Backward to Zero
On the unclutter levelness of a tabletop,
A still life performs stillness. One falls
Into language. One fails at language.
One feels one’s way by way of words.
Thought’s structure branches, and like roots
Confronted by obstacles, contorts.
The tension, contained, is called nightfall.
To keep from levitating, one lies down
In a circle of stones, counts backward to zero.
With a radio as a medium, one communicates
With the spirits of the dead. The rain’s salutation
Repeats: a felted hammer upon a string.
One longs for the weightless sleep of horses
But is given instead a lapse of memory,
A drained lake, a thaw of permafrost.
Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dying Bed
Until the light’s gradual dispersion—
Gradients of white, empty,
The emptiness out of which color—
: :
Paths wind through woods—
Winds make a path through woods—
Clouds—cloud-like—morph, merge, pull apart—
: :
As if I might withdraw from sight—
As if I might not be sited, not
Affixed at the focal length—
: :
I lost my place; I found myself
Afar in the nearness—just waiting
For chariots to swing down low—
Reading Note:
I have been reading much of late that surprises and impresses me, including the poetry collections: Christian Teresi's What Monsters We Make Of Them, Donna Stonecipher's The Ruins Of Nostaglia, Danielle Vogel's A Library Of Light, Cole Swensen's And And And, C. S. Giscombe's Negro Mountain, Thomas A. Clark's The Threadbare Coat; the two recent novels by Karl Ove Knausgaard, The Morning Star and The Wolves Of Eternity; and a new version of Anton Chekhov's play, The Cherry Orchard by Benedict Andrews. As well, I recently taught a course in the Modernist long poem, and H.D.'s TRILOGY and Wallace Stevens' The Auroras Of Autumn, in particular, continue to reveal more and more to me upon re-reading.
Fall Poetry Album Links:
Table of Contents * Kaitlyn Airy * Stephen Danos * Haley Joy Harris * Tommy O'Rourke * Eric Pankey * Max Schliecher * Ken Walker
