Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Original poetry, translations and videopoems by the authors of this blog. (See Poets and poetry for criticism, etc.)
(click on image to enlarge)
Working with severe restrictions made me think of… working with severe restrictions.
Via Shuffle Words, and prompted by a comment from Marja-Leena. Shuffle Words lets you save and link to your work, so feel free to leave links to your own magnetic poems in the comments.
Perhaps because it is flexible
& maneuverable
or because it has as many teeth
as a school of piranhas
or because it relies on a pull
rather than a push
or because it prefers circles
to straight lines
or because it excels
at impromptu reconstitution
or because it encompasses
so much empty space
somehow
it copes.
Deer in Deep Grass, from the Undiscovery Channel.
This is an experiment with poetic text overlaid on a video that I shot from my kitchen window yesterday. I’d be interested in hearing whether the scrolling display of text was fun and interesting, distracting and annoying, or somewhere in between.
Sometimes, you need a bridge
where there is no river.
The ground falls away
& you need that pique experience —
looking down on everything
without ever having climbed,
sky & water wearing the calm
blue uniform of authority.
Held up by high-strung cables,
speeding through our lives,
we could all use a pause
to adjust our perspective,
get in touch with who
we really are & what
brings us here, dry-
mouthed or sweaty,
death as close
as a sudden, wild leap.
Comma, apostrophe, back-
slash, cursive flourish —
an all-purpose divider
that only accidentally resembles
a question mark in search
of its dot-like perch.
No self-respecting crow, beak
clever at leverage, ever
departed from
the declarative mode.
Male & female
hand & handle,
heavy as Wednesday.
What iron tree might ramify
if you insinuated yourself
into some sidewalk crack?
I know that curl
from watching seeds sprout:
cotyledon at the point
of pulling apart.
Second-hand poetry has
been linked to
the cancer
of unanswerable
questions. Even
if it’s safely
out of mind,
like a dessicated seed
or a leaf in darkness,
mouths with
no memory
can still turn
the blanks where
letters were
into seditious
little Os. So
thank you for
not reading.
Click to see larger
A half-grown groundhog —
“Wait while I get the camera,” I say,
& it does.
*
Recognized by its glide,
the first monarch butterfly
back from the south.
*
In the air-conditioned mall,
the plastic flowers are safe
from the blistering heat.
*
Drinking from a tap
in the base of an old elm,
a Penn State squirrel.
*
I run into someone
I first met 17 years ago,
in cicada time.
*
So good, I don’t want to finish it:
fresh strawberries sliced
into stewed rhubarb.
*
Inside the package
stamped “Royal Mail,”
a book of small stones.
*
Driving the tractor into the woods,
mountain laurel blooming
above the roar.
*
Back from mowing,
I find a ground beetle trapped
in the kitchen sink.
*
A game in a dream:
no one knows the rules, or how to win.
I wake to heat lightning.
*
For another view of the half-grown groundhog, see here.
Why is there no battlefield memorial
here, where generations of workers
ground down their lives?
Why no place for the veterans to return,
pride mingling with grief,
clutching made-in-China flags
& mumbling about sacrifice?
Why doesn’t the county historical society
raise money to preserve this site just as it was,
before the pink slips came—
a mass unmanning—
& the great steel taskmasters were unbolted
from the shop floor & sold for scrap?
Why doesn’t anyone except us trespassers,
sneaking in like the weeds & sparrows,
want to remember which parts
were assembled here
& where they fit?
The day after Bo Diddley died, I watched a carpenter stretch a line the length of a board & give it a pluck: a diddley bow with no resonator, dry chalk instead of a bottleneck slider’s glissando note. I’d been expecting blue, but this line was red. The saw followed shortly with its howling eraser.
I had an argument with the carpenter about new tools versus old. Why does something that works ever have to be replaced? Why red? Why plastic for the housing? Why the constant upgrading to new drills & saws? The carpenter showed me his hands: they were cruelly crippled. I can only use what fits my grip, he said.
That sudden, electric blue from my father’s chalk line was one of my favorite things. Inside the chrome-plated reel I pictured a Galilee of chalk where the string went to renew its glowing shadow, like a blueprint line translated from the plane of the ideal: fuzzy, but straight as a fault.
__________
Links for the culturally deprived: Bo Diddley; diddley bow.
Scissors with an overbite,
blades like quotation marks
devouring the text —
some lost codex from
the Aluminum Age —
& leaving in its place
a jagged rent: massively
buck-toothed myself,
I know how elusive
a clean break can be.
Despite what orthodontists
would have us think,
a naturally straight bite
is a rare thing.
Most of us learn early
how to compensate,
squaring the circle,
holding our heads over
whatever plate, baring
our lips in the inevitable
tin grin.