Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 20,000 daily subscribers and over 8,000 archived posts.
Stuart Dischell: Pleasure Harvest
When she took a position in a distant city, he knew
He could not follow, and in the months afterwards he built
Them a home where she was with him. Mornings
They made coffee, washed the berries, stood like normal
People in a kitchen, read books afterwards on a long couch,
Their legs touching in configuration, and one would interrupt
The other’s reading to make some observation on the art
They both practiced. Afternoons he tried to work,
But the tales he composed were a collection of beginnings
And endings, characters with no mid-plots, Whisky helped.
Nights were difficult when her absence curled beside him,
A long-legged question no longer to be answered. So, why not
Try to sing of the pleasures of his drafty house, the overgrown yard,
His arguing children, the undisciplined dog, his ongoing work,
And she who lives outside his touch? When everything
Has shown itself imperfect, what else was there for him? Wisdom? Bliss?
~~~~
Copyright 2025 Stuart Dischell. From the anthology What the House Knows (Terrapin, 2025) edited by Diane Lockward.
Stuart Dischell is the author of five poetry collections, most recently The Lookout Man (University of Chicago Press, 2022). His poems have appeared in the Best American Poetry anthology and the Pushcart Prize anthology. A recipient of awards from the National Poetry Series, NEA, North Carolina Arts Council, and Guggenheim Foundation, he teaches in the MFA Program at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.
Discover more from Vox Populi
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Thank you to Stuart Dischell for this marvelous love poem — it makes sense that one who lives a life of the mind would attempt to find a cure there for the broken heart. And fail.
LikeLike
Part of what pulls me to poetry is the overlay construction brain builds over the original frame, when there is an emotional, intellectual, or spiritual voice that says, “see this? See how it mirrors this part of memory, happiness, grief, wonder, fear? Revives that event that was different from this but somehow similar?” The force is strong in this one ( stares up at Yoda on the mantle)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yoda loves you, Barb.
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
It seems to me, many people exist only in their minds, their past memories which are either tainted, enhanced or fabricated drag them from day to day; hardly ever reaching the present where joy might actually exist. We all tell our tales if only to ourselves. How many people really live for the day?
LikeLiked by 3 people
Very few people, I’d guess.
>
LikeLiked by 3 people
How I love:
“her absence curled beside him,
A long-legged question no longer to be answered. “
How some images feel so, so absolutely perfect!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes, Stuart makes composing poetry look easy, and yet, we wait years for the exact right line like the ones you quote.
>
LikeLiked by 3 people
Intriguing poem–
If the stories the protagonist wrote, (other than his own) were lacking mid-plots, (the purgatory of the indefinite?), he or she was trapped in the transition from past connectivity. Windows begrimed, walls leaning in, a false-bottomed bottle half empty, no thought of a move away, old comforts prying the nails out of the present.
Imagery gets built out of such a situation, while inner life rusts or tatters. As so many of us have discovered, it’s so hard to move (on).
LikeLiked by 3 people