McKuen? Or Kinnell?

(1)

If I die before you
which is all but certain
then in the moment
before you will see me
become someone dead
in a transformation
as quick as a shooting star’s
I will cross over into you
and ask you to carry
not only your own memories
but mine too until you
too lie down and erase us
both together into oblivion.

***

(2)

Even wrinkled water stretches out
along its roadway to the sea.
A blemish under sunlight fades,
or darkens,
changes anyway as all things change
the more they meet the Elements.

***

(3)

what seemed your own inner blazonry
flapping and gliding, in desire, in the middle air?
Weren't you reassured to think these flimsy
hinged beings, and then their offspring,
and then their offspring's offspring, could
navigate, working in shifts, all the way to Mexico?

***

(4)

I have fallen in love with the world
And I am aware that I have chosen
the most dangerous lover of them all.

I kiss the bare feet of the forenoon
undress the shadows all along the wall
and on non sunny days

***

(5)

In the half darkness we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across this little, startlingly muscled body—
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love gives again into our arms.

Rod McKuen-esque

(also from Copper Canyon Press)

"How do we come to be here next to each other
in the night
Where are the stars that show us to our love..."

"When you have nothing to say,
the sadness of things
speaks for you."

"Only now
I see that you
are the end of spring
cloud passing..."

"God comes to us,
or should come to us, all"

"The fog is the body it can't quite be
these evenings of early August,
coming together"

"What the beloved wants
Is to burn more brightly,
To have more life."

"It is like the moment
after I say goodbye.
We become ourselves
for a slow moment
I want to lengthen
between us."

"Being without
You was almost more than I
Could bear."

"These things I had once. This brightness, softness, sweetness
She gave me once to my keeping.
Piece of this true sun."

I have to think Rod is the most influential poet in America, based on this evidence. Sure, I cooked the books, put my thumb on the scale, but it only took me a few minutes to do it.

I'm resurrecting this post from 3 years ago. I took the quiz again myself and looked at the answers. I failed miserably:

***


Reading some W.S. Merwin poems in APR, it struck me that the style was a lot like the great Rod McKuen. So here's my test: which fragments are from Merwin, which from McKuen?

a.

Who knows how many dreams
die out of season
reaching for some added darkness
or twisting upward where the sunlight
sits on haunches in the tops of trees.

b.

Not enough has been said
ever in your praise
hushed mornings
before the year turns new

c.

So you are leaving everything
the way it is
taking only your day with you

already you are out of reach...


d.


The air was bearable to me
only just because I had to breathe
but then you must have known that.

e.

You are what we believe
even if we know better
seeing is believing. . .

f.

not forgetting you
forgetting you
in the dark of the shoes
in the sounds of the stairs
in the opening door

***

More-- Merwin or McKuen?


(1)

It should have been poco
divertimento from the second
act, intermission from the dead
line, time lapse from whatever.

(2)

one fluted phrase
floating over its
wandering secret
all at once wells up
somewhere else

(3)

everything I remember
and before it before me
present at the speed of light
in the distance that I am
who keep reaching out to it

(4)

When you are already here
you appear to be only
a name that tells of you
whether you are present or not
and for now it seems as though
you are still summer

(5)

you who arrive
with blue plums
that have fallen through the night
perfect in the dew