United States, (b. 1934)
The Pigs for Circe in May
- I almost ruined the stew and Where
- is my peanut butter sandwich I tore through the back of the car
- I could not believe
- there was One slice of my favorite brown bread and my stomach and
- I jammed the tin foil and bread wrappers into the stew
- and no cheese and I simply could not believe
- and you never
- TALK when my friends are over.
- This is known as camping at Yosemite.
- Already I wish there was something done.
- Odysseus found a stag on his way to the ship
- I think of people sighing over poetry, using it, I
- don’t know what it’s for. Well,
- Hermes forewarned him. Can you imagine
- those lovely beasts all tame prancing around him?
- She made a lot of pigs too.
- I like pigs. Cute feet, cute nose, and I think
- some spiritual value investing them. A man and his pig together,
- rebalancing the pure in them, under each other’s arms, bathing,
- eating it.
- And when the time came, she did right
- let them go
- They couldn’t see her when she came back
- from the ship, seating themselves and wept, the wind
- took them directly north, all day
- into the dark.
- at least they were moving again
- Sometimes I just go hobbling up and say
- Just a little Food, please. Usually a piece of bacon or toast
- the coffee curling up in the pine groves of Yosemite.
- There is a rock wall
- in the night
- animals and something hot and dank on the sand trail
- in the sun;
- waste
- Odysseus went down and got his comrades
- ‘Circe says it’s ok to stay.’
- And they were freely bathed and wined.
- She had a lot of maids and a staid housekeeper.
- I mean, I admire her. The white robes
- and keeping busy
- She fed her animals
- wild acorns, and men crying inside
- with a voice like a woman
- from the sun and the ocean
- She is busy at the center, planning out great
- stories to amuse herself, and a lot of pets,
- a neat household, gracious
- honey and wine
- She offers.
- Purple linen on the chairs
- Odysseus mopes
- ‘Oh, I’ll give you your bores back’ They weep to see each other
- a black ram
- and a young ewe and the ship to hell
- where Persephone has left only one man with reason
- She doesn’t hold them back
- a young man dies
- that is his fault.
- And she asked him to stay
- climbing all day
- pushing
- strewn with boulders
- the great leap it makes
- into space, giddy he rushes at her
- the roar he makes
- on the wide shelf bed
- they both watch over the edge
- and the Great Pigs waddle off in the sky—
About the Poet
Joanne Kyger (b. 1934) is an American poet and writer. Her poetry is influenced by her practice of Zen Buddhism and her ties to the poets of Black Mountain, the San Francisco Renaissance, and the Beat generation.
Kyger studied at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before moving to San Francisco, in 1957, and becoming involved with the poetry scene around Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan.
Kyger has published more than twenty books of poetry and prose, including Going On: Selected Poems, 1958–1980, (1983); and, Just Space: poems, 1979-1989 (1991). She has lived in Bolinas, California since 1968, where she has edited the local newspaper. She has also done some occasional teaching at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics of the Naropa Institute, in Boulder, Colorado. [condensed from Wikipedia, DES-11/10]