Michael Schmidt, "Talking to Stanley on the Telephone"

 

Michael Schmidt is the author of several books of poetry. His Selected Poems (Smith|Doorstop) was a PBS Special Commendation. He has written Lives of the Poets, The Ancient Poets and The Novel: A Biography, and he has produced notable canonical and introductory anthologies. He is Editorial Director and Publisher at Carcanet Press and General Editor of PN Review. His latest book is Talking to Stanley on the Telephone (Smith|Doorstop).

About Talking to Stanley on the Telephone

Talking to Stanley on the Telephone rummages through the desires, frustrations and waning faculties of old age. The stories it tells add up to a vivacious celebration of life-spans and the darkening comedy of growing old.

You can see more details about Talking to Stanley on the Telephone on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read two poems from the collection. 

From Talking to Stanley on the Telephone

Exceptions

          Texas, 1950

Yes, I could read.

                            No dogs

or Mexicans the large

round caps declared. ‘Papa,

we can’t go in.’ My new

red passport said as much.

‘They don’t mean us.’ He pushed

open the loud screen door

to a stale interior.

Little white serviettes

defined the seating plan.

Ketchup, French mustard. Our

bug-spattered Pontiac

with dust-dulled number plates

said ‘Mexico D.F.’

It shivered in the heat.

He was right. They didn’t

mean us. We fit, our skin

at home. The slow-bladed

ceiling fan made shadows

surge and plunge, like breathing.

They served us up the stuff

they’d eat themselves, unspiced,

prepared for the littlest

bear, neither too salty

nor sweet, not too hot or

too cold. We sipped, we smeared

bland red and yellow on

our burgers, overdone;

and grinning there, alert,

infernal black and brown,

a monster Doberman.

First and Last Things

There was, first off, the house we seemed to build

          Up in a tree, or under the floor, and lived

With all our creatures and with all we were –

          Pirate and doctor, sailor, angel, priest;

And then the first house made of mud or brick

          Furnished with whatever we could find

Of real stuff, like wood and parakeets

          And cushions, pottery and even framed

Pictures on the walls, they were real walls,

          Nails could be driven into them.

The pictures were of us as we grew older

          And they faded with us too as we grew older

The way pictures do or antique mirrors

          Discolour as the isinglass gets tired

Of showing what is there and turns instead

          Interpreter, an eschatologist

Who shows only what will be, which in the longer term

          Is, after all, what is, and ever shall be.