Poetry Sunday

One thing I enjoy in good poetry is vivid imagery, and this poem gives me that in spades. See if it works for you, too ...

Poe's Anvil

by David Ray 

At the drive-in theater where they sell junk
on Sundays we saw a man and his wife standing

by a pick-up truck trying to sell his anvil.
It sat up in the truck’s bed— it was black,

heavy, and elegant like a mammoth’s tusk.
And his name was written on it like a signature,
in iron that once ran like ink. His name was Poe.
I talked with him and he recalled briefly
days when his anvil stood outside a shed,
a workshop like a harbor set in a sea
of green tomato fields, and inside
he had a coal fire and a bellows and he watched
the tractor replace mules and the car
replace wagons. He tired of horse-shoes,
wagon wheels and plows, of hitches, harrows,
and lugs, of axles, crankcases and flywheels,
and he sat somewhat amused (and dying, his wife
told us), presiding over the sale of his own
monument, which he wanted someone to go on
hammering on, and in the midday city sun
the theater’s white screen was blank
like a faded quilt or Moby Dick’s stretched skin.

Have a good day. See you tomorrow for Musical Monday ... more thoughts then.

Bilbo