This Morning

by Michael Ryan

Overview

“Unlike too many poets who tumble into print at the first twitch of feeling, Michael Ryan takes time to listen to himself, and such listening contributes immeasurably to the subtlety of his address to the reader . . . [He] reminds us on every page that poems can be about lives, and about them in ways most urgent and delicate.” —William H. Pritchard, The Nation

“The twin ancient powers of poetry are story and song,” Michael Ryan said in a recent interview. “I like a lot of both.” And both are here in This Morning in glorious abundance: graceful complex narratives and tight formal lyrics, edgy humor, affecting music, and insistent clarity always in the service of the heart. He can be deeply funny and extremely moving, often at the same time. No other living poet possesses Ryan’s range of tone and technique in rendering the great subjects of art and life: sex, mortality, loss, and love (both conjugal and paternal). Even his most apparently autobiographical writing penetrates to the universal subject within it. Like Dickinson in her poetry, his personal life interests him primarily as an instance of human life. His artistic discipline is thus a spiritual discipline, and the vital spirit infusing these poems rises from the depths of isolation transformed by the joy of loving other people persistently and generously. This Morning is the work of a contemporary American master.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547684604
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/13/2012
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	80
File size:	148 KB

About the Author

Michael Ryan is the author of four volumes of poetry, two memoirs, and a collection of essays. He is a professor of English and creative writing at the University of California, Irvine, where he lives with his wife and daughter.

Read an Excerpt

SIXTIETH-BIRTHDAY DINNER
If in the men’s room of our favorite restaurant
while blissfully pissing riserva spumante
I punch the wall because I am so old,
I promise not to punch too carelessly.

Our friend Franco cooks all night and day
to transform blood and bones to osso buco.
He shouldn’t have to clean them off his wall
or worry that a customer gone cuckoo

has mushed his knuckles like a slugger
whose steroid dosage needs a little tweaking.
My life with you has been beyond beyond
and there’s nothing beyond it I’m seeking.

I just don’t want to leave it, and I am
with every silken bite of tiramisu.
I wouldn’t mind being dead
if I could still be with you.

 

DAREDEVIL
Although he’s only seven, you can pick him out
from other first-graders: he’s the one wearing
a smirk that says, “What are you afraid of?”
maybe also to himself, if he already suspects his fear
won’t ever be crushed no matter what he does.
But he’s got to try. He snatches spiders bare-fingered
to wave in girls’ faces, bites a worm in half
dangling the two ends from his mouth like fangs,
somersault-dismounts from the jungle gym
the other kids climb off of when he climbs on,
and when he lands unhurt there’s that smirk again
that mocks us for our cowardice.
Don’t hate him for it. It is his only happiness.

 

A ROUND
Where am I going? The grave.
Who am I being? The slave.
What am I leaving? The fun.
Who will be grieving? No one.

How can I touch you? No way.
Will I ever reach you? Someday.
Why do I need you? Ho ho.
Where will I meet you? You know.

 

MY YOUNG MOTHER
What she couldn’t give me
she gave me those long nights
she sat up with me feverish
and sweating in my sleep
when I had no idea whatsoever
what she had to do to suffer
the pain her body dealt her
to assuage the pain in mine.

That was a noble privacy —
her mothering as a practice of patience.
How deeply it must have stretched her
to watch me all night with her nerves
crying for rest while my fever
spiked under the washcloths
she passed between my forehead
and her dishpan filled with ice.

That was a noble privacy.
But even then there was so much
unsayable between us,
and why this was now looks so
ludicrous in its old costume of shame
that I wish not that she had just
said it but that I hadn’t been
so furious she couldn’t.

 

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY
The jolt that opened me to you
and shook me to my toes
needs no implanted seismograph
to read how deep it goes

because it’s still rattling me
into this surprise
that the real dream begins
when I open my eyes

to see you so improbably here
and so entirely true
with all our random ducks lined up
for me to marry you

quacking a glorious Gloria
(transcribed into Duck)
to sexy earthy unnerving love
and astonishing good luck.

 

Table of Contents

Contents

I 
Sixtieth-Birthday Dinner 3
A Cartoon of Hurt 4
Airplane Food 6
Dachau 8
I Had a Tapeworm 11
Fucked Up 13
Half Mile Down 15
Insult 17
No Warning No Reason 18
Hard Times 19
My Young Mother 20
Odd Moment 21
In the Mirror 23

II
The Dog 29
Mug 33
Garbage Truck 35
The Daily News 37
Splitsville 41
Melanoma Clinic Infusion Center Waiting Area 42
Open Window Truck Noise 3 A.M. 44
Daredevil 45
Here I Am 46
Sabbatical 47
A Round 48
Funeral 49
Ill Wind 51

III 
Against Which 55
Very Hot Day 56
Sustenance 58
Earphones 60
Petting Zoo 61
Campus Vagrant 64
This Morning 66
Contentment 68
Happy Anniversary 69
Spring 70
Miss Joy 71
Condolence 74
Girls Middle School Orchestra 75
Acknowledgments 77