Friday, February 20, 2009

Nobody Believes Anything That's Put In A Poem

Canadian Alden Nowlan (1933-1983) is the focus this week.


Fair Warning
by Alden Nowlan

I keep a lunatic chained
to a beam in the attic. He
is my twin brother whom
I'm trying to cheat
out of his inheritance.
It's all right for me
to tell you this because
you won't believe it.
Nobody believes anything
that's put in a poem.
I could confess to
murder and as long as
I did it in a verse
there's not a court
that would convict me.
So if you're ever
a guest overnight
in my house, don't
go looking for
the source of any
unusual sounds.

"Fair Warning" is from Alden Nowlan: Selected Poems.

I also totally love Nowlan's The Rites of Manhood. And don't forget He Attempts to Love His Neighbors. And Great Things Have Happened.

No comments: