The End Of The Weekend Poem by Anthony Evan Hecht

The End Of The Weekend

Rating: 3.9


A dying firelight slides along the quirt
Of the cast iron cowboy where he leans
Against my father's books. The lariat
Whirls into darkness. My girl in skin tight jeans
Fingers a page of Captain Marriat
Inviting insolent shadows to her shirt.

We rise together to the second floor.
Outside, across the lake, an endless wind
Whips against the headstones of the dead and wails
In the trees for all who have and have not sinned.
She rubs against me and I feel her nails.
Although we are alone, I lock the door.

The eventual shapes of all our formless prayers:
This dark, this cabin of loose imaginings,
Wind, lip, lake, everything awaits
The slow unloosening of her underthings
And then the noise. Something is dropped. It grates
against the attic beams. I climb the stairs
Armed with a belt.

A long magnesium shaft
Of moonlight from the dormer cuts a path
Among the shattered skeletons of mice.
A great black presence beats its wings in wrath.
Above the boneyard burn its golden eyes.
Some small grey fur is pulsing in its grip.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Cheryl Davis 18 December 2022

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0 0 Reply
Kay Staley 08 October 2014

I dont like it either. It just doesnt make sense and isnt very attractive to read. Plus, I dont really understand the point or why you would waste time writing a poem like this.

4 4 Reply
Kay Staley 08 October 2014

I dont like it either. It just doesnt make sense and isnt very attractive to read. Plus, I dont really understand the point or why you would waste time writing a poem like this.

1 3 Reply
John Richter 08 October 2014

To each his own interpretation I suppose. I'm sure many adore modernistic contemporary poetry. And it is very obvious to me that Mr. Hecht spent a great deal of time selecting exact meter and rhyme with this poem. Perhaps it is just in the way my mind perceives things but when meter is emphasized over rhythm I lose interest. In the first stanza there are two lines that end with periods and begin again. That absolutely crashes any rhythm I could attain and it is just not enjoyable for me. This is something that I continuously see from the world's best educated poets and taught in Ivy League schools. The second stanza is absolutely wonderfully sensual and I would call it perfect. But he goes to make love in an upstairs room and concentrates on tombstones across the lake. But then The eventual shapes of all our formless prayers: ! ? ! What tangent is this taking us down? Every line a different tangent, a string of completely unrelated thoughts which take the form and beauty of lovemaking toward some winged thing killing mice? ! ? What does that mean? Are we just supposed to be in awe of the form, or the content? Modern poetics have turned down this road and is praised by oh too many. It makes little sense to me and I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like it.

3 1 Reply
Terry Craddock 08 October 2014

Intriguing dying firelight which slides into a romantic playful rising sexual expectation, before the turn with a new definition of moonlight and night owl catches, to end a beautiful lakeside cabin retreat for the weekend. Nice images with a twist of dry humour :)

4 2 Reply
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