Two Poem Friday: Finished and Unfinished

Finished Poem


The Man in the Moon

Billy Collins




He used to frighten me in the nights of childhood,

the wide adult face, enormous, stern, aloft.

I could not imagine such loneliness, such coldness.



But tonight as I drive home over these hilly roads

I see him sinking behind stands of winter trees

and rising again to show his familiar face.



And when he comes into full view over open fields

he looks like a young man who has fallen in love

with the dark earth,



a pale bachelor, well-groomed and full of melancholy,

his round mouth open

as if he had just broken into song.




Unfinished Poem


Only I Can (an ode to myself)

Lauren Young


Walk the crooked jaunt because of my sore hip and injured knee,

stride along on Louisville sidewalks,

shuffle the church foyer in stiletto heels,

tiptoe downstairs in the morning to get my coffee,

prance-dance in the grocery store to the Beach Boys or the Eagles,

do the calf raises when I reach the top shelf

to pull off the goat cheese that I have to take Beano for,

head-duck when reaching into the freezer case to find

the perfectly frozen carton of ice cream for my brother,

tap my muscular fingers on the keyboard

when I work late into the night,

lean against my headboard reading a book

into the early hours of the next day,

bend my squeaky knees by my bedside after reading the Song of Moses,

move my lips when read a long poem with music in the background,

lope down the halls of the hotel during youth conventions,

cut my nails so short so my fingers look strong and clean,

wrap my arms around my family & talk & eat & drink & laugh,

raise my hands palms out fingers spread wide reaching

for something that's there but I cannot see.