Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
[In the sack, I speak with the Lord,
nothing that my head would house for free;
fill the old thinking cup with cribbage.
My singing proves a very bad wind.]
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 2 January 1659/60 (Yes, this is going to be a series, I think)
The fever & the cold
are odd bedfellows.
Even goldfinches turn down the heat
during their autumn molt.
I lie fallow, letting bloom
a virus that slipped in
under cover of affection
& now withers in the ditch.
“…Time running like a chain stitch, a sovereign without an heir.” ~ seon joon
Fevered, I ran through a dream without waking,
panicked there was no way to return to un-dreaming—
Butterflies beat in the wake of my going
which became indistinguishable from my coming—
How does one complete tasks that are waiting
if caught in a dream without waking—
How does the dreamer unpin from its weaving
the wing of thought from only inward-turning?
In response to thus.
Here’s the end of the furrow, where the animal turns and hefts the plough. And it is another row, beginning at the head or at the foot, depending on where one chooses to engage the coulter and the share. The wood is old but tempered. It has worn to a roughened sheen. The metal parts help force the energy into the topsoil, into the sod. There is a rhythm that might be observed, a neatness that might be said to resemble stitching. The animal lumbers— it doesn’t sing the song of the shuttle flying through gathered floss, nor of the hummingbird exploding its ruby-colored threads. The field is wide as a year, wide as a century, wide as time itself. I call it by name; I rub its flanks covered with stubble, regard its soft dark eyes shaded sepia. When nothing has yet taken root, it’s almost impossible to imagine each hoof-print unwinding a bobbin of green. Or the land pin-cushioned with fingernail flecks of grain.
In response to thus.
[Blessed pain, I lived in Axe Yard
disturbed by the river, an army without desires,
handsome but poor;
worn chapel of time, made this day.]
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 1 January 1659/60
Plummet of heart to foot-sole—
Of wing to thinnest skin,
blue strip of still
flowing water—
O for the countless times
I’ve tumbled through that hole
in the floor—
Gold tassels and cord,
billowing skirts, curtains
I thought surely curtains—
Down and into the sooty
dark, so far so far
I thought—
Bring me a measure
of that square of paper
where someone’s drawn
a constellation,
string rosy with knots
of light on which I hoist
myself up and up
as all things must
obey what comes
after the fall
In response to Via Negativa: Dropping.
We may or may not go off the fiscal cliff at midnight, but if we do, it’ll be part of a proud American tradition of dropping things from high places on New Year’s Eve. Most famous, of course, is the ball drop at Times Square, but there are many others, according to the Wikipedia. I’m not sure that anyone’s ever tried dropping anything quite so large as an entire electorate, but that’s what makes this so exciting! The secret to American greatness, after all, is that we make everything bigger. (Well, O.K., maybe that’s not so secret.) And hey, you know what else has dropped? “Congress’ approval rating is perilously close to the margin of error for none at all,” reports the Roll Call.
I’m proud to say that Pennsylvania has the most New Year’s Eve droppings of any state. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows the state’s history as Landfill Central and industrial sacrifice area for energy extraction and production. The same civic leaders who endorse the dropping of giant French fries, pickles, lollipops and stuffed goats on New Year’s are happy to invite other states and multinational corporations to leave their droppings all over the commonwealth. The party’s on us! The only way we could make the forced gaiety and over-indulgence of our annual New Year’s celebration more festive would be to dance around a bonfire of state forest trees, clear-cut to build fracking well pads, compressor stations and transmission corridors.
In other news, tens of thousands of virtual pets were snuffed out by Zynga yesterday when it shut down PetVille. If only it had waited 24 hours, we could have dropped them off the tops of virtual buildings. Because nothing says Happy New Year like the electronic squeal of a falling puppy.
the roses open despite the cold.
One touch of the child’s hand
and their garments float away—
no compass but the wind, nothing
to provision; no destination
that we don’t already know.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Now that the barn’s been painted, all the buildings on the farm are camouflaged against the snow. The cold is a fierce hunter. One has to take every precaution. Continue reading “Snophistry”