The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poem Thread, 9/23/07 Bonus

[BlueIris]

"To A Sad Daughter"

All night long the hockey pictures
gaze down at you
sleeping in your tracksuit.
Belligerent goalies are your ideal.

Threats of being traded
cut and wounds
—all this pleases you.
O my god! you say at breakfast
reading the sports page over the Alpern
as another player breaks his ankle
or assaults the coach.

When I thought of daughters
I wasn't expecting this
but I like this more.
I like all your faults
even your purple moods
when you retreat from everyone
to sit in bed under a quilt.
And when I say 'like'
I mean of course 'love'
but that embarrasses you.
You who feel superior to black and white movies
(coaxed for hours to see Casablanca)
though you were moved
by Creature from the Black Lagoon.

One day I'll come swimming
beside your ship or someone else will
and if you hear the siren
listen to it. For if you close your ears
only nothing happens. You will never change.

I don't care if you risk
your life to angry goalies
creatures with webbed feet.
You can enter their caves and castles
their glass laboratories. Just
don't be fooled by anyone but yourself.

This is the first lecture I've given you.
You're 'sweet sixteen' you said.
I'd rather be your closest friend
than your father. I'm not good at advice
you know that, but ride
the ceremonies
until they grow dark.

Sometimes you are so busy
discovering your friends
I ache with a loss
—but that is greed.
And sometimes I've gone
into my purple world
and lost you.

One afternoon I stepped
into your room. You were sitting
at the desk where I now write this.
Forsythia outside the window
and sun spilled over you
like a thick yellow miracle
as if another planet
was coaxing you out of the house
—all those possible worlds!—
and you, meanwhile, busy with mathematics.

I cannot look at forsythia now
without loss, or joy for you.
You step delicately
into the wild world
and your real prize will be
the frantic search.
Want everthing. If you break
break going out not in.
How you live your life I don't care
but I'll sell my arms for you,
hold your secrets forever.

If I speak of death
which you fear now, greatly,
it is without answers.
except that each
one we know is
in our blood.
Don't recall graves.
Memory is permanent.
Remember the afternoon's
yellow suburban annunciation.
Your goalie
in his frightening mask
dreams perhaps
of gentleness.

—Michael Ondaatje

[Droopy]

1. How touching

I know some dads have a hard time expressing such feelings, mine being one of them. I'm afraid that I've inherited that trait from him.

[BlueIris]

3. I also have one of those dads. That's one reason I think this is such a great piece.

[wildhorses]

2. that is beautiful. and these lines ---

'One day I'll come swimming
beside your ship or someone else will
and if you hear the siren
listen to it. For if you close your ears
only nothing happens. You will never change.'

so true. i like the way he used yellow...its a yellow poem :)

[WildEyedLiberal]

4. This is really beautiful

Brilliant use of language, very evocative.

[BlueIris]

5. I think Michael Ondaatje, like his contemporary, Margaret Atwood, wrote excellent poems

as well as excellent novels.

[BlueIris]

6. Kick.

[BlueIris]

7. Kick.