In every bowl there’s a howl hidden,
a cracked moon, a watery shiver.
In every glass a palace,
in every pot a broth, a salt,
in every beaker a shriek of frantic molecules:
words that alight in the mind
just before sleep, like birds
coming to roost in that copse
that feeds the wild wood
& its one good bowl.
This entry was posted Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 11:57 am and is filed under Poems & poem-like things. 
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This is gorgeous, Dave.
Yes. It is.
Thanks, Deb and Rachel!
This one is so fun to say and say.
I love that first line. I love how bowl hides howl’s owl, makes it ole. Great tug there.
“In every glass a palace”: unforgettable.
Thanks, Peter! I only thought of the “glass palace” line at the last minute, but now that you mention it, it does feel like a solid insight.
Following on Peter’s comment — The eye rhyme of “bowl” with “howl” amplifies the undertone of “bowel;” and the vowel of “copse” puts pressure on the last vowel of the poem, again reverberating with “bowel.” Bowels as another kind of receptacle for feed and sound. A poem for the autumn equinox: equal spellings for different sounds received by the ear and guts.
I didn’t think of “bowel” as a possible undertone… but as a disciple of Rabelais, I’m all for it! Thanks as always for the critique.
Gorgeous indeed. I love the cracked moon, the watery shiver. A lonesome enso of a poem. There’s an interesting almost-loop that really makes that metaphor work for me, there at the end of the poem. The way the copse feeds the wood and then the one good bowl almost feels like a circle but not quite. thanks.
This is the kind of comment that helps me see a poem in a new way. Beautiful, Laura.
Indeed it is.
I had to look up enso, which I should know: a calligraphic circle in Zen Buddhism. Thanks for being such an astute reader.