Vox Populi
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Michael Simms: Two Poems Inspired by Sean Sexton
Our Great Need
Some people should be allowed to live forever
on the basis of our world’s great need.
— Sean Sexton
I can think of a few. Greta, for example
at the helm of a sailboat flying over the waves
on her way to save us from ourselves.
My friend Ross with his wild hair
standing at the podium and forgetting
to speak into the mic, so involved
with the gift of joy
which seems like a chore
to most of us, something we should remember
to remember but rarely do.
We need to be reminded to lean forward to catch
the inevitable foolishness of our disregard,
standing on the cliff of yes and no
not quite hearing Ross speaking gently to us
~~~
Gifted
And later, Sean and I are talking about the old days
and our friend Tony who’d arrived from another planet,
one that made sense. Outlandishly gifted,
so involved with listening to the music
Tony forgot he was in a parade.
I knew him in Iowa where he’d landed
after enrolling and dropping, enrolling and dropping.
He’d picked cherries, lived in a commune,
followed the Grateful Dead and become a Buddhist.
Tony and I once shared a stage at the student union
where he read his poems for an hour
while sitting under the piano.
I never got to read.
His twin brother and older sister died
when Tony was in high school
and having lost everything, he was free.
Hollowed out. But free
~~~~~
Copyright 2025 Michael Simms
Michael Simms is the founding editor of Vox Populi. His latest collection of poems is Jubal Rising (Ragged Sky, 2025). His fifth novel, The Hummingbird War, will be released by Madville in March, 2026.
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joyful reading of another two poems by Mike.
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Thanks, John. Always nice to see you here. I admire your work!
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great
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Thanks, Yongbo!
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Two beautiful, heartful poems, Michael. Yes, yes, yes.
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Thanks, Lisa!
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Wonderful, wonderful. Such writing gives me hope that the goodness of mankind will prevail.
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Thanks, Mandy. I appreciate your attention to all the VP poets.
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That’s what poets do: take old, beat-up furniture and make a living tree out of it.
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yes, we do.
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enjoyable and well crafted.
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Thank you, Saleh!
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Two wonderful poems, the first so true true true, and the second following last weeks Sweet Ruin again bringing back Tony to our memories. Thank you for both of these!
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Thanks, Deborah. I admire your work as well.
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I really and truly like and respond to these, Mike, especially “Our Great Need.”Keep ’em coming. And by the way, I am grateful literally every day for VP.
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Thanks, Syd. I appreciate your presence here with all the other things you do.
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beautiful poems
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Thank you so much, Stephanie. It’s a joy to hear your voice here.
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Two good poems, inspired by the poems of another fine poet.Sent from my iPhone
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Thanks, John. I’ve missed your voice here.
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These poems are going on my Tony Hoagland altar. Thank you so much Michael for setting up the beautiful Vox Populi world.
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Thank you, Barbara. You know I love your work, as well as David’s. I hope we can meet someday.
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Beautiful poems Michael. The grace, forgiveness, sadness, and acceptance of the line “I never got to read” in the second poem really touched me.
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Thanks, Moudi. As I look back at it, I have to laugh. Tony did an entire poetry reading sitting beneath a piano! He always had such a strange genius.
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Which poem of Sean’s did the prologue come from?
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Not a poem, a note below Tony Hoagland’s poem Sweet Ruin.
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Ahh! Thanks.
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Yes. YES. YES!!! “Standing on the cliff of yes and no.” The urge to judge instead of listen.
I’ve been there so many times, Michael. But maybe a little less often after these poems. Thank you.
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Thanks, Louise. I admire you greatly.
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Wonderful, Michael. Just the poems e need right now.
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Thanks, Donna. I often feel that way about your poems.
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Oh, Michael, that means so much to me.
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Hollowed out. But free.
These two poems get right to it: the real hidden with the real.
I don’t know Ross, Sean, Tony, or even you, but all of you feel like friends.
Thank you.
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Thanks, Tony. We’ve never met face to face, but I think of you as a friend.
