POEM OF THE WEEK: PAUL GUEST

 

Paul Guest

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Hurray for the Modern

 

And this mechanistic world in which
all of us are trapped. Listen: there is

wildness inside the night. In my mouth
are teeth. Are words like hello,

and goodbye, and sadness which
is pervasive and comic and like

a bad movie unavoidable. The news
reads like a story of fire

and death and endless, insufferable
seasons: this summer, wet

and heavy, and the dreaded winter,
which is a white nightmare

in my mind. Tonight, I’ll go
out into the air to sing

an old song. I’ll vibrate with nostalgia
for that world without

pain. Without you, I’ll go
down to the water to perform dumb

rituals and bad magic
and the stars will go on lighting up

the sky. My pocket knife
is exactly this

sharp. On its bright edge
is balanced everything that is visible.

I see: cars colliding with
the greasy air. Where

will I go when all
the clocks wind down

and what to say
to the moon’s glowing

face? Tell me:
if you know. When you are near.

 

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Paul Guest is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Because Everything Is Terrible, and a memoir, One More Theory About Happiness. His writing has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, Tin House, Slate, New England Review, The Southern Review, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, and numerous other publications. A Guggenheim Fellow and Whiting Award winner, he lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.