In December, I read Patti Smith’s M Train and Just Kids. In both books, I was impressed by her writing and dedication to the creative life.
Here are two found poems from M Train.
What We Want, Take 209
We want things we cannot have.
We seek to reclaim a certain
Moment, sound, sensation.
I want to hear my mother’s voice.
I want to see my children as children.
Hands small, feet swift.
Everything changes.
Boy grown, father dead,
Daughter taller than me,
Weeping from a bad dream.
Please stay forever,
I say to the things I know.
Don’t go. Don’t grow.
— Patti Smith (from M Train)
My Pen
How did we get so damn old?
I say this to my joints, my ironclad hair.
Now I am older than my love,
My departed friends.
Perhaps I will live so long
The New York Publish Library
Will be obliged to hand over
The walking stick of Virginia Woolf.
I would cherish it for her
And the stones in her pocket.
But I would also keep on living,
Refusing to surrender my pen.
— Patti Smith (from M Train)
