The Mad Poet of the Year blog posts share the poetry of a long-time Mad Poet. This year-long appointment provides readers with a deep dive of the writer’s work and thoughts on poetry. We are thrilled to have Ray Greenblatt serve as the inaugural Mad Poet of the Year for 2021.
EXPERIMENT
by Ray Greenblatt
The dog’s nose follows
the rolling red ball
across the grass
snuffling up nuances of every blade
until it halts in a cluster of weeds
as still and tantalizing as a bone
where she searches out other dogs’ messages
other animals’ secrets.
The taut string of the boy’s kite
points straight at heaven
in a blue he never ever glimpsed before
where if he sights along that line
he might discover new comets
bright shining planets
that will quench his many questions
his constantly expanding world
when even a high-flying dove
will be a thrill
will become an Eureka!
While you and I loll on a blanket
on a smooth lawn at Valley Forge Park
among plump perspiring peaches
wandering aromas of brie and cheddar
a half-empty bottle of fine Chilean cabernet
creating high-wires of words between us
on which balance shaggy stories
newly hatching philosophies
a tight-rope of intimacy
wrapping round us in ever-weaving coils
festooned with moments of love.
For me life is experiment and discovery. An animal does it by instinct; a child tests boundaries. Two adults in an intimate relationship keep developing individually, but at the same time they are working on mutual growth: love binds them. Where this poem takes place reinforces the idea of birth and growth on a national level.
Ray Greenblatt has been a poet for forty years and an English teacher longer than that. He was an editor of General Eclectic, a board member of the Philadelphia Writers Conference, and is presently on the staff of the Schuylkill Valley Journal. He has won the Full Moon Poetry Contest, the Mad Poets Annual Contest, and twice won the Anthony Byrne Annual Contest for Irish Poetry sponsored by The Irish Edition. His poetry has been translated into Gaelic, Polish, Greek and Japanese.