spin that filled him.
Sunlight sealed and sent.
Recieved and spent.
Smiled and went.

Daily Dose

From Poems: 1959 - 2009, by Frederick Seidel

A BEAUTIFUL DAY OUTSIDE

I still lived, and sat there in the sun,

Too depressed to savor my melancholia.
I wore a cardboard crown. I held
A sceptre with a star on top.

I was on a hill, looking over at a mountain.
The sky was bald blue above.
Pine needles made
Something softer than a breast beneath the fits-all royal hose.

I was like an inmate at Charenton
Dully propped up on a throne outdoors, playing
“Fatigue of the Brave”—fatigue such as of a fireman holding
A still warm baby, waiting for the body bag.

Professional depression,
In an age of revolutionary fire
And having to grow up. The king did not wish to—
Still declined to be beheaded at forty-three.

But that I was depressed,
I had diagnosed the depression thus:
Ambivalence at a standstill—
Party-favor crown, real-life guillotine.

I still lived. I sat there in the sun:
Just water and salt conducting a weak current
Between the scent of pine and the foot smell
Of weeds reeking in the hot sun.

The children’s party crown I wore
Dazzled my thinning hair like a halo.
The crown was crenellated like a castle wall.
A leper begged outside the wall.

In an upper gallery of the castle,
A young woman curtsied to the king and said: “Sire,
You are a beautiful day outside.”
The king stuck his stick down her throat to shut her up.

Children, of all things bad, the best is to kill a king.
Next best: to kill yourself out of death.
Next best: to grovel and beg. I took for my own motto
I rot before I ripen.

Daily Dose

From Poems: 1959 - 2009, by Frederick Seidel

THE PIERRE HOTEL, NEW YORK, 1946

The bowl of a silver spoon held candlelight,
A glistening oyster of gold
The linen between us was snowblind, blinding white.
I felt a weight too light to weigh
Which was my wings.

I heard the quiet of his eyes.
I heard the candle flame stand still.
I saw the long line of her jaw become
Too beautiful to bear.  I was a child.
I lifted my empty spoon and licked the light.

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From Nice Weather, by Frederick Seidel

THE CHILD

"The child sat in the back, finishing his ice-cream soda,
Sucking the straw in the empty glass as a noisy coda."

From Oedipal Strivings