20170810

Bill Yarrow



MEET THE BEATLES

I was twelve years old in 1963.
The Korean War had ended ten years earlier.
WWII eight years before that.
Kristallnacht seven years before that.
Sacco and Vanzetti were electrocuted in 1927.
The Titanic sank in 1912.
In 1968, I was buying comix at head shops in New Hope.
In 1972, I was swimming at nude beaches in Big Sur.
In 1978, I was parking cars and writing eulogies.
In 1981, I was changing diapers in Rego Park.
In 1985, I was grading papers on Darwinism.
It's been fifty-two years since I was twelve years old.



THE FAMOUS WRITERS I LIKE

The famous writers I like
as human beings
were mostly monsters

More than a few
were totally
reprehensible

By and large, the famous writers I like
were not people
I would have ever liked to meet

Where can you find a real asshole?
Check out some of the famous
writers I like!



PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RETURN 

seriously
   I don't think 
      we have 
         anything 
            in common 
other than 
   intelligence 
      sensibility
         enthusiasm 
            and talent



JUGGLING

It is a matter of felicitous __________.
I met Robert Frost's __________ at a theatre party the other evening.
Life is meagre with me; I am unsatisfied and left always begging for __________.
Anything for some __________now.

I met Robert Frost's __________ at a theatre party the other evening.
I like __________ in a certain way.
Anything for some __________now.
In my own work I find the problem of __________ becoming more and more difficult.

I like __________ in a certain way.
I too have a __________ in the last century.
In my own work I find the problem of __________ becoming more and more difficult.
I admit to a slight __________ esoteric.

I too have a __________ in the last century
Life is meagre with me; I am unsatisfied and left always begging for __________.
I admit to a slight __________ esoteric.
It is a matter of felicitous __________.



TANGERINE

tangerine porcelain
indigo rust
tethered door
frame weathered
face factory
chatter ballerina arms
the past bastard
you refuse

refuse you bastard
past the arms
ballerina chatter
factory face
weathered frame door
tethered rust
indigo porcelain
tangerine



(Author's Note: JUGGLING is a pantoum made entirely from redacted lines from The Letters of Hart Crane 1916-1932, edited by Brom Weber, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1965. Out of copyright. Internet Archive.)



Bill Yarrow, Professor of English at Joliet Junior College and an editor at Blue Fifth Review, is the author of The Vig of Love, Blasphemer, Pointed Sentences, and five chapbooks, most recently We All Saw It Coming. He has been nominated eight times for a Pushcart Prize. Against Prompts, his fourth full-length collection, is forthcoming from Lit Fest Press in 2018.
 
 
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