Mon 18 Jul 2011
Thanks to Sherman Alexie
Posted by PJ under poetry
No Comments
Well, okay, his Twitter feed. He and I ain’t acquainted. He called this one of his favorites, if not his favorite, and posted this link to this poem, which I also happen to love quite a lot:
My Papa’s Waltz
By Theodore Roethke
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
