These stored forms of light taken under the ground. Taken by mouth. First those who by birth hold in secret the word; then placed on the tongues of the new ones, into whose ears it is meant to be whispered. Word-murdered, forgotten so long ago, placed as a kiss on the lips of the soon-to-be-no-longer breathing who mean to enter death with open eyes, with mouths saying Death, what death? We have no word for it in our country where the bride of a brighter oblivion reigns.
– from Franz Wright, “Bees of Eleusis”
(Source: poetryeater.com)
February 9, 2012
from Jill Alexander Essbaum, “Would-Land”
5AM. One-quarter past.
Distant chimes inform me this.
A bell peal knells the mist.
And sunlight’s
not yet bludgeoning.
But some light gets blood going.
Last night it was snowing
and now
every path’s a pall.
Though mine the only footfalls
at this hour of awe. Above
hangs a canopy of needle leaf.
Below, the season’s
mean deceit—
that everything stays
white and clean.
It doesn’t, of course,
but I wish it. My prayers
are green with this intent,
imploring winter wrens
to trill and begging scuttling bucks
come back.
There’s something that I lack.
(Source: poetryeater.com)
February 8, 2012
Alice Lyons, “Developers”
Greed got in the way. We built a fake estate.
Levinas said to see ourselves we need to see each other yet
doorbells, rows of them, glow in the night village
a string of lit invitations no elbow has leaned into
(both arms embracing messages). Unanswered
the doors are rotting from the bottom up.
It’s another perplexing pothole in our road, loves.
Hard core from the quarry might make it level,
hard core and cunning speculation into matters
concerning love and doubt, concerning want and plenty.
O the places where pavement runs out and ragwort
springs up, where Lindenwood ends but doesn’t abut
anywhere neatly, a petered-out plot of Tayto
tumbleweeds, bin bags, rebar, roof slates, offcuts,
guttering, drain grilles, doodads infill, gravel!
A not-as-yet-nice establishment, possessing potential
where we have no authorized voice but are oddly fitted
out for the pain it takes to build bit by bit.
When the last contractions brought us to the bring
of our new predicament, we became developers.
(Source: poetryeater.com)
February 7, 2012
from Michelle Boisseau, “Death Gets Into the Suburbs”
There’s death by taxi, by blood clot, by slippery rug.
Death by oops and flood, by drone and gun.
Death with honor derides death without.
Realpolitik and offshore accounts
are erased like a thumb drive lost in a fire.
And the friendly cross sets out walnuts to pop under tires.
So let’s walk the ruins, let’s walk along the ocean
and listen to death’s undying devotion.
(Source: poetryeater.com)
February 6, 2012
It is relentless, the suddenness
of every other
song, creature, neighbor
as though this life
would prove you
only by turning into itself
– from Nate Klug’s, “Dare”
(Source: poetryeater.com)
February 5, 2012
Bruce Smith,”Untitled [I closed the book and changed my life]”
I closed the book and changed my life and changed my life and changed my life and one more change and I was back here looking up at a blue sky with russets and the World was hypnotic but it wasn’t great. I wanted more range, maybe, more bliss, I didn’t know about bliss. Is bliss just a rant about the size of the bowl? The trance was the true thing, no, the rant, no, the sky, now, that icy whiteness.
(Source: poetryeater.com)
February 4, 2012
William Carlos Williams, “Complaint”
They call me and I go.
It is a frozen road
past midnight, a dust
of snow caught
in the rigid wheeltracks.
The door opens.
I smile, enter and
shake off the cold.
Here is a great woman
on her side in the bed.
She is sick,
perhaps vomiting,
perhaps laboring
to give birth to
a tenth child. Joy! Joy!
Night is a room
darkened for lovers,
through the jalousies the sun
has sent one golden needle!
I pick the hair from her eyes
and watch her misery
with compassion.
(Source: poetryeater.com)
February 3, 2012
from Natasha Sajé,”Beauty Secrets, Revealed by the Queen in Snow White”
Imagine lots
of green and see it when your eyes
are closed. Don’t see red, as in done for,
as in broke, as in give up the chase.
Do for your head what you do for your face.
Avoid asking questions of mirrors.
To check your own sad countenance each day
is a disgrace. If you hang on, cash can help.
Despite it, the Iron Lady’s now just a trace
of the woman who said, There’s no such thing
as society! It’s our duty to look after ourselves.
A head of state. Debased.
(Source: poetryeater.com)
February 2, 2012
Charles Wright, “Ars Poetica”
I like it back here
Under the green swatch of the pepper tree and the aloe vera.
I like it because the wind strips down the leaves without a word.
I like it because the wind repeats itself, and the leaves do.
I like it because I’m better here than I am there,
Surrounded by fetishes and figures of speech:
Dog’s tooth and Whale’s tooth, my father’s shoe, the dead weight
Of winter, the inarticulation of joy…
The spirits are everywhere.
And once I have them called down from the sky, and spinning and
dancing in the palm of my hand,
What will it satisfy?
I’ll still have
The voices rising out of the ground,
The fallen star my blood feeds,
this business I waste my heart on.
And nothing stops that.
(Source: poetryeater.com)
February 1, 2012
Hers was a poetry full of metals and alloys; air raids they were, ear raids.
– from Ange Mlinko, “Canata for Lynette Roberts”
(Source: poetryeater.com)
January 27, 2012