September, 2018 – Poetry surrounds us, making us realize the slimness of the membrane between internal and external worlds. In his book, Your Personal America, Sausalito poet Paul Geffner explores the America familiar to so many of us, as well as territory new and uncharted. Along the way he saves Christmas, kills the Easter Bunny, and contemplates why dinosaurs speak English in cartoons.
Paul joined us Around the Table to read some of his favorite poems — his own and others. Here is an excerpt from his book, the title poem Your Personal America:
Your Personal America
It’s cold out
You’ve come further than you thought you would
and the city you brought with you
won’t shut up
You could’ve grown up in Nebraska
owned the wind and the wheat
or Utah
seen yourself across scenic gorges
then you’d have some perspective
Pennsylvania was so close
Its deep rolling green, so peaceful
You would’ve had the temperament of a fisherman
if you had been from there
Even the deserts of Nevada
a man that hollow
could fill the earth with his solitude
could drive wild animals away with his unflinching stare
Someone else chose this city for you
and now you’re stuck
with its ceaseless chatter
churning out histories
and the amibiguous yearning
to move to Florida
where the air and the temperature of the body
match perfectly
•••
Paul Geffner was born in New York City. He spent most of his childhood under a school desk in anticipation of a nuclear war. He now lives in Sausalito and is a part owner of Driver’s Market with the Driver family. He is enduring a bad hair lifetime.