After Apollinaire by Franz Wright
After Apollinaire
Franz Wrightfor Eric Lorberer
It’s four o’clock in the afternoon,
and it is finished;
I sit back and light my cigarette
on a ray of dusk.
I don’t want to write anymore.
All I want to do is smoke.
MARGINALIA
Hah, it has started! I no longer feel the pull of work. No, sir. Every year it’s the same. Every last quarter, and all I want is to do nothing. Gosh. You don’t know how much I’ve been waiting for the feeling to kick in. Now I only have to finish all the outstanding projects, and then I’m off. I think I have until November to wrap things up, and then it’s another lovely December for me. What’s that you’re hearing? Yes, I’m playing Christmas songs already.
KEEP READING
SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in The Beforelife by Franz Wright, published by Knopf Doubleday, 2002. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)
DESCRIPTION
“In this stunning collection, Franz Wright chronicles the journey back from a place of isolation and wordlessness. After a period when it seemed certain he would never write poetry again, he speaks with bracing clarity about the twilit world that lies between madness and sanity, addiction and recovery. Wright negotiates the precarious transition from illness to health in a state of skeptical rapture, discovering along the way the exhilaration of love–both divine and human–and finding that even the most battered consciousness can be good company.
Whether he is writing about his regret for the abortion of a child, describing the mechanics of slander (“I can just hear them on the telephone and keening all their kissy little knives”), or composing an ironic ode to himself (“To a Blossoming Nut Case”), Wright’s poems are exquisitely precise. Charles Simic has characterized him as a poetic miniaturist, whose “secret ambition is to write an epic on the inside of a matchbook cover.” Time and again, Wright turns on a dime in a few brief lines, exposing the dark comedy and poignancy of his heightened perception.” (Source)
ABOUT FRANZ WRIGHT
Franz Wright was born in Vienna, Austria and grew up in the Northwest, the Midwest, and California. He earned a BA from Oberlin College in 1977. His collections of poetry include The Beforelife (2001); God’s Silence (2006); Walking to Martha’s Vineyard, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004; Wheeling Motel (2009); Kindertotenwald (2011); and F (2013). He taught at Emerson College and other universities, worked in mental health clinics, and volunteered at a center for grieving children.… (more)
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ENDNOTES
- Explore other works in pursuit of: solitude • exhaustion • resignation • Or browse the index
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