Nine Horses: PoemsIf in reading a poem, as Billy Collins believes, we enter the consciousness of another, it would follow that the higher the consciousness, the better the experience. And in the case of Collins, the experience can be a very exhilarating one indeed. His poems shuttle us back and forth between the realms of the clear and the mysterious, often carrying us from the everyday into imaginative territory we never knew existed.One of his new poems, "No Time, " is a fine example: In a rush this weekday morning, tap the horn as I speed past the cemeterywhere my parents are buriedside by side under a smooth slab of granite.Then, all day long, I think of him rising upto give me that lookof knowing disapprovalwhile my mother calmly tells him to lie back down. |
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AFTERLIFE afternoon AIR PIANO Art of Drowning asparagus balsa beach BERMUDA BILLY COLLINS birdcage BIRDS OF ARIZONA boats Bodhidharma bridge café carpet cello chair CHRISTMAS SPARROW club car cold Coventry Patmore crystal goblet dark DAY IN EXISTENCE dead door ELK RIVER FALLS Eric Dolphy eyes face feel flapping floor forehead garden glass head jazz kitchen knife leaning leaves lie there breathing light listen looking lying marble moon morning night NINE HORSES notebook Orange and White painted pale pepper mill pink Poems Poetry pond POOL OUTSIDE SIRACUSA rain Roadside Flowers saltshaker sings its name soap soft someone song sound speed lines staring stone stop Study in Orange summer things thumb tiny tips train trees turn UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN walk Walter Pater watch weightless Whistler wicker wind wine wondered wood wooden