John Updike

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John Updike Thoughts While Driving Home Was I clever enough? Was I charming? Did I make at least one good pun? Was I disconcerting? Disarming? Was I wise? Was I wan? Was I fun? Did I answer that girl with white shoulders Correctly, or should I have said (Engagingly), “Kierkegaard smolders, But Eliot’s ashes are dead?” And did I, while being a smarty, Yet some wry reserve slyly keep, So they murmured, when I’d left the party, “He’s deep. He’s deep. He’s deep”? Chambered Nautilus How many rooms one occupies to lead a life! – the child's small cell, within earshot of his parents' s mothered moans; the college room assigned by number, a poster-clad outpost of freedom; the married man's bedchamber, cramped scene of glad possession and sneaking sorrow; the holiday rental, redolent of salt and sun and other people's cast-off days; the capstone mansion with its curtained pomp; the businessman's hotel, a one-night stand whose trim twin beds and TV sketch a dream of habitation soon forgot; the chill guest room; the pricey white hospital space, where now the moaning has become one's own. Not Cancelled Yet Some honorary day if I play my cards right I might be a postage stamp but I won’t be there to lick me and licking is what I liked, in tasty anticipation of the long dark slither from the mailbox, from box to pouch to hand to bag to box to slot to hand: that box is best whose lid slams open as well as shut, admitting a parcel of daylight, the green top of a tree, and a flickering of fingers, letting go.

Thoughts While Driving Home

Was I clever enough? Was I charming?
Did I make at least one good pun?
Was I disconcerting? Disarming?
Was I wise? Was I wan? Was I fun?

Did I answer that girl with white shoulders
Correctly, or should I have said
(Engagingly), “Kierkegaard smolders,
But Eliot’s ashes are dead?”

And did I, while being a smarty,
Yet some wry reserve slyly keep,
So they murmured, when I’d left the party,
“He’s deep. He’s deep. He’s deep”?

Chambered Nautilus

How many rooms one
occupies to lead a life! –
the child's small cell,
within earshot of his parents' s
mothered moans;
the college room assigned by number,
a poster-clad outpost of freedom;
the married man's bedchamber,
cramped scene of glad possession
and sneaking sorrow;
the holiday rental,
redolent of salt and sun
and other people's cast-off days;
the capstone mansion
with its curtained pomp;
the businessman's hotel,
a one-night stand whose
trim twin beds and TV sketch
a dream of habitation soon forgot;
the chill guest room;
the pricey white hospital space,
where now the moaning
has become one's own.

Not Cancelled Yet

Some honorary day
if I play my cards right
I might be a postage stamp
but I won’t be there to lick me
and licking is what I liked,
in tasty anticipation of
the long dark slither from the mailbox,
from box to pouch to hand
to bag to box to slot to hand:
that box is best
whose lid slams open as well as shut,
admitting a parcel of daylight,
the green top of a tree,
and a flickering of fingers, letting go.