A Handful of Poems

I am currently taking a course entitled American Women Writers, and in the last few weeks, we have read a handful of great poetry, some of which I am meeting for the first time. The poems are funny (humor itself being an challenging endeavor for women writers to execute successfully makes the humor even more amusing), they are witty and clever, they are complex, and they are incredibly thought-provoking.  Enjoy!

The Pope’s Penis

by Sharon Olds

It hangs deep in his robes, a delicate
clapper at the center of a bell.
It moves when he moves, a ghostly fish in a
halo of silver seaweed, the hair
swaying in the dark and the heat – and at night,
while his eyes sleep, it stands up
in praise of God.

Self-Exam

by Sharon Olds

They tell you it won’t make much sense, at first,

you will have to learn the terrain. They tell you this

at thirty, and fifty, and some are late

beginners, at last lying down and walking

the old earth of the breasts—the small,

cobbled, plowed field of one,

with a listening walking, and then the other—

fingertip-stepping, divining, north

to south, east to west, sectioning

the little fallen hills, sweeping

for mines. And the matter feels primordial,

unimaginable—dense,

cystic, phthistic, each breast like the innards

of a cell, its contents shifting and changing,

streambed gravel under walking feet, it

seems almost unpicturable, not

immemorial, but nearly un-

memorizable, but one marches,

slowly, through grave or fatal danger,

or no danger, one feels around in the

two tack-room drawers, ribs and

knots like leather bridles and plaited

harnesses and bits and reins,

one runs one’s hands through the mortal tackle

in a jumble, in the dark, indoors. Outside—

night, in which these glossy ones were

ridden to a froth of starlight, bareback.

Matins

By Louise Gluck

You want to know how I spend my time?

I walk the front lawn, pretending

to be weeding. You ought to know

I’m never weeding, on my knees, pulling

clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact

I’m looking for courage, for some evidence

my life will change, though

it takes forever, checking

each clump for the symbolic

leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already

the leaves turning, always the sick trees

going first, the dying turning

brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform

their curfew of music. You want to see my hands?

As empty now as at the first note.

Or was the point always

to continue without a sign?

The Applicant

by Sylvia Plath

First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,

Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed

To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked
How about this suit –

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they'll bury you in it.

Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that?
Naked as paper to start

But in twenty-five years she'll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk, talk.

It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it's a poultice.
You have an eye, it's an image.
My boy, it's your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.