Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Original poetry, translations and videopoems by the authors of this blog. (See Poets and poetry for criticism, etc.)
Chipped green,
turquoise, amber
tumbled smooth—
those bits we found
like careless kindnesses
flung, refusing requiem
of swell and surf—
And I cannot part
with strips of drift-
wood tucked into shelves
and drawers, cannot quite
give up the habit
of probing whorled
things for what they hide
of salt or seed—
In response to Via Negativa: Interiority complex and small stone (206).
[For kindness I stumble
and tell not heart but harp,
give the country of my mind
some night notes.]
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 19 January 1659/60.
[Letters from his son, but his son did not come.
Merry was he drinking wine with the key
to her lodging and my lodgings.
What answer to give to a monk
saying be, saying be for?]
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 18 January 1659/60.
Already, the year cracks its spine further open
and the leaves let in more phosphor, more light—
Already, dreams turn down the alleys and shed
their delirium of pink petals on stone—
I’ve set into motion the ball that strikes
another at the end of a silver string—
And what will be will be, says the poem
that grows word by word into lines—
So eat, grain by pearled grain, of the pulp
that glistens and clings to the rind—
In response to small stone (204).
[The child killed his melancholy out of doors.
I heard voices that told me likewise to turn,
told me to talk with a knave,
told me to give.]
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 17 January 1659/60.
The quiet, broken by the muffled chiming of a clock—
Wet rag at edge of driveway, that used to be someone’s good shirt—
The square that fills with a sudden rush of shadows preceding
sunlight or wings—
The dream, returning after forty years, of flying above a linen sea—
The footprints stamped like trails upon the snow
that by evening have dissolved into regret and rain—
Here by the orchid spray is where you sat
looking past the garden gate, wife by your side
and hair not even grey—
In response to Morning Porch and small stone (203).
[I went to Twickenham to sit
I went to Twickenham to think
alone in a closet
I played on my flageolet
till the bell-man came by with his bell
and left my wife and the maid a-washing still.]
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 16 January 1659/60.
Some days in that part of the city where I used to live, near the train tracks and the Greek restaurants, when the wind blew you could smell chocolate from the factory. It drove everybody mad, waiting for the train and smelling all that sugar, imagining the nibs poured into our mouths. At the end of the day we came back on the same line, students with backpacks and torn sneakers, immigrants amid small islands of talk. Who in the coach was coming out of the day shift, and might they leave a powdery trace as they exited the doors? Marks brown as cinnamon around the bars they held onto, before melting away into the dark.
In response to small stone (202).
for Rachel
1.
The long A of your name
had sounded in my ear for years.
I looked for you in leaves
& found you among needles.
I looked for you on foot
& found you among the bees,
golden with the dust
of unseen blooms.
2.
My parachute knapsack
held only paper
& instructions in several languages
for folding origami wings.
I even had to supply
my own shadow
for a welcoming committee.
That’s what it was like
being alone.
3.
While others were playing house
I was playing hermitage.
Trains blew their whistles
by day & by night.
You were in Africa,
waking to the music
of car horns & hornbills.
Had I tuned into the World Service
in the wee hours,
I might’ve heard your stories
about the fall
of that dictator from Malawi
whose last name so resembled my own.
4.
When we first became acquainted,
you were living
next door to that Dorothy
who disappeared into a tornado.
Your own witch was dead
but not by much.
I wrote you a poem because
I don’t believe in spells or prayers;
it was all I had.
5.
In the first photo I saw,
you were frowning & looking down,
unruly hair the color
of petals on a sunflower.
You were barely there.
But through medication
& meditation
you turned
slowly toward the light.
6.
The first time we met in the flesh
you were a flash
of bright laughter
at the end of the table
where we all convened for coffee
in Montreal.
Two years later, in Brooklyn,
you glowed with secret knowledge
& stretched like a cat
in the dog-day heat.
7.
Three years after that, I was
a guest in your London home,
though like a tortoise
I brought my own
sturdy carapace.
Your house buzzed with
so much activity, both
joyful & clamorous, that soon
my shell began to hum.
8.
Now our words & likenesses
fly through fiber-
optic cables under
the Atlantic. They must
pass each other
without knowing it,
deformed as they are
into carrier waves,
broken as they are
into pulses of light—
enough to build an entire
lost continent.
9.
From time to time
there’s a high-
pitched chirping
& you say
it must be from the slime-eels
nibbling on the cable
& tying their unbearably
slick bodies
into knots.
10.
We’ve been meeting in
this disembodied place
the world-wide web
so long, levitating
like Himalayan lamas,
it’s tempting to wonder whether
we even need the ground.
Don’t the Irish say
the road will rise up
to meet us?
Let’s drink to that,
each raising our part
of the universal solution
so our glasses belly
up to our webcams
for the clink,
each blocking our view
of the other’s eyes—a pale
or stout substitute
for those blues.
[Having been a dog
I sleep in Greek,
say I believe in
supper, not work.]
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 15 January 1659/60.