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The Missouri Review

Poem of the Week | May 07, 2013

Aaron Belz: "Charmed"

This week we’re featuring a poem from our new spring Editor’s Prize issue, 36.1, “the ladder” issue. Aaron Belz lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina, and teaches at Durham Technical Community College. He’s published two books of poetry, The Bird Hoverer (BlazeVOX, 2007) and Lovely Raspberry (Persea, 2010), and has a third forthcoming, Glitter Bomb (Persea, 2014). For more information, please visit http://belz.net.

Author’s Note:

“Charmed” picks up on [the] theme of self-focus, wanting to “push off / the earth’s face” in the form of watching TV; it’s tuned to Frost’s “Birches.”

 

Charmed

for Frost

 

I hate gravity

 

I hate what it’s all about
I despise not only falling
but having to lumber
step by step
along sidewalks
instead of jumping
floatingly along

 

or pushing off
the earth’s face
with a squat thrust
into space

 

may no god or goddess
willfully misunderstand
my hatred of gravity
and whisk me
permanently away

 

earth’s the right place
for TV

 

I don’t know where else
I’d be able
to watch Charmed

 

one could do worse
than to live in a world
without gravity
watching Charmed

 

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