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Saturday, April 23, 2005

You are so beautiful and I am a fool

My son bought me a book of Billy Collins poetry and once in a while reads me some, which I usually love. Here is the first stanza of

Nightclub
by Billy Collins

You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed. more

At bigsnap.com you'll find more Collins poem and you can sign up for his mailing list.

OK Here's another one...

Another reason why I don't keep a gun in the house

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.


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4 Comments:

At 11:00 AM, Blogger Kimberly said...

Billy Collins' poetry almost always makes me laugh; I love his take on the world. I hadn't read the second poem before; the imagery of the barking dog as a part of the orchestra is wonderful.

 
At 3:56 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Glad you pointed out the mailing list.I have two of his books but they bear repeating.

oh, and you said
>Don’t quite get it yet but that’s part of the fun…

what part is to get?

 
At 1:35 PM, Blogger Mary said...

Ahh, Billy Collins. He does indeed have a good sense of humour.

Another Reason Why I don't Keep A Gun In The House is one of my favorites of his. (Although I have to be persnickety here and say that the way the poem reads in the layout of this blogpost is not as pleasing and flowing as the original structure. Just proof that linebreaks matter!)

 
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