--Matthew RohrerWe are even more modernwe are freenot to knowpining piningtil the trees are intheir autumn beautywho knows whywe are freean LP of poetryleft on in the apartmentwhile I walk my loveto the subwayshe turns to goldin the light banking offthe ball-fieldsand to have to thinkof that smallpale body asleepI return I take the stairs3 at a timeand now my heart is sore
If you, Tom, could see this inflight video mapof the world turning wildly on its axisyou would not, I think, be mad, though it is noton paper, and that is what you do, but it isa useful thing to see the earth twisted up like this;it is our minds that are twisted, and youare twisted too around a spoon, and drunk, I’m sureby now, like me, past Newfoundland’s shorewith other peoples’ wine and dotted linesto Bruxelles where I will only beto switch planes, but you, I think, first wentthere of all the other places you’ve been,gobbling up the light as you went,sending presents wrapped in maps.
--Matthew RohrerHeartbroken over a football game, Autumnevening, of this kind of thing I'm not ashamednor of the twistiness of that diction,or wanting America to burnthough only certain parts deserve it,its forests are beautiful and have donenothing wrong, even the desert's emptinessthough it terrifies me, is beautiful,and tacos, and kebabs wrapped up in naan,and today walking through the park I turnedto see dozens of bright white seagulls flockedon the windy lake against the blue skyand I felt an ache and I sent a textto a friend I said TODAY I SAW FLOCKEDON THE LAKE WHITE SEAGULLS IT WAS BEAUTIFULhe wrote FOLLOW THEM it was too late
--Louise BoganCome, let us tell the weeds in ditchesHow we are poor, who once had riches,And lie out in the sparse and soddenPastures that the cows have trodden,The while an autumn night seals downThe comforts of the wooden town.Come, let us counsel some cold strangerHow we sought safety, but loved danger.So, with stiff walls about us, weChose this more fragile boundary:Hills, where light poplars, the firm oak,Loosen into a little smoke.
--Louise BoganThe cold remote islandsAnd the blue estuariesWhere what breathes, breathesThe restless wind of the inlets,And what drinks, drinksThe incoming tide;Where shell and weedWait upon the salt wash of the sea,And the clear nights of starsSwing their lights westwardTo set behind the land;Where the pulse clinging to the rocksRenews itself forever;Where, again on cloudless nights,The water reflectsThe firmament's partial setting;—O rememberIn your narrowing dark hoursThat more things moveThan blood in the heart.
--Louise BoganThe landscape where I lieAgain from boughs sets freeSummer; all night must flyIn wind’s obscurityThe thick, green leaves that madeHeavy the August shade.Soon, in the pictured night,Returns — as in a dreamLeft after sleep’s delight —The shallow autumn stream:Softly awake, its soundPoured on the chilly ground.Soon fly the leaves in throngs;O love, though once I layFar from its sound, to weep,When night divides my sleep,When stars, the autumn stream,Stillness, divide my dream,Night to your voice belongs.
--Susan HoweI wander about as an exileas a body does a shadowA notion of split referenceif in silence hidden by darknessthere must be a GhostIconic theory of metaphora sound and perfect voiceIts hiding is understoodReader I do not wish to hidein you to hide from youIt is the Word to whom she turnsTrue submission and subjectionWere Protestant dissentersWho walk along this roadWho knows better than you knowI remember the strangersNot finding names thereImmanence is white with thisWhere to find chargesA hymn was contesting a claimCourt of interior recollectionMap of a wilderness of sinThere I cannot find thereI cannot hear your wandering prayerof quiet
--Susan Howe1.age of earth and us all chatteringa sentence or charactersuddenlysteps out to seek for truth failsfallsinto a stream of ink Sequencetrails offmust go onwaving fables and faces Wardoings of the warmanoeuvering between pointsbetweenany two points which iswhat we want (issues at stake)bearings and soholes in a cloud are minutes passingwhich iswhichview odds of images swept rag-tagsilver and greyepitomesseconds forgeries engender(are blue) or blackerflocks of words flying together tenseas an ordercast off to crows
--Susan HoweThe pastwill overtakealien forceour houseformedof my mindto enterexplorerin a forestof myselffor allmy learningSolitudequietand quieterfringeof treesby a riverbridges blackon the deepthe heaving seaa watcher standsto see her shipwinging awayThick noisesmerge in moonlightdark ripplesdissolvinganddefiningspheresandsnaresPlace of importance as in the old daysstood on the ramparts of the fortthe open sea outsidealone with water-birds and cattleknee-deep in a streamgrove of reedsherons watching from the bankhengeswhole fields honeycombed with souterrainshumanbones through the gloomwhose sudden mouthsurrounded my facea thread of blue around the coastfeathery mooneternity swallows up timepeaceable as foamO cabbage gardenssummer’s elegysunset survived
--Mathew RohrerIf you, Tom, could see this inflight video mapof the world turning wildly on its axisyou would not, I think, be mad, though it is noton paper, and that is what you do, but it isa useful thing to see the earth twisted up like this;it is our minds that are twisted, and youare twisted too around a spoon, and drunk, I’m sureby now, like me, past Newfoundland’s shorewith other peoples’ wine and dotted linesto Bruxelles where I will only beto switch planes, but you, I think, first wentthere of all the other places you’ve been,gobbling up the light as you went,sending presents wrapped in maps.
