1.
February wakes us, its accidental music,
the hailstones drum a waltz on the roof.
Away in the desert, compact planes
shower their targets in hails of fire.
The geese crawl across the ice,
a splay-foot waltz;
Through salted streets we file by twos
through a pretty promenade of lights,
towards the Imposition of Ashes.
2.
I who have slept beside you for a year,
and swept a year of embers from the grate,
and smoothed your brow of a year of care—
hungry I sit by, and hungry I wait;
craving of you my heart’s best boon:
that I might not spend these darkening years alone.
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
February.
The footbridge rises in snow
that brocades the black ice all down the river.
I hold my cigarette up against distant chimneys
and watch it belch cloud into these fogs of Boston.
February, I am heavy, hungry,
I feel for a hold in the sogged plaster of balustrades
but sorrow is sinking its pincers into my hands.
I read in a book so white it pains my eyes
about jackfruit and Tolu balsam that heals wounds with its resin
while the sun makes a lace of the snow on the roof.
My life, a dull heap of small things.
February is perpetually arriving
cold fills its days
like a hand with water;
February, if I see your flank
I will be like the tahina palm of Madagascar
that dies as it flowers
collapsed in heavy bells.
The footbridge rises in snow
that brocades the black ice all down the river.
I hold my cigarette up against distant chimneys
and watch it belch cloud into these fogs of Boston.
February, I am heavy, hungry,
I feel for a hold in the sogged plaster of balustrades
but sorrow is sinking its pincers into my hands.
I read in a book so white it pains my eyes
about jackfruit and Tolu balsam that heals wounds with its resin
while the sun makes a lace of the snow on the roof.
My life, a dull heap of small things.
February is perpetually arriving
cold fills its days
like a hand with water;
February, if I see your flank
I will be like the tahina palm of Madagascar
that dies as it flowers
collapsed in heavy bells.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The sky whistles coldly through its teeth
hunger thrills in my limbs
like a young girl’s urge to dance
little boys in coats throw peachpits in the street
and dance in the hooded guise of Fortune
I go to the harbor
where the schooners murmur proverbs to each other
wind hems the sea’s skirts
white organdy
and blue calico
and the sea-thrushes grown fat and white
hurl their bodies high
against the tarnished moon
hunger thrills in my limbs
like a young girl’s urge to dance
little boys in coats throw peachpits in the street
and dance in the hooded guise of Fortune
I go to the harbor
where the schooners murmur proverbs to each other
wind hems the sea’s skirts
white organdy
and blue calico
and the sea-thrushes grown fat and white
hurl their bodies high
against the tarnished moon
Friday, January 15, 2010
The river slugged-up with chill,
pitted slabs of ice that caught the crates
drifting on the melt like Baltic freights.
The ivy leaves drenched
to their hair in white light.
A big pipe belching its guts under the freeze.
The white ice seems to me pressed
air, the trees shafts of cork,
the tamped earth scoured grains of rock,
myself a pouch of pipes, my hand
warm as a sparrow, feathered net of veins.
Everything made by compression. In my mouth
the history of my people is pressed in poems,
dense words hung in my dense breath white
as I walk over asphalt
washed pale in winter light.
pitted slabs of ice that caught the crates
drifting on the melt like Baltic freights.
The ivy leaves drenched
to their hair in white light.
A big pipe belching its guts under the freeze.
The white ice seems to me pressed
air, the trees shafts of cork,
the tamped earth scoured grains of rock,
myself a pouch of pipes, my hand
warm as a sparrow, feathered net of veins.
Everything made by compression. In my mouth
the history of my people is pressed in poems,
dense words hung in my dense breath white
as I walk over asphalt
washed pale in winter light.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Our city swallows the sun, brick
by brick. Acres of coiled pipes. The carts of wares
gather dust longer each year.
Our fat house bare
And pale as wax under a moon drawn taut,
Laying out its nickel plate along the street.
A hoarse chorus of trains,
black teeth in each hood.
All night I chase a phantom of the good.
I twitch like a dog, crouch, grin.
When winter comes on like a flood
Even the staid rooks thin.
In my dream, it is always Saturday morning—
Always I still the engine.
Always the reeds nod and hum
all along the barrier of south Highway One.
by brick. Acres of coiled pipes. The carts of wares
gather dust longer each year.
Our fat house bare
And pale as wax under a moon drawn taut,
Laying out its nickel plate along the street.
A hoarse chorus of trains,
black teeth in each hood.
All night I chase a phantom of the good.
I twitch like a dog, crouch, grin.
When winter comes on like a flood
Even the staid rooks thin.
In my dream, it is always Saturday morning—
Always I still the engine.
