September - Poem 8
The moon must be behind the black clouds / Laura Bandy
Blood is red and
the lips. And light
is blue, and the eyelids.
And milk is white
and the neck.
—Brigit Kelly, from “Sundays”
Color hits different in Switzerland, shades seeming
to portend more in such a pretty place. Maybe
reductive to say “pretty” when what you mean is
impossible. Impossible that such a space
exists at all, from fern green Alps to lapis blue
of Lac Léman which splits France from Switzerland, sun
gold lattice on the waves in daylight, moon salt white
in night’s shadow. From her balcony in Lausanne,
Silvia lifts her camera over violin
wine from the vineyard of a friend who assures
pinot vintage sublimity, a deep ruby
grape, by playing his Amati to winery
vines, lulling them to sleep. There is Gruyere cheese
too, and rosemary cracker crisps butter yellow
dotted with needle leaves that snap cleanly to share.
Here is not there, here is not there: back home where all
our history’s shame is seeping up republic’s
stew pot, suet floating the surface, translucent
grease hardening. When Silvia moves to shoot her
moon snaps, a pitch-black veil smothers the light, like a
tablecloth shaken out to rid of crumbs, dust: then
lowered over America’s table to cloak
all manner of nicks and spills. She unstraps Leica,
places it on the small stone bench, coin gray, stable,
all that will fit on this narrow terrace beyond
three thin metal seats. Across the water, house lights
waver as candles clutched by a child’s choir
on Heilige Nacht, an eve most holy. Silvia
says what must be said but is not sad at the loss.
Over 85 years she has taken many
pictures from many balconies at night and knows
how the moon comes and goes, waxes and wanes, even blurs
so that our eye can’t decide—silver, blood, oblivion?
The Undoing of Fruit / Alicia Boemi
She rises high as an apple in a tree; and
five weightless petals fall from her—
one, two,
three, four,
and five.
Pastel, purple in hues—
she’s ripe, sweet, and waiting to be undone.
She’s shedding not only thorns; but also
her head.
It’s fallen to the wayside like a tossed pome core.
Rosey are her cheeks as she starts to tumble down.
There she goes,
she’s on the ground.
Bruised, cut, with seeping brown around her wounds.
She’ll live like this,
until teeth,
sink themselves into her juicy flesh.
Not For One Moment the Memory of Eternal Summer / Jesse DeLong
Cento Titles and Lines from Wetherington, Anzaldúa, Groff, Groff, Vuong, Hart, Tokarczuk translated by Croft, Als, Swensen, Shakespeare, Lundy Martin, Tolbert, Okada, Cowles, Leilani, Boully, Choi, Joudah, Ford, Sharma, Persson, Wetherington, Long Soldier, Göransson, Ali, Ko, Alam, Plumly,
This is not a love story.
The winter is a sheet of parchment
that the small feet of birds, of vixens, of hares write upon—
ruin without location, like language.
Few of the hues survived.
What part of the heart believes, and what part is certain that none of it is true?
He knew enough about love—or, more specifically, about its offers and denials,
the sound of a letter slipping out of an envelope.
There’s rosemary/ there’s fennel/ there’s rue/ there’s a daisy
and we, here, amid a failure of images.
Even the body has become a gift we regret.
He had to light a match in the dark hallway to see the faded 2-B on the door.
There is always a door.
He says, I’m sorry, I was having a rough year.
Perhaps the aubade is, in fact, only a convention.
A woman named always
dreams of a scored white pill.
She drifted, all shadowy black silk,
like two magicians in someone else’s window.
The heart is like water,
flowers are a certain color,
how a comma can tip a phrase into sentimentality.
Another map: rotten fruit, my body, words in Swedish pop songs—
three moods in one day.
Think of other words/ not for you to know.
Clarifying in the way of orgasm.
Who am I, we sometimes ask ourselves, to have a life?
Acts of Resistance / Shelly Krehbiel
“Pray,” they said, and I laughed, covering myself
in the earth’s brightness, then stole off gray
into the midst of a revel, and prayed like an orphan.”
--Wendell Berry, “The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer”
If butterflies dance at the edge of the field, why do I ask them to come closer?
Why must I want to see the swallowtails land on the last of my own lantana,
then soar up past me into the giant fir trees? What is this need
to make the unspoken mine? I never have words
when you ask them from me - when you say the greatest praise is to beg for mercy.
Trees pray.
And sunlight.
The deepest, deepest earth,
the soil still being born
from dung, from rotting
branches and spiders.
Let decay ring out.
Once I danced at the edge of the field amazed as something like holy found me there, sky everywhere,
ocean so far beyond I could only dream it, dream running to taste the salt spray on my face.
Noise crashes
around me, but still
I dip my hand
to touch the rocky pools.
Somehow, I trust
the words of silent
anemones and urchins.
Words I will never speak.
I give them back to the deep away – the deep always – even here in this cacophony, especially here.
Let this be prayer.
Let butterflies dance along the edge.
How to be a poet, / rob mclennan
Forget everything, words. Nothing much to expect. Forget speech. Hold on to the hollow. One simple question, repeated. Wrap, your fingers. The magic of water. It falls.
Digital Preservation / Piper Rasmussen
File size; Operation: Greater than; Values: 1000000 [bytes]
Safe_Forever_HowTo.fmv
roll it
.Full Motion Video
a film = a thousand pictures = a million words
.Filesize Maiden Veil
why is this smaller
where did she
why can't I open a
.Fix My Version
find an emulator
who makes
.Forever Maintaining Vitae
put in a grant request
hire a team. Passive file monitoring, byte by
.Fair Market Value
kilobyte = a thousand = a small subscription fee
.Find My Version
= Amazon Web Services
.Finesse MoVe
record: 2 kB
record: 1 kB
record: [error]memory: free
the coal mine canaries' revenge / Connor Simons
the living say:
is it dead?
yup, it’s dead.
shit.
guess we’ll try another shaft.
i guess so.
the canaries say:
imagine a body that is meant for flight and peck
each feather and curve made perfect for seed
and sky the type of body that artists see the secret
of light in that poets come back to again and again
imagine seeing our yellow a yellow that only belongs
to us one of one hundred and forty-five and needing
to cram that yellow into a lightless space where air
isn’t stale it’s stone you’ve forgotten us before
you turn away to the next task just a dead bird
a part of work you need to know something
important the forgotten things come back as in
the hidden waters flying downhill to eat your home
Twin Peaks Watch / Veronica Vo
Josie turned into wood
and the little man danced on her deathbed.
Lying in a field the next day, I listen
to ambient sounds and try to find
meaning in the moment.
Life can be beautiful as long
as you’re not too desperate for it,
not too desperate to understand it.
The Fire in the Boiler of My Heart/ Melinda Wilson
Dies down, loses steam. Imagine –
being halfway through any of life’s hard things.
Labor. The baby’s head and shoulders
|are out, but I’m quitting now. Walking
away from the mess.
But the mess always
follows. Or midway through any of the not
so hard tasks, the shouldn’t be so damn hard
tasks. Getting dressed, for example. I have
my legs in the leg holes of these pants, but I can’t
muster enough motion to get my arms in the shirt.
Imagine. I am halfway to the airport,
the plane is midmost in its ascent through the clouds.
We both turn around.
I am halfway through my life with you.
I am midway through my life,
and the fire in the boiler of my heart
begins to wane. This task of living left
incomplete.
