Pleasure
Rick Barot
You are told to believe in one paradise
and then there is the paradise you come to know.
The shoes lined up in pairs by the door
and the herd moving with its mysterious intent
across a dark plain. The blue of the sky
which is the zenith of all colors
and the love of the man in the next room,
strong and rough as a hog's back.
My mind has a slow metabolism, it is slow
to understand what anything means
but it understands that if you look at something
long enough, it will have something
to say to you. The sun that is strangely bright
on some days, a poisoned canary,
and the crop of winter rocks in a meadow
in April. Learning decades later
the name of the hospital where you were born
and watching the child eat a mango
as though it is time he is eating, time shining
on his lips. On fewer days I agree
with the poet's dread of being
the wrong person in the right world, and believe
in adhesion, in never showing up
empty-handed, even if the pleasure I know best
is fused with the abject. There is always
the other side of the heart, its coaxing:
You are here. You can begin again. You can rise.
from the book MOVING THE BONES / Milkweed Editions
READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM
Share Share
Tweet Tweet
Forward Forward
Many of the poems in my new book, "Moving the Bones," are about the concerns of someone in mid-life: the aging of parents, taking stock of one’s life, and reflecting on one’s relationship to vocation and purpose, in my case, being an artist.  “Pleasure” is situated in that mid-life perspective, a perspective steeped in experience and also avid for what’s ahead.

Rick Barot on "Pleasure"
Color headshot of poet Carol Moldaw
"Short Conversations with Poets: Carol Moldaw"

"The first person forces me to ask myself if I can stand behind what the poem expresses as well as how it expresses it. I also want those two things to be one and the same. In a way, every word is on trial when writing a poem, and sometimes I feel that I’m on the witness stand being interrogated by another part of myself, trying to get to the bottom of things. And I’ve sworn to tell the truth."

viaMCSWEENEY'S INTERNET TENDENCY
READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES
Cover of Jennifer Chang's collection, An Authentic Life
What Sparks Poetry: Jennifer Chang on Drafts

"In truth, I misremembered the statue, I misrepresent it; in my poem, there is more than one enslaved person at Lincoln’s knees. But this is not the only reason I could not get the draft right. I wanted to capture the feeling of two friends wandering in a city, the ebb and flow of their conversation. Most of all, I wanted the poem to do what letters do: bridge a distance in geography and in time: the future, the past, Washington, D.C., Texas, the thaw that makes some late winter days feel like spring."
READ THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
donate
View in browser

You have received this email because you submitted your email address at www.poems.com. 
If you would like to unsubscribe please click here.

© 2025 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030

Design by the Binding Agency
 ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