Always the reeds nod and hum
all along the barrier of south Highway One.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
guilty post
Hey, friends...
So it turns out I am definitely not in the Thoreau school of writing - I went to a little cabin in the woods, and I didn't write a word. After a lot of internal debate I have decided to just pick up where I left off, since writing four extra would be deceitful (the idea was a poem a day, after all). And since I don't want to just stop writing this blog, I will just call it a late Christmas/Chanukah hiatus, beat my breast four extra times on Yom Kippur, and go on with it. I know breaks are for real bloggers and not just one-year projects, but... well... I don't know. I lasted for over 100 straight poem-a-days; I think the goal of "until the end of the academic year" means well over 120 more, around 130, I looked it up once, I'll have to again... but at any rate... I'm going to keep going with it, and not sweat the small stuff too much, and not give up. Words of encouragement/rage, readership?
Here's a muddled just-came-back-from-the-woods poem.
When I go to the quiet, I expect to find
poetry—mannered
well-chosen solitude.
Instead a creak mumbles up snow-laden stumps
and fades. Out of the green needles,
howling, out the river, steam,
laughter in its long tongue.
And the four of us tramping
in full gear after a patch-eyed mutt.
To seek silence
you have to press on and out—
the top of the mountain swept with ice.
Even there something sways and hungers,
hungers and burrows,
burrows and dies, with a last heave of the flank.
When we stepped in
the snow hit our hips—we sank.
We bit hard, drummed it into mounds,
didn’t count what we burned to keep warm.
The red-ruffed hound thrust her snout into our palms.
Somewhere here a birch bares its neck
swept clean. Each branch like a wire
red-papered with light.
Here I am fleeced and stout
watching a quiet thing, its skin damp as linen.
The wind is heavy as a mastiff’s breath--
heavy, quiet. In dull boots, in a wild glade,
in sun-gutted snow the cold will clench,
I too, round, restless,
round, easy, am close to death.
So it turns out I am definitely not in the Thoreau school of writing - I went to a little cabin in the woods, and I didn't write a word. After a lot of internal debate I have decided to just pick up where I left off, since writing four extra would be deceitful (the idea was a poem a day, after all). And since I don't want to just stop writing this blog, I will just call it a late Christmas/Chanukah hiatus, beat my breast four extra times on Yom Kippur, and go on with it. I know breaks are for real bloggers and not just one-year projects, but... well... I don't know. I lasted for over 100 straight poem-a-days; I think the goal of "until the end of the academic year" means well over 120 more, around 130, I looked it up once, I'll have to again... but at any rate... I'm going to keep going with it, and not sweat the small stuff too much, and not give up. Words of encouragement/rage, readership?
Here's a muddled just-came-back-from-the-woods poem.
When I go to the quiet, I expect to find
poetry—mannered
well-chosen solitude.
Instead a creak mumbles up snow-laden stumps
and fades. Out of the green needles,
howling, out the river, steam,
laughter in its long tongue.
And the four of us tramping
in full gear after a patch-eyed mutt.
To seek silence
you have to press on and out—
the top of the mountain swept with ice.
Even there something sways and hungers,
hungers and burrows,
burrows and dies, with a last heave of the flank.
When we stepped in
the snow hit our hips—we sank.
We bit hard, drummed it into mounds,
didn’t count what we burned to keep warm.
The red-ruffed hound thrust her snout into our palms.
Somewhere here a birch bares its neck
swept clean. Each branch like a wire
red-papered with light.
Here I am fleeced and stout
watching a quiet thing, its skin damp as linen.
The wind is heavy as a mastiff’s breath--
heavy, quiet. In dull boots, in a wild glade,
in sun-gutted snow the cold will clench,
I too, round, restless,
round, easy, am close to death.
Friday, January 1, 2010
The new year rattles in
like an electric train,
baying at seven hundred volts.
Last night I dreamed I was a bat
in Polish caves lined with salt,
or dizzy against obsidian.
I slice open a garlic bulb
to its pungent heart.
I put a dollop of snow in the pot.
The grass is fragrant under its coat,
the horse-chestnuts mumble against one another.
A good evening to be alone
in a body full of so many long corridors.
I can feel the seam of myself—the scar
on my belly—hot and chapped,
the smoke alarm sings
to my sizzling lima beans.
I want to keep dancing, learning languages.
House, body, settling themselves loudly
in half-light veined with the bare limbs of trees.
like an electric train,
baying at seven hundred volts.
Last night I dreamed I was a bat
in Polish caves lined with salt,
or dizzy against obsidian.
I slice open a garlic bulb
to its pungent heart.
