READ A POEM
by Jack McGuane
Particles
What worries me is god forbid
one of them neutrinos gets in there
screws up an electron or a positron
and the whole universe
goes into another big bang.
Maybe that would be good for both of us,
god knows at our age we could use one.
And how did all that tidal activity
get started? Is that what makes Earth
wobble on its axis, all that global sloshing?
or did the wobble cause the tides and if so
what caused the wobble?
Oh, right, it was that last fight we had
when the SWAT team showed up
and searched our bedroom for Osama bin Laden
after what you told them on the 911 call.
“Particles” by Jack McGuane from
Sleeping With My Socks and Other Poems. Deep Cleveland Press, 2008. Used by permission of the author.
ABOUT TODAY’S POET
Jack McGuane moved to Lakewood from Long Island, New York, in October 1974 for a job transfer. He stayed at his job until he retired in 1997 at age 70. He immediately became a poet and still writes today at age 87. He has published three chapbooks,
Sleeping With My Socks ,
Chickenhawk, and
Unfinished. He was selected the Poet Laureate of Lakewood, 2006 – 2007, by a panel of judges and by proclamation of the mayor.
WRITE A POEM
Take the three-letter-word challenge.
Today is tax day. Write a poem that is composed only of three-letter words, such as tax, IRS, the, rid, ire, abs, and sin. You might make a list of 30–40 such words first, then write.