Some Clouds
Now that I’ve unplugged the phone,
no one can reach me-
At least for this one afternoon
they will have to get by without my advice
or opinion.
Now nobody else is going to call
& ask in a tentative voice
if I haven’t yet heard that she’s dead,
that woman I once loved-
nothing but ashes scattered over a city
that barely itself any longer exists.
Yes, thank you, I’ve heard.
It had been too lovely a morning.
That in itself should have warned me.
The sun lit up the tangerines
& the blazing poinsettias
like so many candles.
For one afternoon they will have to forgive me.
I am busy watching things happen again
that happened a long time ago.
as I lean back in Josephine’s lawnchair
under a sky of incredible blue,
broken – if that is the word for it –
by a few billowing clouds,
all white & unspeakably lovely,
drifting out of one nothingness into another.
The Grammar Lesson
A noun’s a thing. A verb’s the thing it does.
An adjective is what describes the noun.
In “The can of beets is filled with purple fuzz”
of and with are prepositions. The’s
an article, a can’s a noun,
a noun’s a thing. A verb’s the thing it does.
A can can roll — or not. What isn’t was
or might be, might meaning not yet known.
“Our can of beets is filled with purple fuzz”
is present tense. While words like our and us
are pronouns — i.e. it is moldy, they are icky brown.
A noun’s a thing; a verb’s the thing it does.
Is is a helping verb. It helps because
filled isn’t a full verb. Can’s what our owns
in “Our can of beets is filled with purple fuzz.”
See? There’s almost nothing to it. Just
memorize these rules…or write them down!
A noun’s a thing, a verb’s the thing it does.
The can of beets is filled with purple fuzz.
-by Steve Kowit
Steve Kowit was born in Brooklyn in 1938. He is the author of several critically acclaimed books of poetry and has published a renowned guide to writing poetry: In the Palm of Your Hand. Kowit received a B.A. degree from Brooklyn College, a Master of Arts degree from San Francisco State College, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Warren Wilson College. A writing and teaching staple in San Diego for decades, he passed in his sleep in 2015.