Robert Frost
Raised to think of Frost as a nice poet,
Stopping in New Hampshire woods and rhyming neatly,
Or sometimes wandering through long Christian allegories
Where homes and ladders stand for something that
You'd best not think about, it's easy to forget
Or overlook how good his writing is.
If it weren't verse --
(And sometimes it's only just: Mamet writes
In pentameters too) -- you'd say this guy
Had really got New England to a T. The queer respect
And scorn for Harvard men, the summer folk, the snow:
It's all right here.
And things you might not quite expect,
The awkwardness of two strange men, undressing
In a hotel room they're sharing for the night.
One rich, one not. The rich man has five bucks,
The poor man, ninety, to bring to his employer.
Sex and class, two narrow cots, some cash,
A calculus that resonates on Beacon Hill today.
Stopping in New Hampshire woods and rhyming neatly,
Or sometimes wandering through long Christian allegories
Where homes and ladders stand for something that
You'd best not think about, it's easy to forget
Or overlook how good his writing is.
If it weren't verse --
(And sometimes it's only just: Mamet writes
In pentameters too) -- you'd say this guy
Had really got New England to a T. The queer respect
And scorn for Harvard men, the summer folk, the snow:
It's all right here.
And things you might not quite expect,
The awkwardness of two strange men, undressing
In a hotel room they're sharing for the night.
One rich, one not. The rich man has five bucks,
The poor man, ninety, to bring to his employer.
Sex and class, two narrow cots, some cash,
A calculus that resonates on Beacon Hill today.