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enjoy this writing in the 6" x 9" 2015 ISBN# paperback book the Chosen Few Click on the cover or any linked text to get a copy of the Chosen Few			Enjoy this 2015 Chicago open mic book as a snapshot of writings read on stage by assorted Chicago open mic writers as performed in shows from 2012-2015 at “the Café Gallery” open mic as a 6"x9" perfect-bound paperback ISBN# book!

Urn

Robert Lawrence

Miss Fanning,
my tenth grade English teacher,
a petite gray-haired lady,
said she loved to read poems,
then go outside and hug trees.
I could not understand that.
Her favorite poem was the Grecian Urn.
I hated it. “Beauty is truth.” No way.
I am not beautiful. Like one day,
my first year working at the supermarket,
this delivery guy asks me,
“Where’d you get those looks, kid?”
Now, three decades later, I have mellowed
from ugly to all right, but not beautiful.
And as produce manager, I handle things
carrots, ginger, garlic, squash—good things—
that are not beautiful.

Last week I saw Miss Fanning’s obituary;
The wake in Galesberg, hours away in Knox County.
Hey, why not—good day for a drive.
No casket—her ashes in a cremation urn
under an old photo where she had dark hair,
and a mischievous glint in her eyes.
Some teachers showed up,
but I was the only student:
kinda surprised me.
Back home, I decided to check out
that old poem, get inside of it
like figuring out what’s goin’ on
in the mind of one of my kids.

I saw John Keats, at a musuem, staring at this urn.
The painted scene comes alive.
A virgin cow struggling to get free—
burly helpers pin it down, hold it still,
for a priest to slice its neck.
Keats looks into the animal’s eyes,
sees the light of life
become the blur of death.
He circles to the other side of the urn.
Another scene. A lush green forest
A handsome young man plays a flute.
A lovely maiden swoons with desire.
Keats imagines his own lover, relives sex
scenes you never read in his poems.
He presses his fingers on the exhibit case;
his breath, laced with TB germs, glazes the glass.
He closes his eyes, whispers, “My life:
full of pain, fleeting: that urn—art—lasts—
it is truth and beauty . . .
Thou unravish’d bride of quietness . . .”

I’m sorry, Miss Fanning,
I still think he’s full of it; if there’s no one
to see it, art isn’t true or beautiful, it is nothing.
Life is beauty and truth.
But thanks, anyway, for the poem
Wonder if I could write one of my own.

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