Loss

1934 –

2002

To live without the one you love
an empty dream never known
true happiness except as such youth

watching snow at window
listening to old music through morning.
Riding down that deserted street

by evening in a lonely cab
past a blighted theatre
oh god yes, I missed the chance of my life

when I gasped, when I got up and
rushed out the room
away from you.

From Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners, edited by Joshua Beckman, CAConrad, and Robert Dewhurst © 2015 John Wieners Literary Trust, Raymond Foye, Administrator. Reprinted with the permission of The John Wieners Literary Trust.

Charity Balls

I had a fellowship, but lived poorly
On slices of pizza.
Later, a career of washing lettuce;
but I have always been the same.
It’s a question of acquiring a mastery of tone
Beneath the crystal chandeliers and champagne
on a glass table top.
At the age of five I thought Scarlett O’Hara
a fictional character. It was not until
The age of forty-eight I knew she was real.
Old clothes and bedroom slippers and a scarf
Wrapped around her head
In low cost tenement housing.
She began talking about my writing

John Wieners

2015

au rive

What kind of poem would one write if one could?
What would one do with some money, if he had it, perhaps
to travel; but to where?

To experience Wednesday twilight, immediately after
dark: is that a promise to be kept

Naturally one can’t be sure until any of these things don’t
come true?

John Wieners

2015

Music

For Gerrit

What is poetry? an image
in the mirror;
reflection from a broadside
pinned to the wall,
penned by a friend,
from where old feelings
old meanings arise;
relief from pain; the diligence of work.

Mysterious words upon a page in adolescence;
listening to poets read. What is poetry?
Breath, competence, success
or simply Eros.
“Four sides to every thing.”

John Wieners

2015

Poems

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Loss

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