(This is the first installment of my One Poem Every Month for One Year project)
Talking Billy Collins Blues
November 2006
I called on Billy Collins last night
And he asked me outright if I was disturbed
To which I replied,
Yes, slightly, sorry for the intrusion
but how do you write a poem every month for a year
And where do I look for lost words — the ones I have misplaced with time?
Billy slipped me a piece of paper when we were done talking
And disappeared
leaving me alone with nothing much but that paper.
I could just make out some red ink scribbles and a few doodles
when I held that thin skin of a tree up to the light
and let the paper become a translucent buffer between me
and the muse.
I held Billy Collins in my hand for hours,
nursing him like the last drink of the night when daylight is looming,
afraid to even look
because if it did hold the key then my search would be over
and why write poems after that?
So I crumpled Billy up and tossed him into the street bin
(apologizing profusely for being so impolite)
and I chased my own shadow all the way back home
in the darkness of memories.
And that’s when I really began to write.
Listen to me read my poem Talking Billy Collins Blues
Peace,
Kevin