It’s the end of poetry month! I usually send you some kind of “End” or “Never Never End” or “I wished for another poem” type of poem on April 30, and today is no different: “So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye” by sam sax (excerpt below) appeared in the December 2018 issue of Poetry magazine.
Thank you so much for joining me this month! We packed a lot into 30 days — including couplets, tercets, quatrains, haiku, sonnets, ghazal, spoken word, and trochaic dimeter; poems from the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s, and 2000s; poems from each of the past five decades; poems by Black poets, Latinx poets, Asian American poets, Arab American poets, Native American poets, mixed race poets, and white poets; poems by queer poets, straight poets, non-binary poets, men, women, and one six-year-old — just to name a few! Anecdotally, I would say the most loved poem-a-day this year was Poem-A-Day April 21: “Theories About the Universe” by Blythe Baird. And the least loved poem-a-day was “Heavy.” No one liked “Heavy.” Maybe too heavy.
I hope you encountered a poem or two you enjoyed, or learned something new about poetry.
Later this week I will post a re-cap of the month on meetmein811.org, including links to more information about each poet and links to a book each poem appears in (where applicable) if you’re interested in reading more.
Y’all are the best! Thank you again for listening.
In 811,
Ellen
So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye
goodbye city. goodbye stoop. goodbye rush hour traffic plume.
goodbye feminist qpoc weed delivery group. goodbye cheap noodle
spot on the corner. goodbye drag bar next door serving the messy
deep into the dead eggplant evening. goodbye drunks screaming
about literally nothing below my window. goodbye window & all
it’s seen & forgiven. goodbye urine stains talking shit between
parked cars. goodbye stars erased from the polluted heavens. goodbye
getting my steps in. goodbye highway streaked red & white with
shipments of grapefruit trucked in by the refrigerated crateful.
goodbye angels dressed in thrifted robes. goodbye locusts—
i’ll see you in a decade or so.
i’m beguiled by & guided by goodbyes: meaning go ye with god :
meaning ghost-flushed & godless : meaning guided by some guy away.
who cares who? some new charon who smiles big as a river. who
rivers big as i ferry with him toward death. the city you’re in now
will never be the city you live in again. the ferryman with his good
bile smiles good with his good will toward men. with his good
guiding arm. no need for goodbyes when i got this phone where
i can visit both my living and my dead.
■
goodbye city. goodbye stoop. goodbye rush hour traffic plume.
goodbye feminist qpoc weed delivery group. goodbye cheap noodle
spot on the corner. goodbye drag bar next door serving the messy
deep into the dead eggplant evening. goodbye drunks screaming
about literally nothing below my window. goodbye window & all
it’s seen & forgiven. goodbye urine stains talking shit between
parked cars. goodbye stars erased from the polluted heavens. goodbye
getting my steps in. goodbye highway streaked red & white with
shipments of grapefruit trucked in by the refrigerated crateful.
goodbye angels dressed in thrifted robes. goodbye locusts—
i’ll see you in a decade or so.
i’m beguiled by & guided by goodbyes: meaning go ye with god :
meaning ghost-flushed & godless : meaning guided by some guy away.
who cares who? some new charon who smiles big as a river. who
rivers big as i ferry with him toward death. the city you’re in now
will never be the city you live in again. the ferryman with his good
bile smiles good with his good will toward men. with his good
guiding arm. no need for goodbyes when i got this phone where
i can visit both my living and my dead.
■
This is an excerpt. You can read the full poem here.