The Window at Night

--Jennifer Grotz

Eyes wide like an owl’s, an aspirin-pale face

foretells in lamplight how it accumulates age.

Somewhat masked, somewhat naked, there’s no way

to know what others see when looking at it.

All five of the body’s senses crowd

on this small planet a weather of hair surrounds.

 

My face is not a democracy—the eyes are tyrants

and the ears are radical dissenters.

In the conversations of eyebrows, mine are whispers.

Like the window at night, the face reflects too,

uncertain how to change when greeting itself

(and is it not cruel when another’s face

won’t reflect acknowledgment of you?).

 

My mother, my father, and my brother are found

in the blurring of feature and expression.

Cynicism finds no purchase here;

the same cannot be said for sadness

(and look deeper—anger hides in the jaw).

And while the nose quietly broods

like an actor rehearsing his soliloquy,

the empty page of the forehead, when I raise my brows,

fills suddenly with questions.

 

A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts

--Wallace Stevens

The difficulty to think at the end of day,   

When the shapeless shadow covers the sun   

And nothing is left except light on your fur—

There was the cat slopping its milk all day,   

Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, white milk   

And August the most peaceful month.

To be, in the grass, in the peacefullest time,   

Without that monument of cat,   

The cat forgotten in the moon;

And to feel that the light is a rabbit-light,   

In which everything is meant for you   

And nothing need be explained;

Then there is nothing to think of. It comes of itself;

And east rushes west and west rushes down,

No matter. The grass is full

And full of yourself. The trees around are for you,   

The whole of the wideness of night is for you,   

A self that touches all edges,

You become a self that fills the four corners of night.

The red cat hides away in the fur-light

And there you are humped high, humped up,

You are humped higher and higher, black as stone—

You sit with your head like a carving in space   

And the little green cat is a bug in the grass.

 

[ Sunrise ; Arthur Dove (1924) ]

 

Song for a Small Boy Who Herds Goats

--Yvor Winters

Sweeter than rough hair

On earth there is none,

Rough as the wind

And brown as the sun.

I toss high my short arms

Brown as the sun;

I creep on the moutains

And never am done.

Sharp-hoofed, hard-eyed,

Trample on the sun! --

Sharp ears, stiff as wind,

Point the way to run!

Who on the brown earth

Knows himself one?

Life is in lichens

That sleep as they run.

 

A Summer Commentary

--Yvor Winters

When I was young, with sharper sense,

The farthest insect cry I heard

Could stay me: through the trees, intense,

I watched the hunter and the bird.

Where is the meaning that I found?

Or was it but a state of mind,

Some old penumbra of the ground,

In which to be but not to find?

Now summer grasses, brown with heat,

Have crowded sweetness through the air;

The very roadside dust is sweet;

Even the unshadowed earth is fair.

The soft voice of the nesting dove,

And the dove in soft erratic flight

Like a rapid hand within a glove,

Caress the silence and the light.

Amid the rubble, the fallen fruit,

Fermenting in its rich decay,

Smears brandy on the trampling boot

And sends it sweeter on its way.

 

The Fable

-- Yvor Winters

Beyond the steady rock the steady sea,

In movement more immovable than station,

Gathers and washes and is gone. It comes,

A slow obscure metonymy of motion,

Crumbling the inner barriers of the brain.

But the crossed rock braces the hills and makes

A steady quiet of the steady music,

Massive with peace.

And listen, now:

The foam receding down the sand silvers

Between the grains, thin, pure as virgin words,

Lending a sheen to Nothing, whispering.

 

[ The Other Side of the Rainbow ; Roland Petersen (1972) ]

 

Positivity

--D. A. Powell

“Anyway, it isn’t forever,” Chris said,

“eventually you’re dead.” And we laughed

Besides, everything is better now. Not us

but implants, blenders, children, heart attacks.

