Oh, When I Find One, The Air About Me Becomes Charged

It is not often I come across a poem that thrills me with its pure brilliance. Last night I found one in the Summer 2006 issue of Poetry Magazine.

The poem is "Another Plot Cliché" by Rebecca Hoogs.

Click here to hear a podcaster read it (from Mischa Willett's Poems for the People podcast).

And here it is below for your enjoyment. Give it a shot, you not-so-enamored-with-poetry-as-BillyBlog-is readers. I love this poem.

Another Plot Cliché
by Rebecca Hoogs

My dear, you are the high-speed car chase, and I,
I am the sheet of glass being carefully carried
across the street by two employees of Acme Moving
who have not parked on the right side
because the plot demands that they make
the perilous journey across traffic,
and so they are cursing as rehearsed
as they angle me into the street, acting as if
they intend to get me to the department store, as if
I will ever take my place as the display window, ever clear
the way for a special exhibit at Christmas, or be Windexed
once a day, or even late at night, be pressed against
by a couple who can't make it back to his place,
and so they angle me into the street, a bright lure,
a provocative claim, their tease, and indeed
you can't resist my arguments, fatally flawed
though they are, so you come careening to but and butt
and rebut, you come careening, you being
both cars, both chaser and chased, both good and bad, both
done up with bullets that haven't yet done you in.
I know I'm done for; there's only one street
on this set and you've got a stubborn streak a mile long.
I can smell the smoke already.

No matter, I'd rather shatter

than be looked through all day. So come careening. I know
you've other clichés to hammer home: women with groceries
to send spilling, canals to leap as the bridge is rising.
And me? I'm so through. I've got a thousand places to be.

That's an awesome poem. And I don't often gush, even if you look back at some of my reading recaps, about poems that often.

Gush, gush. I hope you enjoyed as much as I did.