Waiting for Billy Collins

Billy nearly made us miss the famous Willow Manor Ball. Seems he's after those mice again!

Waiting for Billy Collins

Somewhere in the house
He is chasing a blind mouse
With a carving knife.

He'll mince it into words
And the pauses he has heard
In his head.

The caesuras, he would say
In his professeuric way,
Tell us how it should be read.

Still, he's flying round the room,
Chasing mice without a broom
Trading verses with the dead

Till he leaves this worthy cause,
Takes a breath and takes a pause,

Fills the silences we've heard
With a poet's every word.

In a Name

Argent's driving the Bus this week, and our challenge is to write a poem about a meeting. Meet contemporary American poet and two term Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins.

See the challenge and read the entries of other passengers here.


















IN A NAME

You'd think that by this time,
We'd be familiar--
Sweet William,
Wild Bill,
Maybe Billy Boy.
After all,
He's naked in the hallway,
Turning circles
Shuffling round the house.
Every night I sail with
Billy Collins.
And still it's Billy Collins, first and last.
I have known just Keats alone,
And Shelley. Shelley,
He's still three as in the past.
But as for my new lover
Billy Collins,
It's Billy first;
It's Billy Collins last.
Now I spend my nights with Billy Collins;
We're drinking tea and writing hard and fast.

The Trouble with Poetry

Five-thirty in the morning
And I hear your footsteps
On the stairs like a reproach.
I'm reading poems, already wasting time,
While you, Captain of Industry, rub and scrub.
I'm First Mate of Indolence at six A.M.,
Anchored in the chair with Billy Collins.
What is it I should do?
Somebody stir the pot.
Somebody bring me a broom.