Its a Nice Day for a Nice DayMorning holds to nothing, its all agopartially recalled throughwindows onlooking clarity, constant optionsfrom doors opened to silent airways,moss with the sort of sobriety laidover old forgotten stone pathsthat usher the dew born passingfrom disorderly light wornfrom weary stars and equally so, a sound,a luring invertebral tone,a disbursement made while it toils overand over a swell of its very owndisplay of audible thought, maneuveringto find out what is memorial,what lasts after what was when partially gone,what we inevitably rely upon,for better or worse, as humidity rises upwardwhile in the midst only our own selvesregarded more in the past and the futurethan the alacrity of the present,how backwards and overly protective,the house on the lawn stirringmore widespread than any singular steptoward any intended directionand of course sweet dreams get lostin their own circumstances,and it stands that vision has no homewithin familiar surroundings,and what of the message deterioratingat the moment of deliveryon a hillside, over a horizon, blinded bythe sun vaporized daily whenall that's together are cambrian photons,color imbued shapes within everycreature ever known to have emerged, suchas you, and me, so briefly, delightful.
--Robert Mitchum (after fishing with H. Bogart)Rising early to beat the heata little dry from last night’s booze.We’re soon out miles from land wherethe big fish roam under the sunand stars, undisturbed by time’swave-measured march.Slicing bonito for bait, the blood isred against all the blue. Blue aboveand below. The hook, hungering formeat, shines blue in my hand asI drop its feathered plume into the wake.We drink beer and wait for the line to sing,rattling off the reel like a runaway train,tightening under the drag, burning the leather stop.The marlin leaps, its bill skewering the sky,carves and dances in the blue, then twists and dives.The rod quivers in the belt. Leather biting my backI reel and pull, the marlin leaps again,I heave forward and rare back as firesweat and salt gather on my skinA moment’s slack, a shake, the fish is free.Why aren’t all losses as lovely as this?Quien sabe?”
--Greg KuzmaNow one of my riches is it’s summer.It is hard to admit to the so much I have,it is hard to keep track of it, tomake good, to keep it from running from me,to keep it from growing confused in itswaiting, or from getting hardened to whatseems like my neglect. I know that withso much, though I will try to have it all,witness it all, and be in on the harvestof my things, that I will fall to the groundin dismay, and rot there like the whatthat now blows clean and hopeful in the fields.
--Greg KuzmaSo much that is weak has survivedand lives out its long wondrous dayswith only the least of annoyance.The grim and holy, the loud and reckless,pass them, making their great surfacedisruptions. So much that is weak andslight has bloomed beneath the dark browof the storm. Rage, rage, or whisper,everything fades. The tall trees of theyard, the small dry walnut shells.
--Greg KuzmaIt is morning.We are building the ruin of another day.And are hard at it.Muscles deflect the sun,the rain is burning off,and now the wind rises.Who would have thoughtwe would get this far,into our nearly middle age.We who have thought theworld would let us comeright up to the present crisis.Whatever the allowance iswe spend it.We lean and groan, the sea,far off, leans and groans.Birds skitter past us, trees bend,and the wind advises.
