Poem with history

Years ago, I was heading to Target for a little Christmas shopping.  It was early, still dark, and as usual I was listening to NPR.  An essayist wrote about how this poem changed his life in high school, he became obsessed with the words and meter.  I had forgotten my own interest in writing because of some occasionally harsh college criticism and the feeling that I just wasn't smart enough for iambic pentameter.  But this poem actually made me laugh so loudly that it planted a seed in my head.  Writing at its best (in my opinion) is accessible and relevant.  The wheels of the universe were in motion and within a few months, I had signed up for my first Saturday Workshop at Women Writing for (a) Change. 




Love Song: I and Thou

BY ALAN DUGAN

Nothing is plumb, level, or square:
the studs are bowed, the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
any other piece without a gap
or pinch, and bent nails
dance all over the surfacing
like maggots. By Christ
I am no carpenter. I built
the roof for myself, the walls
for myself, the floors
for myself, and got
hung up in it myself. I
danced with a purple thumb
at this house-warming, drunk
with my prime whiskey: rage.
Oh I spat rage’s nails
into the frame-up of my work:
it held. It settled plumb,
level, solid, square and true
for that great moment. Then
it screamed and went on through,
skewing as wrong the other way.
God damned it. This is hell,
but I planned it, I sawed it,
I nailed it, and I
will live in it until it kills me.
I can nail my left palm
to the left-hand crosspiece but
I can’t do everything myself.
I need a hand to nail the right,
a help, a love, a you, a wife.