ManicDDaily

New experiment today: seeing if I can write a poem on the iPad! (And on the train.)

I love writing poetry by hand. But it is interesting to stretch one’s brain, and, frankly, it’s always terrific to write in a way that does not require transcription.

So here’s my attempt. What I was thinking of was another current interest–memorizing poetry. Followers of this blog know that I was very impressed by memory techniques outlined in Joshua Foer’s recent book Moonwalking With Einstein. My own memorization efforts have slackened recently, but the way in which the memorized poems have stayed with me has been kind of interesting. See below.

The Bits I’ve Got By Heart

In my head the women come and go
talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time, time for
the lines to formulate in the brain,
and when they are formulated, to drop like gentle rain
from a heaven that’s not quite consciousness;
to break, but soft, into a waking dream,
to be each morning morning’s minion,
as my head turns from the pillow,
plucking, before day is quite begun,
the golden apples from what might otherwise be
a simple rag and bone shop–too bland for foul,
scuttled by ragged part-my-hair-behind prosaicness.
Instead, those half-remembered verses,
gleaned from a teeming brain,
roll up into one ball all I ken
of poets’ strength
and sweetness, and the
dancer, who is part dance,
pirouettes, keeping time
with a beat that echoes
on the inside.