There’s never been a better time to be alive

than when you are. If you are. Black-throated

blue warbler says chewchewchewchewchewww

drawing the last chew out like a sucking drainpipe

to say he has mated and is satisfied. Say what

you will about that. His joy is uncontainable

and yet it has a form, a measure, to make it clear

he’s not upset or feeling anxious. And if he’s bragging,

well, it’s no shame to brag that you’re happy.

Honeybees cavorting on the goldenrod are working

toward a common goal they’ll never see achieved.

They lay down the walls of their cathedral of honeycomb

and will not cope the spire, busy in the present task,

trusting that the work continues. I’d like to write

a children’s book called everybody dies. Upbeat, of

course, and pragmatic. You only got so many

days. Don’t think about death; when you’re

ready, death will think about you. Go out

tonight with your friends, like Chris, who went out

big or not at all. Have a ball. Plan ahead.

 

Happiness

--Lewis Meyers

On the coffin-sized back porch

high above the ground

where anyone worth his salt

pursued his heart's desire,

I didn't know what to do

and asked my mother that.

I was seven. It was August,

the Capital's glandular month;

it came in with morning glories

between its teeth, or darting eyes.

We were in a natural sweat.

My health took the heat off,

but not Baudelaire's boredom

which I wasn't aware I had.

Mother couldn't allay it,

but I thought it must be happiness,

the word on everyone's lips

just before the end of the world.

And I stood on the screened porch,

looking in on the kitchen

while mother made lunch

and Tosca played on the radio,

bored to tears of happiness,

or happily sweating with boredom.

 

from the sustaining air

fresh air

There is the clarity of a shore

And shadow,   mostly,   brilliance

summer

                the billows of August

When, wandering, I look from my page

I say nothing

      when asked

I am, finally, an incompetent, after all

--Larry Eigner

 

[ Moto Moon ; Diane Birch ]

 

Dragons

--Devin Johnston

We gathered in a field southwest of town,

several hundred hauling coolers

and folding chairs along a gravel road

dry in August, two ruts of soft dust

that soaked into our clothes

and rose in plumes behind us.

By noon we could discern their massive coils

emerging from a bale of cloud,

scales scattering crescent dapples

through walnut fronds,

the light polarized, each leaf tip in focus.

As their bodies blotted out the sun,

the forest faded to silverpoint.

A current of cool air

extended from the bottomlands

an intimation of October,

and the bowl of sky deepened

its celestial archaeology.

Their tails, like banners of a vast army,

swept past Orion and his retinue

to sighs and scattered applause,

the faint wail of a child crying.

In half an hour they had passed on

in search of deep waters.

Before our company dispersed,

dust whirling in the wind,

we planned to meet again in seven years

for the next known migration.

Sunlight flashed on windshields

and caught along the riverbank

a cloudy, keeled scale

about the size of a dinner plate,

cool as blanc de Chine

in the heat of the afternoon.

 

Cold Trail

--Devin Johnston

The feeling of time derives from heat,

an agitation of molecules,

oracles from the friction of air

through fissures and the leaves of oaks.

A few gnats stitch the lake’s edge

where a fox turns off the gravel road

to nose through rhododendron

as children crawl through winter coats

to reach a closet’s dark recess.

Dawdling at the edge of sleep

you work through problems already past

though unresolved, a notional path,

a crease through heads of wild blue phlox

that waking, you can’t follow.

 

Telephone

--Devin Johnston

A mockingbird

perched on the hood

of a pay phone

half-buried in a hedge

of wild rose

and heard it ring

The clapper ball

trilled between

brass gongs

for two seconds

then wind

and then again

With head cocked

the bird took note

absorbed the ringing

deep in its throat

and frothed

an ebullient song

The leitmotif

of bright alarm

recurred in a run

from hawk

to meadowlark

from May to early June

The ringing spread

from syrinx to syrinx

from Kiowa

to Comanche to Clark

till someone

finally picked up

and heard a voice

on the other end

say Konza

or Consez or Kansa

which the French trappers

heard as Kaw

which is only the sound

of a word for wind

then only the sound of wind

 

[ Sundown ; Laura Knight (1947) ]

 

 

By the Time You Read This

--Paul Muldoon

By the time you read this I’ll be gone

for a newspaper and quart of milk

never to return, a half-mowed lawn

leading to me as a scroll of silk

once led to the mulberry silkworm.

By the time you read this I’ll be gone

AWOL in spite of the fact, in terms

of domesticity, I’ve outshone

even the heedful trumpeter swan

that spends five weeks constructing a nest.

By the time you read this I’ll be gone

less because of some profound unrest

than my fascination with the Cree

and the sandhills of Saskatchewan

into which windswept immensity,

by the time you read this, I’ll be long gone.

 

Hedgehog

--Paul Muldoon

The snail moves like a

Hovercraft, held up by a

Rubber cushion of itself,

Sharing its secret

With the hedgehog. The hedgehog

Shares its secret with no one.

We say, Hedgehog, come out

Of yourself and we will love you.

We mean no harm. We want

Only to listen to what

You have to say. We want

Your answers to our questions.

The hedgehog gives nothing

Away, keeping itself to itself.

We wonder what a hedgehog

Has to hide, why it so distrusts.

We forget the god

Under this crown of thorns.

We forget that never again

Will a god trust in the world.

 

The Glow-Worm to the Mower

--Paul Muldoon

Since you’re unlikely to astound

yourself by having more to save

than hay, small wonder you’ve not found

why wave upon successive wave

would summon, far inland, sea-sounds

from a dull scythe or sickle.

When Juliana and you downed

tools to lunch on cheese and pickles

atop the triangular mound

with its outcrop of hairy vetch

for which your meadow is renowned

it must have felt like the home stretch

to a safe harbour. Black horehound

in the sheugh … The sun a sea-gong …

All afternoon you would expound

on how a mower must be strong

while Juliana, tightly wound

as ever, slowly went off-script,

the vetch-garland with which she’s crowned

having by dusk completely slipped,

the ties by which lovers are bound

also substantially weakened.

We mourn all those poor souls who’ve drowned

because our own inconstant beacons

have led to their running aground;

bear in mind it’s by, and from, you

(and not the other way around)

we glow-worms steer and take our cue.

 

[ Butterfly Frog ; Robert Zakanitch (2001) ]

 

Let's Voyage Into The New American House

--Richard Brautigan

There are doors

that want to be free

from their hinges to

fly with perfect clouds.

There are windows

that want to be

released from their

frames to run with

the deer through

back country meadows.

There are walls

that want to prowl

with the mountains

through the early

morning dusk.

There are floors

that want to digest

their furniture into

flowers and trees.

There are roofs

that want to travel

gracefully with

the stars through

circles of darkness.

 

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace

--Richard Brautigan

I like to think (and

the sooner the better!)

of a cybernetic meadow

where mammals and computers

live together in mutually

programming harmony

like pure water

touching clear sky.

I like to think

(right now, please!)

of a cybernetic forest

filled with pines and electronics

where deer stroll peacefully

past computers

as if they were flowers

with spinning blossoms.

I like to think

(it has to be!)

of a cybernetic ecology

where we are free of our labors

and joined back to nature,

returned to our mammal

brothers and sisters,

and all watched over

by machines of loving grace.

 

A Boat

--Richard Brautigan

O beautiful

was the werewolf

in his evil forest.

We took him

to the carnival

and he started

     crying

when he saw

the Ferris wheel.

Electric

green and red tears

flowed down

his furry cheeks.

He looked

like a boat

out on the dark

water.

