Poet's Choice

By Robert Pinsky
Sunday, February 17, 2008

Alan Shapiro's new book contains a remarkable section headed "from The Book of Last Thoughts." Each poem presents the dying thoughts of a different character in a form appropriate to that speaker. This one, for instance, is in rhyme:

COUNTRY-WESTERN SINGER

I used to feel like a new man

After the day's first brew.

But then the new man I became

Would need a tall one too.

As would the new man he became,

And the new one after him,

And so on and so forth till the new men made

The dizzy room go dim.

And each one said, I'll be your muse,

I'll trade you song for beer.

He said, I'll be your salt lick, honey,

If you will be my deer.

He said, I'll be your happy hour,

And you, boy, you'll be mine.

And mine won't end at six or seven

Or even at closing time.

Yes, son, I'll be your spirit guide,

I'll lead you to Absolut,

To Dewar's, Bushmills, and Jamison,

Then down to Old Tanglefoot.

And there I'll drain the pretense from you

That propped you up so high;

I'll teach you how salvation's just

Salivation without the I.

To hear his sweet talk was to think

You'd gone from rags to riches,

Till going from drink to drink became

Like going from hags to bitches,

Like going from bed to barroom stool,

From stool to bathroom stall,

From stall to sink, from sink to stool,

From stool to hospital.

The monitors beep like pinball machines,

And coldly the IV drips,

And a nurse runs a moistened washcloth over

My parched and bleeding lips.

And the blood I taste, the blood I swallow

Is as far away from wine

As 5:10 is for the one who dies

At 5:09.

Sometimes a form like this wears down or becomes predictable, but Shapiro keeps imagining new turns of mind and phrase, all true to the character.

Robert Pinsky's most recent book of poetry is "Gulf Music."

(Alan Shapiro's poem "Country-Western Singer" can be found in his forthcoming book "Old War: Poems." Houghton Mifflin. Copyright 2008 by Alan Shapiro.)