{"id":3569,"date":"2021-10-14T08:37:40","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T12:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/?p=3569"},"modified":"2021-10-14T08:37:43","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T12:37:43","slug":"a-poem-for-a-thursday-151","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2021\/10\/14\/a-poem-for-a-thursday-151\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poem for a Thursday #151"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Patrice Bouchard<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Bob Hicok is an American poet and a professor of creative writing at Virginia Tech. Before becoming a teacher, he owned and ran an automotive die design business. Hicok’s poetry is “known for its accessible, meditative style. Narrative and associational, his poems are at once funny and wry, poignant and silly, smart and sad: they offer varied portraits of the lives of working people, of violence and pop culture, while containing moments of unexpected beauty and trenchant observations on human nature.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I don't have much time. I'm an important person\nto chickadees and mourning doves, whose feeder\nwas smashed last night by a raccoon. Soon\nI'll be wielding duct tape, noticing the dew,\nwanting to bathe in it, hoping the awkwardness\nof yesterday (three instances of people talking\nwith bear traps for mouths) never repeats itself\nand we all go forward as if to a party \nfor a five year old who refuses to smash candy\nout of a burro. It's too cute, the burro, too real\nfor him not to ask his mother, can I keep it,\nand when the other children cry, they're given\nlake front property, it works out, this \nis what I see for you, the working out. Think of the year\nbehind you as a root or think of going to Spain\nand feeling sorry for the bulls or don't think,\nthis isn't the SAT's, don't think but stay.\nStay happy, honest, stay as tall as you are\nas long as you can using giraffes if you need to \nto see each other above the crowd. I have these moments\nwhen I realize I'm not breathing, my wife\nis never why I'm not breathing and always why\nI want to lick a human heart, remember that each of you\nis half of why your bed will sag toward the middle\nof being a boat and that you both will sag \nif you're lucky together, be lucky together\nand acquire in sagging more square footage\nto kiss and to hold. And always remember\nthat I hate you for being so much closer\nthan I am to where none of us ever get to go\nagain--first look, first touch, first \ninadvertent brush of breath or hair, \nfirst time you turned over and looked at who was surprising \nyou by how fully she was there.  \n\nHappy first anniversary (in anticipation of your thirty-ninth)\nBob Hicok\n\nBrona<\/a> shared another poem this week.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bob Hicok is an American poet and a professor of creative writing at Virginia Tech. Before becoming a teacher, he owned and ran an automotive die design business. Hicok’s poetry is “known for its accessible, meditative style. Narrative and associational, his poems are at once funny and wry, poignant and silly, smart and sad: they offer varied portraits of the lives of working people, of violence and pop culture, while containing moments of unexpected beauty and trenchant observations on human nature.” I don’t have much time. I’m an important person to chickadees and mourning doves, whose feeder was smashed last night by a raccoon. Soon I’ll be wielding duct tape, noticing the dew, wanting to bathe in it, hoping the awkwardness of yesterday (three instances of people talking with bear traps for mouths) never repeats itself and we all go forward as if to a party for a five year old who refuses to smash candy out of a burro. It’s too cute, the burro, too real for him not to ask his mother, can I keep it, and when the other children cry, they’re given lake front property, it works out, this is what I see for you, the working out. Think of the year behind you as a root or think of going to Spain and feeling sorry for the bulls or don’t think, this isn’t the SAT’s, don’t think but stay. Stay happy, honest, stay as tall as you are as long as you can using giraffes if you need to to see each other above the crowd. I have these moments when I realize I’m not breathing, my wife is never why I’m not breathing and always why I want to lick a human heart, remember that each of you is half of why your bed will sag toward the middle of being a boat and that you both will sag if you’re lucky together, be lucky together and acquire in sagging more square footage to kiss and to hold. And always remember that I hate you for being so much closer than I am to where none of us ever get to go again–first look, first touch, first inadvertent brush of breath or hair, first time you turned over and looked at who was surprising you by how fully she was there. Happy first anniversary (in anticipation of your thirty-ninth) Bob Hicok Brona shared another poem this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poem-for-a-thursday"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3572,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569\/revisions\/3572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}