Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Original poetry, translations and videopoems by the authors of this blog. (See Poets and poetry for criticism, etc.)
Annoyance upon annoyance grew—
a half-inch, an inch of rue; and since
I’d let them, a whole field, a mountain.
They occupied the furniture, took over
all meals, travel plans, the weather—
At night I rocked their sleepless
siblings and fed them all remaining
rations from my day: and still they howled,
opened their mouths to bare hungry gums,
the blinding whites of pointed teeth.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
High, I desire
the writ of the Lord,
answer a judge
with three pints of wine
and take by mistake for supper
a hand with strawberry on it.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 21 March 1659/60.
Each month I get a stack of magazines in my office mail: Poets &
Writers, Poetry— but lately, a catalog for Infectious Disease Control?
Who got me on that mailing list and why? I thumb through pages of colored
latex gloves, swabs and antiseptics, catheters inspiring unease. Control’s
anxiety’s dark twin, sibling to that rebellious sister who slips out the window
to smoke on the roof, who skips school to fuck a boy (the briefest bliss). Control’s
the sting of a belt, staccato laid on the flesh of my cousin’s back
while his mother cried He’s only a boy, stop, please! Control
is this same boy thirty years later, prodigal returned from the big city
to attend the father on his deathbed, about to wheeze his last. Who controls
the wind or rain, water that turns from blue to limpid against
the sandbar’s edge, almost clear as remission? Nothing to hold
here that instinct hasn’t first instructed: an owl flies by with a shrew
in its claws; and beneath, worms tunnel in the soil oblivious to our plotting.
In response to Via Negativa: Premonitory.
Things against my going:
the rain, a great deal of paper,
the wind in the marsh. Oy.
I chose the saddest color
for a melancholy mother
and had a fear I should see
my house full of swords.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 20 March 1659/60.
The ferryman came and whispered
in my ear, asking if I would like
to visit that town I might not ever
see again but in my dreams—
I said Is that your first question?
for I knew no one could gain passage
without a token— And he laughed
and patted the grey hollow between
his shoulders, saying Come, sister;
in the trees the leaves are lit up just
like lanterns, and your face is a tarot
that still points all ways but one.
In response to Via Negativa: Mare Desiderii.
Infinity makes
my head full.
I have been king
of the sea where
we drank and drank
till water was
the wish of all.
My mind is still
in the drink.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 19 March 1659/60.
All the shops are closed now, for it is very late in the evening.
But someone has left a window in the bookstore open
and the sale signs are flying out, the posters printed
with the covers of paperbacks—
Is that Chekhov’s “Cherry Orchard” or “The Interpreter
of Maladies?” There is a pleasing orange glow
reflected on the damp sidewalks and on the tops
of restaurant awnings. The hem of my long skirt
swirls around my ankles, and I feel a little
like the woman in Chagall’s “The Birthday,” toes
pointed as she floats toward the ceiling. Her purse
the color of a dove’s breast has dropped
to the table where a watermelon lies,
one pink cheek open, seeds scattered
on the patterned tablecloth. She is so surprised
by everything: the flowers her love has brought,
the sinuous kiss that buoys them up like two
balloons toward the ceiling. Her eyes the shape
of almonds saying something wistful, almost gone.
In response to small stone (222).
I rose early to barber
the moss of the wood,
took a house
in Drury Lane
and ate toasted cakes
which were very crisp.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 18 March 1659/60.
The letter I found was bone-yellow, blue
ink crusted grey on flimsy paper. Dear Uncle,
wrote his niece: we are well, we are taking kindly
to farm life. Away from the city, the children
are thriving. I let them play in the fields
with no fear they might get lost or run
over by speeding cars. My eldest boy goes
fishing with his father on weekends. They bring
back fish still thrashing in the pails. We hope
someday you will be blessed with children of
your own—
And in the last paragraph she asks about me,
ghost child of a publicly nameable father, child
of my mother’s hidden sister: little solemn one
in photographs the color of old maps, clutching
a spray of flowers and a doll. Some things,
even unknown, are true; some things lend
shade to the length of a life.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
A noise in the courtyard wakes me: dull
blow against brick, perhaps a dented car fender
clattering to the pavement? In the dark I bolt up,
disoriented: pulse racing, heart lurching
ever ahead of thought. Don’t chastise me for how this
far along in middle life, I haven’t mastered composure.
Guilt, grief, remorse, whatever name you’ll give this
high-pitched tension humming underneath the skin:
in the moment that nerve is plucked, the needle
jumps to a higher frequency. Is each child safe?
Knowing nothing of the future, I tremble,
love dissolving in the mouth like so much rain.
Maybe I don’t need to come every day for 17 months to stand
near the prison gates, like the poet did for her son—
or give my hair or clothes or voice for ransom to some god
pronouncing sentence, punishing one simple pleasure after another.
Quarreling with guards, the magistrate, the lawyers, I’ll
reproach what I can, whom I can, petition, represent—
Such depths have been scoured before by others. I don’t believe
there is only shame in wearing one’s troubles like a crest
upon a shield. I’ve read of loveliness that increases,
very like a promise: that it will never pass into nothingness,
will burn like the flower birthed of fire it was meant to be:
exist as that child you want to see grow to maturity, see
yearning brought to richest ripening— No other
zenith but what blesses breath and breathes.
In response to Via Negativa: Waterbound.