Differences

By Robert Dickerson

Here is 'plainspoken' poetry par excellence, accessible and apolitical. The poems in this collection continue to sound 'natural' note as in previous previous volumes. Poetry lovers may find additional interest in the poet's humorous or idiosyncratic response to subject—a response yet allowing for a certain pathos in many instances. Lovers of form will not be disappointed. Here, rhyme and rhythm emphasize meaning in calculated ways. The poet's flood subjects are human interactions and a highly individual perception of various phenomena—in terms that are laudatory and, in general, uplifting

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664169364

Robert Dickerson

Robert Dickerson has crafted poetry for some forty years and by his own admission, is ‘not exactly a beginner.’ His pen has produced several volumes-worth of verse. He celebrates the ‘formal’ and cultivates the ‘science’ of poetry, though he believes the degree of spiritual refi nement in the voice distinguishes the poet. His poems revel in the concrete and he believes in the poem as object. He advocates a natural voice, the primacy of the idea and the translation of the ordinary. His ethic insists that, mathematics aside, all that passes for truth in human affairs is rooted in need and tribal belief. He welcomes the return to poetry of transparency and design and prefers a poetic of mood and word magic to a poetry of politics. In his view, a poem is a ‘joke’ whose punch-line yields enlightenment. He avoids the ‘confessional’ mode as being ‘too full of itself ’. To learn the craft of poetry he recommends practice and constant alertness to poetic possibility. He also recommends reading the greats.

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Copyright © 2021 by Robert Dickerson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

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without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

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Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 04/22/2021

Xlibris

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Contents

Differences

Decline and Fall

Spring

1962

The Spring

You Cannot Be Young Forever

AM Oversight

Age

Summer

There Was an Island …

Ceyx and Alcione

Chamomile

On Helicon

Moment

You Better Be Bad

Daphne

Dog Day

Cherries

Thirteen Things We Don’t Need

Multiple Choice: God

Multiple Choice: Walt Whitman

Multiple Choice: Ezra Pound

Multiple Choice: Amy Lowell

Multiple Choice: John Steinbeck

Multiple Choice: Willa Cather

Tomorrow

Angels and Fools

Faustus

Floaters

Fireworks

Costco Cat

Gardener

Puff Pastry

Little

This Morning

Break, Break, Already

Enough

Truth

Reality

Sonnet 401(k)

Shoplift Wind Chime

Almost an Epitaph

Almost an Epitaph

Almost an Epitaph

Almost an Epitaph

St. Augustine on the Death of His Mother

Don Juan at Sea

Near the Summit

The Past

The Past: A Villanelle

Gorilla

Seagull

Museum Piece

Stress

Toby

Planxty

Double Fortune

Men

Merry-Go-Round

Death Is a Leopard

Teddy

Leaves

Days

To Hans Andersen

Cicada

Club

That Night in Montauban

Pard

Mojo

Schopenhauer In Love

Dreams

The Peerless Pear

Frederick

On Helicon

Girl Jumping Rope

Birthday

Phone Mail

Mint Theater

Nature Morte

Old Photo

I Wish I Were Young Again

November Crosstown

Museum Piece

Redundant

Dragons

For the New Year

Differences

A fish recommends

tails and fins

and scales

to float a boat

to where the channel ends.

A bird thinks wings

pretty good things

to bank and soar

a sandy shore

with zero lien of fins.

Altogether tail

and leather breast

deeming least best,

a snake thinks feet superfluous

and insupportable.

Nature gave a horse

four stout legs—

Shuck wings, he recommends

pounding the course,

unless you’re Pegasus.

Over furrow, barrow,

dune, and brake

under loch and lake

soars the bird, flashes the fish,

slithers the snake.

To each his own,

whistles the snake,

hisses the fish,

warbles the horse,

whinnies the bird—

each in his own words.

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Decline and Fall

What radiance! Were those seaborne

dolphins crowding the bow,

sun just peeping up—

or mist-drawn rainbows?

Sigma, alpha, pi,

phee, omega, ego,

greeted, arms akimbo,

the smiling lith on the beach.

At dawn we quit ship,

skipped town altogether, drove

to the far side of the isle—

there being far too many people in port.

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Spring

Now is the time to come—

and the tree swept clean

of blossoms, hosed

into the gutter, like after-the-wedding

confetti, stands merely green.

But what green!

Overnight, the busy painter, not loath,

(for nature abhoreth a vacuum)

tints each leaf with

gold betokening growth.

We shove back