I’ve been reading Paul Zweig, and responding to his poems with poems of my own. This is the twenty-third poem in the third (“Eternity’s Woods”) section of Zweig’s Selected and Last Poems, followed by my response. See here for details on this experiment in responsive reading. I’ll remove Zweig’s poems after a week or two to prevent egregious copyright infringement.

The Other Ocean
by Paul Zweig

It was the whip-marks of the horned asp,
And the Beduin sucking his coffee
Through cracked fleshy lips…
[Remainder of poem removed]
* * * *

The Other Coltrane

when the new moon’s still a sliver
pale fingernail against
the blackboard

& you hear
the shriek of wheels gone
slightly off-true with the track

ninety-nine cars heaped high with coal
hurtling by in the darkness

don’t it make you shiver
that night train