Two Poems for Leap Year

A Primer of the Daily Round


A peels an apple, while B kneels to God,
C telephones to D, who has a hand
On E's knee, F coughs, G turns up the sod
For H's grave, I do not understand
But J is bringing one clay pigeon down
While K brings down a nightstick on L's head,
And M takes mustard, N drives into town,
O goes to bed with P, and Q drops dead,
R lies to S, but happens to be heard
By T, who tells U not to fire V
For having to give W the word
That X is now deceiving Y with Z,
    Who happens just now to remember A
    Peeling an apple somewhere far away.


- Howard Nemerov


Howard Nemerov was born on this day in 1920. Counting by fours, he turned fifteen in 1980; 
thus, “The Author to His Body on Their Fifteenth Birthday, 29 ii 80”:
 
Dear old equivocal and closest friend,
Grand Vizier to a weak bewildered king,
Now we approach The Ecclesiastean Age
Where the heart is like to go off inside your chest
Like a party favor, or the brain blow a fuse
And the comic-book light-bulb of Idea black out
Forever, the idiot balloon of speech
Go blank, and we shall know, if it be knowing,
The world as it was before language once again….



- Howard Nemerov




Collected Poems by Howard Nemerov. University of Chicago Press, 1978