Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Original poetry, translations and videopoems by the authors of this blog. (See Poets and poetry for criticism, etc.)
Rumors descend
That cloud
like dirty milk
or mist on glass
Under the stairs
fold in
Be still
The quiet
in our ears
grown much
too loud
Wasps & hornets
lie down
on the porch
Every tendril
quivering
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
In a bed of oysters
I am secure as death
and in the arms of a severe knight
I find sure sales,
there being nothing
in any man’s mind
but the pleasure of loss.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 21 May 1660.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Click image to see the full-size version.
Clive Hicks-Jenkins made this with letters and images left over from his just-completed animation project for the Mid Wales Chamber Orchestra production of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale. It is of course the poem generated from one of my recent erasures of Pepys. I told him I thought that conceptually, in relation to the erasure, it’s as if he’s put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Presented this way, it feels much more like a complete poem to me. In place of the white emptiness of erasure, there’s solid black. And Clive’s vibrantly colored majuscule letters don’t shout, but intone.
(Rosa canina assisiensis)
A jute robe is itchy. And so one day, the saint
feels the urge to abandon monastic life. If only
he were a tree, a strip of lettered wood nailed
to a crossroads sign; something else, anything
other than this silence among the doves, duties
beautifully illustrated by the missalette. If only
he were a sailor bound for a year’s ship journey
to the far ends of the earth, or even a scarecrow
flapping its tin-can arms in the middle of a field.
At the height of great feeling or pain, the body
has been known to forget itself. Do his eyes roll back
into his head, does he break into a sweat and twitch
like a lit swath of firecrackers? What are the cries
that escape his mouth? In the humid night, open
your windows after sex to find the air saturated
with the rumor of flowers: the ones with thorns
are said to have the sweetest scent. It’s not hard
to imagine what it’s like to be seized by fragrance,
to give oneself to the darkness; to leap
into the bramble bushes fully clothed.
In response to Via Negativa: In Partibus Infidelium.
I lie alone, mind on her face.
In the church chancel, the mouth of a whale,
bigger than bad weather.
I keep myself in the open,
wake to piss.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 20 May 1660.
Up early, in pink light
I see rock and a broken land,
the house sunk where children were born—
one of our villages, but for the language.
The people eat fish
but play at physician, a clapper
to frighten the birds
away from the corn.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 19 May 1660.
Rumors abound as citizens wait for voting results. A metal box meant for a village in the north has found its way to a town in the south; none of these votes will be counted. The new king is naked and mad; or he has ADHD; or he is autistic. Or he is a former actor who cannot distinguish between reality and a B-movie script. The old king has been dead more than two decades; he lies in state, frozen in a crypt, pumped full of formaldehyde and surrounded by satin flowers. The ex-queen squints at him through the glass panels and plants a coral-lipsticked kiss closest to the side of his face. She returns to her walled-in estate and sighs, flexing her size 8 1/2 feet encased in Italian leather. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Orchids sway in the breeze and the ocean blinks, brighter than cut sapphires. Maids bring her sparkling coconut water and ice. Someone turns on the plasma screen TV but her eyes are not what they used to be. Even in a country where she might run out of tears to cry for the very poor who are so very many, she believes there are still pockets of hope. Her son the senator has promised to join her for dinner. Her daughter the governor no longer hates her as she used to in her teens. See? she wants to say to the voices who come to taunt her in dreams. In the end, all will be well. The ones who have truly suffered will get their just rewards. Heaven after all is a dynasty where only the good can live forever.
In response to Via Negativa: Heaven.
I hear the wind speak:
nothing but epitaph,
brass angels crying.
The church, a poor man’s box
that binds any guest
to the dying light
like some great weight.
I go down to the water
with my echo:
to say is to know.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 18 May 1660.
“It’s harder to practice that tender emptiness of forbearance, that aches and yearns and still lets go, and that can recognize and hold the aching of others as well.” ~ seon joon
I think of their assorted quarrels through the years—
mother-sister-aunt-grandmother: the constant drama
of porcelain cracked and strewn on hardwood floor or
kitchen tile; names and insults hurled that sailed
through early mornings like jets of hot water
flung from coffee-pots and always found their mark;
bruise in the joint, their point of tension, their central
subject pain and desire. This grandmother lived with us
shortly after my father— her favorite and only son—
insisted he loved this farmer’s daughter enough
to marry her in church, before a throng of haughty relatives.
There are pictures, yes, of arras, veil, and cord.
And see in the background? The younger sister with the veil?
That is my mother too. We all kept house together, she
most of all, ladle constantly in hand; pot on the boil,
salt in the water. Then me in the oven for everyone
to fawn over and fondle, plot a future for. And this
grandmother is the same I tell those stories of,
that you still can hardly believe: how she slept
between the two of them that first night in their
marriage bed, how she parted the curtains of her room
to glare at mother’s lady friends when they might come
to call. God rest the souls of those who’ve gone ahead:
their hot angers finally assuaged, all their poor or lavish,
restless or unrequited loves absolved of any imperfection;
their cries and voices stilled in soft pillows of earth.
In response to thus: such tender emptiness.