Nightclub - A poem by Billy Collins

Billy Collins - Nightclub

You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else's can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o'clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.

Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

Added: on September 29th, 2005 at 10:20 PM | Viewed: 7986 times | Comments and analysis of Nightclub by Billy Collins Comments (3)

Nightclub - Comments and Information
Poet: Billy Collins Poem: Nightclub Comment 3 of 3, added on February 21st, 2006 at 10:21 AM. good, good, poem. Joy from Belgium Comment 2 of 3, added on December 4th, 2005 at 3:02 PM. I sense that Collins refers to "beauty" as the night. What beauty lingers around the dark hours of morning. "Foolishness", as being blind to the beauty that surrounds you. anna from United Kingdom Comment 1 of 3, added on September 29th, 2005 at 10:20 PM. The sense I get from the last line is that it echoes the first: the terms "beautiful" and "foolish" are being intimated in reverse: we have become so beautiful that we have become foolish. Jim K. from United States More Comments >> Are you looking for more information on this poem? Perhaps you are trying to analyze it? The poem, Nightclub, has received 3 comments. Click here to read them, and perhaps post a comment of your own. Of course you can also always discuss poems by Billy Collins with others on the American Poems poetry forum!

Poem Info
Poet: Billy Collins Poem: Nightclub Last read: Jul 25 2008, 10:39AM Viewed 7986 times. Added on September 29th, 2005 at 10:20 PM.

Collins Info
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