Anonymity of a Tuesday: A Found Poem

Tuesday, February 18, 1964*:

The first 50 French soldiers land

at the Libreville International Airport

    to intervene

    in the political coup

    at Gabon. The rebels respond

    by closing the airport

    but fail to establish

    obstacles.

The Beatles were taken

to the training camp of

boxer Cassius Clay

      — later known as Muhammad Ali —

who was preparing for

his 25 February fight

against heavyweight champion

Sonny

Liston.

On the “The Andy Williams Show,”

Andy’s guests are Dick Van Dyke, Irene Ryan,

and four-year-old Marie Osmond, who makes her debut.

    Andy and Marie

    perform “Lida Rose.”

    Marie sings and

    dances with Andy:

Lida Rose, I'm home again,
Rose to get the sun back in the sky.
Lida Rose, I'm home again,
Rose about a thousand kisses shy.

 *Events on the day I was born.

I Wanted to Be a Poet

to use

my words

to slap

the world 

across

the face, 

crack the surface

of everything 

I could grasp,

like the undulating groan 

of fissures echoing 

across a frozen lake, 

shake you awake

from your drudgery,

confining ideas,
little screens,
petty complaints,

hack away
at the tangle
of tethers 

to that
lesser world.