Horoscopes for the Dead Read online

  On Reading a Program Note

  on Aaron Copland

  How admirable, yet futile,

  to be born in Brooklyn in 1900

  and to die in North Tarrytown in 1990

  to spend all those years inching northward

  over the rough pavements of the city

  then into the open fields

  and through dark woods, cold streams.

  So many steadfast hours,

  inside his pale, brittle shell—

  nine decades

  of snail-like perseverance!

  Poetry Workshop Held in a

  Former Cigar Factory in Key West

  After our final class, when we disbanded

  as the cigar rollers here had disbanded decades ago,

  getting up from their benches for the last time

  as the man who read to them during their shift

  closed his book without marking the page where he left off,

  I complimented myself on my restraint.

  For never in that sunny white building

  did I draw an analogy between cigar-making and poetry.

  Not even after I had studied the display case

  containing the bladed chaveta, the ring gauge,

  and the hand guillotine with its measuring rule

  did I suggest that the cigar might be a model for the poem.

  Nor did I ever cite the exemplary industry

  of those anonymous rollers and cutters—

  the best producing 300 cigars in a day

  compared to 3 flawless poems in a lifetime if you’re lucky—

  who worked the broad leaves of tobacco

  into cylinders ready to be held lightly in the hand.

  Not once did I imply that tightly rolling an intuition

  into a perfectly shaped, handmade thing

  might encourage a reader to remove the brightly colored

  encircling band and slip it over her finger

  and take the poet as her spouse in a sudden puff of smoke.

  No, I kept all of that to myself, until now.

  Returning the Pencil to Its Tray

  Everything is fine—

  the first bits of sun are on

  the yellow flowers behind the low wall,

  people in cars are on their way to work,

  and I will never have to write again.

  Just looking around

  will suffice from here on in.

  Who said I had to always play

  the secretary of the interior?

  And I am getting good at being blank,

  staring at all the zeroes in the air.

  It must have been all the time spent

  in the kayak this summer

  that brought this out,

  the yellow one which went

  nicely with the pale blue life jacket—

  the sudden, tippy

  buoyancy of the launch,

  then the exertion, striking

  into the wind against the short waves,

  but the best was drifting back,

  the paddle resting athwart the craft,

  and me mindless in the middle of time.

  Not even that dark cormorant

  perched on the No Wake sign,

  his narrow head raised

  as if he were looking over something,

  not even that inquisitive little fellow

  could bring me to write another word.

  Acknowledgments

  The author is grateful to the editors of the following journals, where some of these poems first appeared:

  The Atlantic: “Cemetery Ride,” “Grave”

  Boulevard: “After I Heard You Were Gone,” “Florida”

  Cimarron Review: “Two Creatures”

  Crazyhorse: “Drawing You from Memory,” “Thieves”

  Five Points: “Genesis,” “Riverside, California,” “The Meatball Department”

  The Gettysburg Review: “Gold”

  Gulf Coast: “Bread and Butter”

  Knockout: “Night and Day”

  London Review of Books: “The Guest,” “Lakeside”

  The New Yorker: “Table Talk”

  Oxford American: “The Flâneur”

  The Paris Review: “Returning the Pencil to Its Tray”

  PEN America 12: Correspondences: “Horoscopes for the Dead”

  Poetry: “The Chairs That No One Sits In,” “Her,” “Memorizing ‘The Sun Rising’ by John Donne”

  Poetry East: “Palermo”

  Poetry Review (U.K.): “Silhouette”

  Open City: “What She Said,” “Thank-You Notes”

  Oranges & Sardines: “Revision”

  Real Simple: “The Straightener”

  Slate: “The Symbol”

  The Southampton Review: “Hangover,” “My Unborn Children,” “Girl,” “Poetry Workshop Held in a Former Cigar Factory in Key West”

  The Southern Review: “A Question About Birds”

  Subtropics: “As Usual,” “Delivery”

  Superstition Review: “My Hero”

  Tundra: “Hell”

  “Grave” was selected by Amy Gerstler to appear in Best American Poetry 2010 (Scribner) and was also included in Best Spiritual Writing 2011, edited by Philip Zaleski (Penguin).

  I am grateful to many people at Random House, especially David Ebershoff, whose steady editorial hand and abiding enthusiasm made this book a reality. Thanks also to Chris Calhoun for his support and our uplifting friendship, and to George Green, who assigned most of these poems a passing grade.

  About the Author

  Billy Collins is the author of nine collections of poetry, including Ballistics, The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems, Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room, Questions About Angels, The Apple That Astonished Paris, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. He is also the editor of Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry; 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day; and Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds. A distinguished professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York, he served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and Poet Laureate of New York State from 2004 to 2006.