The Bookstore

the kingfisher

to Charles Olson

once the blue flame
had caught in my throat –
a hundred years of having cross-
walked through the thorn & the turbine
indoctrinated w/every wind’s whim
dribbled out on my bib
in a luxurious rust:
not one death but many
the sun the same failure
that some golden age once had tested for
while out in the courtyard
w/their knees bruised & bent
so exquisitely backwards
a sentence they eventually survive
w/eyedroppers of mettle & irony
I hunt among stones
where the shadows have long been
trying to enter their side of our story

practice

to Bill Knott

lately I’m good for maybe
five or six lines
then ellipses:
these tiniest of stones
reminding me
how the poet in front of
the white page
always makes for
the most obvious of targets

that unspeakable hour

to Gary Widger

noon & the clouds collide 

noon & some sun but not
eyed or even owed its own line 

noon went on & on & on, no?

noon there’s more hell
in the telling of it

noon I won’t abide in your chill anymore

noon I’m no longer emboldened
by my own sighs or anyone else’s 

noon because your light’s such a hard sell

noon & gone is the frost
that interpreted the world

noon it wasn’t the cold that I lied

noon where I’ve confided
the last of my farewells

noon how my bones have always tried me

noon & I’ve shut my eyes
on all that I held dear

noon where even death sleeps off time

decoys

it’s the animal’s way of saying
you’re welcome or lookee right here
at these worms made of sticks
& these deer made of sticks too

unlike when their words came in bunches
dropped like babies on the new snow
or were arranged in the sky like some
cherub w/the chubbiest of cheeks

now this one here’s lit from within
while those others are bowed
their hair blown by some engine
or are each of their heads now a hat?

& next come the boats again
bringing w/them that new day
when our throats will be blest w/more vowels
& we’ll sic the best of our gods on them again