A poem about James Joyce and Harry Truman? Unlikely you say. But Michael Todd Steffen pulls it off.

Michael Todd Steffen.

James Joyce, President Truman

Between two names, two men. The one in office
Must have hesitated for a proof
Of the innocence rumored in the other’s pages
With hidden curiosity, courting frost
Eminence for an image on the lawn.
One had suggested, in a sense loomed for
The brazen suitors who made necessary
The hearth’s restoration, the other’s commission—
Under the heroics, woe to alpha,
A hunter’s vision of the sufferer in the deer’s wood.
Neither was ever known especially
For being sentimental over the time’s
Triumphs, our President from Missouri
Practical of chapter and verse, the Irish
Scrivener honing his arcane coherence
On Finnegan’s errata. Both would agree
The world should mind, familiarly. In the same room
Together, the sail’s hoist and the anchor, two cordial
Smiles to disguise their polarized resistance.

– Michael Todd Steffen

_______________________________

To have your work considered for the LYRICAL send it to:
dougholder@post.harvard.edu