Oh, My Percy

I fell in love today and wondered, immediately
Did Mary Oliver name her dog for him?
You know the dog, her Percy?
She writes of walks and reflections
Leaping from his limbs, that Percy -

At first I thought it was just his biography
I wanted. I’m speaking of Shelley, no not Mary
I want a biography – a life line – like Percy’s.
I want people to look at my words and say
“I have drunken deep of joy” here, and sigh…

He was the poet, that poet, the one poet
whose “whose passionate search for personal
love and social justice was gradually channeled
from overt actions into poems that rank with the
greatest in the English language.” those
brilliant folks from ThinkExist.com introduced us

I want to have a biography like him.
I will say it out loud, here, overtly
I will credit those who brought us
into connection – since I never
gave Percy any thought today yet now.
I think I am in love.
I have yet another Dead Man Crush.

I have many of those you know.
My Alberts: Schweitzer and Einstein
My Henry: as in David Thoreau –
pencil factory owner, Walden Pond
dweller his deliberate solitude
would know my alone need
coupled with my fond desire
of time with him, his poetry,
his deep thinking mind

(I worry I would get on his nerves)

Each time I turn it seems another
dead man attempts to woo me
with his Romantic speech and notions
I toss aside all my physical predilections
for just one of Rainer Rilke’s whispers in
my ear, my chin rises toward his voice

I want to learn German so I can touch
his untranslated meaning.

They elevate me, these dead man crushes.
I am open about them – obviously
I don’t hide the fact that I have a long list of
amorous non-suitors separated from
by the impossible to be intimate grave.

I don’t go for dead guys like
James Dean or the typical pretty-boys
Bring me some Whitman smattered with
Some speckles of May Sarton
(My crushes even crush the
gender line for I am more bold when
my lost love crosses death’s boundaries.

For today, my love reaches to Percy.
I look to the page and find “A poet is a nightingale,
who sits in darkness and sings”
I hear the bird song“to cheer its own
solitude with sweet sounds.”
and I know this love is not unrequited
I fall into his outstretched from the
Soil arms and find “Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips.”
And know that in speaking his words
On this page and in your mind –
Percy is still blissfully alive….

See more progress on: write a (sloppy, half-formed if need be) poem every day (or so) during July 2010