I put a dollop of snow in the pot.
The grass is fragrant under its coat,
the horse-chestnuts mumble against one another.
A good evening to be alone
in a body full of so many long corridors.
I can feel the seam of myself—the scar
on my belly—hot and chapped,
the smoke alarm sings
to my sizzling lima beans.
I want to keep dancing, learning languages.
House, body, settling themselves loudly
in half-light veined with the bare limbs of trees.
happy new year's
The new year fizzes in.
A little part of us dies, but we order dessert.
A starlet gives a concert in the snow—
All her limbs show.
Not even the trees look as naked to me.
Me, I’ll be singing the blues til I have no body.
Then—well, they say vocal chords are string—
so I can sing on anything.
A Steinway or a beetle wing.
The wind rushes down like a deep cough.
Forty winters--never enough.
A little part of us dies, but we order dessert.
A starlet gives a concert in the snow—
All her limbs show.
Not even the trees look as naked to me.
Me, I’ll be singing the blues til I have no body.
Then—well, they say vocal chords are string—
so I can sing on anything.
A Steinway or a beetle wing.
The wind rushes down like a deep cough.
Forty winters--never enough.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
did i mention, onslaught of winter imagery?
I'm trying to have these poems reflect the reality of my days more.
Incidentally, 7 more til 100, 2 more days til I am HOME FOR BREAK WOOT
Dec. 19, 2009
The river white as glazed fat
or frosted glass. The last runners
hot-footing it up the bank.
News of a storm pulled up the east
on a gurney of wind, snarling
planes, sinking its teeth
into the hapless grilles.
The air here clean, slumped grass
hung with frost. You say, “Poor birds,
they're outside all the time!” And point
to the poufed tweed and red tie
of the robin sidling down a crabbed bough.
Shrunk berries draped
over a stone urn. The sky blushes dark
towards a night of rank weather.
Through a window
myrtle canes in a glass vase,
hot light poured
over a woman's palms.
Incidentally, 7 more til 100, 2 more days til I am HOME FOR BREAK WOOT
Dec. 19, 2009
The river white as glazed fat
or frosted glass. The last runners
hot-footing it up the bank.
News of a storm pulled up the east
on a gurney of wind, snarling
planes, sinking its teeth
into the hapless grilles.
The air here clean, slumped grass
hung with frost. You say, “Poor birds,
they're outside all the time!” And point
to the poufed tweed and red tie
of the robin sidling down a crabbed bough.
Shrunk berries draped
over a stone urn. The sky blushes dark
towards a night of rank weather.
Through a window
myrtle canes in a glass vase,
hot light poured
over a woman's palms.
Friday, December 11, 2009
please please just bear with me through reading period
they'll get better, i promise!!!
-
Winter’s giving out its poor largesse
and I write poems everywhere,
sluggishly, gumming up tissues with humors,
skin raw as new iron.
All the little claw-trees gesture
hung with fitful lights,
and all night I sit in a drafty room
watching the girls pass on the salted street.
-
Winter’s giving out its poor largesse
and I write poems everywhere,
sluggishly, gumming up tissues with humors,
skin raw as new iron.
All the little claw-trees gesture
hung with fitful lights,
and all night I sit in a drafty room
watching the girls pass on the salted street.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
it's international dense love poem week!
JK, that week is only celebrated on this blog.
---
The last rhododendrons go filmy with rot
at the edge of the path while the greenhouse roses preen.
All the stone monks on the church wall sing atonement--
perfect new Os of frost in their mouths.
Since I saw Carmen at twelve I've known to look
in the hearts of roses for lascivious intent.
Somewhere too an alabaster girl is weeping.
She lays it at the feet of those musk-flushed bells.
I hark to the keen drawing-in of breath
that's winter arriving, those old leaves
a little silt of paper at my feet,
that trunk like a black cloth
perpetually wrung.
Soon the pavestones will shrink
pitted and starred with salt.
Nodding too I go and wait.
Nodding too my unwept love is stirring.
---
The last rhododendrons go filmy with rot
at the edge of the path while the greenhouse roses preen.
All the stone monks on the church wall sing atonement--
perfect new Os of frost in their mouths.
Since I saw Carmen at twelve I've known to look
in the hearts of roses for lascivious intent.
Somewhere too an alabaster girl is weeping.
She lays it at the feet of those musk-flushed bells.
I hark to the keen drawing-in of breath
that's winter arriving, those old leaves
a little silt of paper at my feet,
that trunk like a black cloth
perpetually wrung.
Soon the pavestones will shrink
pitted and starred with salt.
Nodding too I go and wait.
Nodding too my unwept love is stirring.
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