On Super Bowl LI
I went to bed. The Falcon’s made it 28 to 3
and yet I never should have doubted the poised Tom Brady.
Halfway through the third-quarter he had a ways to go.
I woke up in the AM and was quite flummoxed to know
the “Comeback Kid” achieved what’s now the greatest comeback in
the history of Super Bowls: “The first overtime win!”
He was an underdog at first back in 2002.
A gamer, clutch, cool as a cuke, wearing red, white, and blue.
Now Alpha Dog, his successes provoke large love or hate;
but either way, with “damns” or “ahs,” one must admit he’s Great.
Glacier National Park
One mountain goat traversed a precipice.
I thought about how close we live our lives:
two double-lines away from the abyss,
one gaffe too many or two nodding eyes.
We young live in a cloud of nonchalance,
a heady high the old often condemn.
(And yet some saints displayed insouciance
when persecutor’s persecuted them.)
My confidence would get its gas from faith
and works — to have a moral certainty —
that when the ground gave out my contrite wraith
would join the angels in eternity…
I watched the goat traverse a precipice,
while (not quite there) I roved upon thin ice.
Laurel Blossoms
They are exotic
and simple at the same time.
That is elegance.
Reconnaissance Missions
Some agent or some spy on foreign turf,
I’ve traipsed the City specter-like, alone.
On Coney Island I lolled by the surf
and futilely assayed to skip a stone.
I too have trekked down darkened urban streets
and felt how I’ve felt in the Northern woods
ten miles back, when all the light retreats,
when either fear, or plucky resolve, floods.
I’ve played the covert poet on the greens.
In Central Park I sought a daffodil.
But a park’s ends are hindered by its means.
It tries to imitate a nonpareil.
My heart’s held its allegiance with the land.
I’ve liked the City but it’s built on sand.
Reid McGrath is a poet living in the Hudson Valley of New York.
Perhaps Tom Brady is the GOAT.
Reid, your sonnets are energetic, your tennos has a nice narrative flow, and is neatly sectioned. Your diction throughout is surprising, occasionally remarkable; and your settings are extraordinary. You have the ability to set a dramatic situation quickly and succinctly. I like the rhyme of precipice/abyss. I hear echoes of Spenser, Wordsworth and McKay in “Reconnaissance Missions,” which, intentional or not, I enjoy.
Thanks, Bede. Rudi “Abs” deserves some credit for inspiring the tennos in the first place. Cheers, mates.