Michael T. Young

Michael T. Young

THE ONE IN POWER

He had a dog that failed

to come when he called,

so had it executed

and stuffed.

He likes to squeeze

the pinched neck

of an hourglass

to imagine himself

strangling time.

In his garden, trees

are cultivated to bow

toward the main path

so it seems, as he passes,

even nature obeys him.

To calm his nerves,

he’ll sit in bed at night

with a dictionary,

crossing out the words

he doesn’t like.

—from Rattle #66, Winter 2019

__________

Michael T. Young: “I’m painfully aware that even at my most attentive, I miss so much of life. For this reason, writing to me is a way to pay close attention, not only to beauty, but even to the suffering or ugliness. Even here, in this poem, which was my effort to grapple with the absurd presidency of Trump: someone both clownish and despotic, someone I continue to simultaneously laugh at and be frightened by.” (web)

Michael T. Young

THE RISK OF LISTENING TO BRAHMS

I like action movies for the same reason

I like Brahms, or undiluted scotch,

the constant flux of the sea,

or the sun’s light and heat stripped down

to raw fire, to the burning sine qua non,

like the first time I fired a gun and felt

deliriously naked and in that denuded moment,

remembered what I was chasing after when

as a teenager, without telling anyone,

I hopped on a bus for Philadelphia

and checked into the first hotel,

struggling to dodge those who knew me

to find if I wasn’t something more

than they expected, or could become

something other than they could know,

thrilled by the risk and uncertainty, the same

as when I hiked a mountain without water

on a humid summer afternoon,

trudging deeper into heat exhaustion,

the nausea stopping me every twenty feet

to gather strength from the pleasure

of wondering if I would make it home.

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009

__________

Michael T. Young: “Writing poetry is the slow process of thinking clearly, of connecting seemingly disparate elements in the progress toward meaning. This poem, ‘The Risk of Listening to Brahms,’ was born of trying to understand the connection I felt between my pleasure in listening to Brahms and my enjoyment of action movies. Every day is filled with vertiginous moments about to break into such odd but true realizations; taking time to realize those insights and articulate them in a poem is not only a pleasure but a necessity.” (web)

Michael T. Young is tonight’s guest on the Rattlecast. To tune in live at 9pm ET, click here (and subscribe)!

Rattle: Poetry

… without pretension since 1995.

March 20, 2020

February 4, 2020