 

[ Zonnegloed ; Emile Claus (1905) ]

 

 

The Name of that Silence is These Grasses in the Wind

-- JJJJJerome Ellis

The name of that silence is these grasses in this wind, and the name of these grasses in this wind is that other place on the other side of this instant. This instant is divided by curtains of water and the sound of shuddering time. A sunflower reeling with sun, six hands stretched in offering. This unsearchable, uncancellable instant wraps the shoulders of the grasses like a shawl stilled by the stoppage. White pines whistle skyward. “With our beings shaped to songs of praise,” writes the fifth-century theologian Pseudo-Dionysius. “What the scripture writers have to say regarding the divine names refers, in revealing praises, to the beneficent processions of God.” What processes from the instant? Find the ceremony in every instant. “Every condition, movement, life, imagination, conjecture, name, discourse, thought, inception, being, rest, dwelling, unity, limit, infinity, the totality of existence.” What is the name of this instant? Where is the name of this instant? Swimming in the Rappahannock, clinging to the swollen belly of that ruby-throated hummingbird. 

“Bring anonymity,” writes poet Tim Lilburn.

This morning come shyly or boldly into the fertile field, however you are, come, come and stay in the rearrangement, the pressure of thumb on fescue blade, a year wheeling within a day, two round moments of warm mouth, finally at peace. The psalm is a key if only we can find the door. Do not swallow your dysfluent voice. Let it erupt in its volcanic flowering. Stoppage thence passage, aporia, poppy bursting with fragrant seed. 

 

Summer

--Conrad Aiken

Absolute zero: the locust sings:

summer’s caught in eternity’s rings:

the rock explodes, the planet dies,

we shovel up our verities.

The razor rasps across the face

and in the glass our fleeting race

lit by infinity’s lightning wink

under the thunder tries to think.

In this frail gourd the granite pours

the timeless howls like all outdoors

the sensuous moment builds a wall

open as wind, no wall at all:

while still obedient to valves and knobs

the vascular jukebox throbs and sobs

expounding hope propounding yearning

proposing love, but never learning

or only learning at zero’s gate

like summer’s locust the final hate

formless ice on a formless plain

that was and is and comes again.

 

If you smell iodine, the captain is nearby.

The pines support heaven upon their needles.

An aquamarine July strolls along the seashore,

Its ever-returning feet massaged by pebbles.

You dilute the climate with tears. Carving melons

Smells of vacation ... just as the inevitable captain.

Hello! I know this well: summer has come. Henceforth,

It will knock at my threshold. I will prepare. I change

Unnecessarily so many times each day. The soul

Immaculate gasps when you bring her to the glassy sea.

When summer ends, I will spill iodine. Let it smell,

To make the captain believe his sea is my flat.

--Lyudmyla Diadchenko (trans. Padma Thornlyre)

 

[ Landscape with a Red House ; Aristarkh Lentulov (1917) ]

 

Giving Up Reason

--Pam Rehm

It happens like this:

Majestically,

the pigeons spill down

a few steps away

on a hot summer’s day

on Broadway

jostling one another

All the dust and the mess

I’ve become

overtaken

by unevenness

Within the days

Between the hours

I’m bewildered by

all the dollars I’ve spent

on a life out of balance

when there’s all this

cosmic consciousness

within a kiss

and the 1 AM

that haunts the hand

in my pocket

searching for the key

hole

All those mistakes ago

Like everyone else,

I feed them

A few cents of bread

But it’s the thirst

no one thinks about

When I look out

YOU are

always

The landscape within

 

Acts of Love

--Pam Rehm

If endear is earned

and is meant to identify   

two halves

then it composes   

one meaning

which means   

a token

a knot   

a note

a noting in the head   

of how it feels

to have your heart   

be the dear one

 

Acts of Vexation

--Pam Rehm

The only thing under the sun

I can run to

is Ecclesiastes

for there is nothing gathered into one self

that can be kept

Want is humbled by death

as every purpose manifests it

Feeling this all my life

a piercing fright

gathers in the stomach's pit

This is it and this is not the end

of the road

for even despair is a kind of goad

to wisdom

The beauty of the world

over one's own anguish

The day that I lost all feeling

I was both a Fool and a Goddess