It seems like you want to laugh tonight,
so I'm going to read my two funny poems.
Those weren't funny poems, but I do have two funny poems
so I'll read them now.
They're parodies.
The first one is a parody of a very lovely poem, one
of my favorites, and I'm sure a poem you all know,
or most of you, called "Elegy for"--
I can't remember the exact title,
but Mark Strand's elegy for his father,
one of the very beautiful poems in our language.
I chose it to parody because I wanted the parody
to not simply be a parody, which I think is sort of easy,
but to be an appreciation also.
Eventually an appreciation of the poem.
And I hope this poem does that.
There's one section in his poem, he's
talking about his father who's going on with his dying
and nothing can stop his father from dying.
The refrain is nothing can stop him.
He went on with his dying, and so forth.
That was the model for this parody.
"Poem for Mark Strand."
Nothing could stop him.
Not the worst day, not the heaviness of his job,
not the increase in postage, he went on with his writing.
The moon sunk to his shoulder, peered over like the eye
left open in the darker dark.
He continued writing.
The young poets came forward, threatening
to write longer litanies.
So long, in fact, chanting them would make the dead count
their blessings.
He went on with his writing.
Nothing could stop him.
Not the scene from the window which he described
as if it were the subject of his poem,
not the silence of the telephone,
not the children who kept asking what he did for a living, not
the change in the weather, which took months.
He continued writing.
Nothing could stop him.
"Mark," I said, "there's no ink in the pen."
Nothing could stop him.
"You're ruining the surface of Richard Howard's mahogany
desk."
Nothing could stop him.
Cigarette ashes covered the page like confetti falling forever
over the quarreling lovers.
He went on with his writing.
Nothing could stop him.
Not the publisher with money who asked
for shorter poems, not the short Provincetown,
not the architect of EPB in Iowa City, not Dan Halpern who said,
Mark, I can get you a seat on the Stock Exchange.
He went on with his writing.
His eyes refused to leave the mirror.
The spaces he worshipped behind him
filled with 100 Black coats, which
were the angels of emptiness arriving from Spain.
He went on with his writing.
Nothing could stop him.
Not the breathing, which escaped the keyhole as song,
not the life he wanted, not the life he chose,
which was the same, not the blank page which he laughed
at, not the memory of his father,
not the punk poet who wrote parodies,
not the poem which was perfect, not the poem which wasn't.
He went on with his writing.
The rest of us closed our eyes in the darkness,
became the walls that housed him.
Dreams were there for the taking,
but no, nothing could stop him.