Brian Michael Barbeito, Happy Dogs
Stop
Noah Berlatsky
To get old is to slowly realize that most things stop.
Like Rimbaud, the genius poet who dropped the pen at 19
never to pick it up again. He preferred to fail at various business ventures.
I understand that. If everything is going to stop
better to fail right away and get it over with
and on to the next pen falling.
It lowers out of the sky, dripping letters from old typewriters
which land like tombstones by the house where I grew up.
Or by the last house I’ll live in, either one.
Someday the last door shuts like a poem closing
itself off from meaning the rest of your life.
I write most of my poems at the dog park now and the dog is ready to go home.
Noah Berlatsky
To get old is to slowly realize that most things stop.
Like Rimbaud, the genius poet who dropped the pen at 19
never to pick it up again. He preferred to fail at various business ventures.
I understand that. If everything is going to stop
better to fail right away and get it over with
and on to the next pen falling.
It lowers out of the sky, dripping letters from old typewriters
which land like tombstones by the house where I grew up.
Or by the last house I’ll live in, either one.
Someday the last door shuts like a poem closing
itself off from meaning the rest of your life.
I write most of my poems at the dog park now and the dog is ready to go home.