Self Portrait with iPod
My song is the kind you love
***but would never admit
in mixed company. It’s like this
***in heaven, too, where the lung creaks
open like a rickety screen door
and an old man spends the afternoon
***walking in and out,
sometimes with a glass of iced tea,
***sometimes with a harmonica,
and every song he plays is called
fountain water or light falling
***through holes
in a ceiling made of bark, branch
***and leaf. I call them
freedom vents. Sometimes it’s near
impossible not to break
***into chorus, missing the high
note like most lovers do.
***I used to date a girl who called this
“our _______.” The neighbor had one
he played loud enough
***for the police to warn him
their next visit will be very different.
***I sing the village, ready
to burn anyone who works
in the medium of witch, I sing
***the allegorical symbol
of the French Republic – a mother
***nursing her children, ready
to take back Paris. I am about to start
something marvelous, marvelous
***and true. My face has color
for the first time
***this season. From the great of my mouth
to the ends of it, a line goes out.
Poem first appeared in Ninth Letter.
Q: What is your writing process?
A: The last few years have been like this: I will spend months at a time not writing a word, not even thinking about poetry, then one day I will begin a mad fit of writing and re-writing and editing and so on for an extended period of time, and then it stops.
Q: If you could go on a one-week writing retreat anywhere in the world, where would you travel?
A: London. And I would want two weeks, not one.
Frank Matagrano is the author of I Can Only Go As Fast As the Guy in Front of Me (Black Lawrence Press). He currently resides in Chicago, Illinois.
