May 1, 2008

There was so much wonderful poetry published this spring that thirty days could not contain it all, so please enjoy a few extra days of National Poetry Month this year as Poem-A-Day spills over into May.

Today's poem is from May Day, just published by Penguin Books. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

Read more about this book.

Also on Poets.org

The Consideration of Change
• Archaic Torso of Apollo
by Rainer Maria Rilke
• Change in the Grove of Chickadees
by Lesle Lewis
• Bolshevescent
by Peter Gizzi
• May
by Kirem Uribe

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May Day
by Phillis Levin

I've decided to waste my life again,
Like I used to: get drunk on
The light in the leaves, find a wall
Against which something can happen,

Whatever may have happened
Long ago—let a bullet hole echoing
The will of an executioner, a crevice
In which a love note was hidden,

Be a cell where a struggling tendril
Utters a few spare syllables at dawn.
I've decided to waste my life
In a new way, to forget whoever

Touched a hair on my head, because
It doesn't matter what came to pass,
Only that it passed, because we repeat
Ourselves, we repeat ourselves.

I've decided to walk a long way
Out of the way, to allow something
Dreaded to waken for no good reason,
Let it go without saying,

Let it go as it will to the place
It will go without saying: a wall
Against which a body was pressed
For no good reason, other than this.