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I am grateful for Vox Populi ALL THE TIME, and never more so than in getting to read these two poems, Michael. I wish I could remember how I stumbled on the site, and whether someone of my acquaintance mentioned it to me, so that I could thank that person. I don’t necessarily comment on every post, but I revel in the variety, the splendid voices, and the (amazing!) curation of the work you choose. Thanks to the max, Michael. 🙏🏽
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Thanks, Annie. Your voice is important here.
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Such great tributes to what’s important, what remains, Michael–thank you! The turn at the end of “Gifted” stuns and echoes most remarkably, tucking us back in (like cozy hospital corners) while simultaneously releasing us. Love that.
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Thanks, Michelle. Tony Hoagland was a brilliant but exasperating poet. After that business with the piano, I swore never to read with him again. A decision I’ve regretted many times.
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A brilliant devil indeed. xo
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These two poems made me happy. Yes, Tony under the piano “Hollowed out. But free.” Let them all live forever in our poetry – or, rather, as long as our poetry lives. Thank you, Michael.
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Thank you, Rose Mary. So glad we are friends.
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Yes, viva Greta — & Viva Michael, & viva Sean, both true & i-n-d-i-s-p-e-n-s-a-b-l-e poets. And viva us all in this daily conversation we have with Poetry (capital P) thanks to Michael. How much more isolated and poorer we’d be without Vox Populi! I love these two poems in conversation with Sean’s wealth of heart , faith, music & imagery! And in conversation also with VP readers & poems coming to us from as far as Europe, Asia, South America; from the deep heart of this country, or from the hems of the Atlantic, Pacific or Great Lakes. Look at what you started and are keeping alive for us, dear Michael!
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Thank you, Laure-Anne. I’m so pleased that a community has grown up around my daily posts. Very grateful to you all.
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Yes, Viva Greta! I love these and cherish whatever brought me to Vox Populi, and the caring community I found here. VP so often gives me the impetus to get out of bed, hug Tashi, and start a new day.
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Me too, Barb. Me too.
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The world needs more love poems like these. I was reading Hamlet yesterday, and there is way more love in your two poems, and in the relationships you share with Sean and other Vox Populi folk. Just to keep comparisons with Shakespeare afloat here a bit. Oh, I still have to read the Fifth Act, so maybe love comes to Shakespeare there.
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Well, I’ve never been like Hamlet. I plunge into the mess with both fists raised.
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These are both wonderful, Michael. I especially like the second on and the image of Tony under the piano while you wait. I hope you’re well. I miss you on FB because it was so much easier to respond to the posts. I’m off to protest on the bridge this morning. What a mess we’re in! ~Jan
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Thank you, Jan. And yes, what a mess we’re in.
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Lovely poems, Michael, the first reminiscent of Sonnet 18, but with the egoism turned outward. A simple concept in theory, yet damnably difficult in practice. Which evokes yet another Shakespearean notion, this one from A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Would that love (and/or indeed poetry) were contagious, like a sickness, effortlessly captured, effortlessly spread
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Thank you, Matt. This is certainly the first time anyone has compared my work to that of Shakespeare.
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Michael, those are gentle poems and the more powerful because while celebrating life, they also understand death. Like Sean’s hands, delivering a calf.
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Thanks, Lola. Given your gifts, your praise is gold.
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And what a brace of lovely poems, exacting such tenderness for their subjects! A pair of “gentled” oxen (they make both kinds) raised for the long haul, hitched to something headed somewhere!
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Thanks, Sean. As I’ve said before, you are our Wm. Blake; that is, if he’d been a cowboy.
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Michael: You have succeeded in catching me by complete surprise! Tony did that once to me as well. You count among those who should have a kind of eternal life and indeed among other things, on the basis of our great need. I am ever grateful to be enriched by the kind generosity of your heart toward us all. A day does not go by you haven’t affected my life in some way. What does one do to return gratitude for such inestimable blessing? Viva Greta!!!
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Indeed, Viva Greta. Sean, you have been an inspiration to every VP reader. Thank you.
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