Poetry |
from On Dangerous Ground: Film Noir Poems
“Poetry and film noir both often rely on set formats, manipulate narrative coherency, and proceed by implication. As for the doomed film noir protagonist, it is not unusual for him, and it is usually him, to have the temperament of a thwarted poet …”
Poetry |
“The Known Consequence of Living” & “Defining or Defying Gravity”
“In the hierarchy of all I don’t know / about the world, invisible force / is in the upper echelons. / I should have leaned harder / into geology or biology / or archeology for rocks / & blood & bones to touch.?
Poetry |
“Death Was My Doula”
“The priest at my wedding / crossed our marriage and last rites in a two-for-one special / with a wink and promise to see our favorite guests again / before the year was out.”
Poetry |
“Why I Am Not a Mother” & “Inheritance”
“She improved everything / she touched, re-hemming her skirts with // lace, replacing the plain blue buttons / on a winter coat with a set of red leather, / twisted to fashionable knots.”
Poetry |
“April 9th, 1965, Appomattox”
“I lived not far away in Lynchburg / where my friends identified me as ‘Yankee’ / since I was born in the north and had lived there / for a while …”
Poetry |
“Exercise Path Off the Lackawanna River Heritage Trail“
“But does / our distanced bond / with nature, along with / a shift in focus / so far from where we are, / mean we already seek answers / elsewhere?”
Poetry |
“Five Ways of Being Alone,” “Sunday Morning, March 13, 2022” & “Rules for the Dance”
“He can never get the help / that would help him feel / the help that he never received. // And therefore he / is beyond help.”
Poetry |
“Entering the Genome” & “Dirge for a Dying Barn”
“The DNA comes back / whispering secrets / you can’t connect / to anything you know.”
Poetry |
“Little Soul Contemplates Skin as the Largest Organ of the Body”
“I wanted to be heard by // everyone in my life exactly as I / sounded to myself, wing, singing, but the words / kept imploding like the fragile / soap bubbles I tried to blow gently / to the top of our elm …”
Poetry |
“The Libyan Poet Recites in Brighton, Massachusetts Before He Is Prepped for Surgery”
“Would our bus stop take him / To St. Elizabeth’s in the morning? / Scheduled for the anaesthesiologist, / He said “abdomen” as if I could understand.”
Poetry |
“First Haircut” & “Scientists Overlooked the Snake Clitoris, Until Now”
“I looked down at the wisps that still held the shape / of curls, the small tunnels of hair I’d finger on my head / to distract myself from whatever was going on …”
Poetry |
“Leaving Childhood” & “At the County Fair”
“Suddenly, I felt sad for the hardness / of polished floors where things hit and break, / get swept up, tossed in the trash, not left // where they fall, to be buried under / layers of earth …”
Poetry |
“I Dream About Buying a Gun”
“I don’t want to hurt anybody, / I don’t want to cause sorrow or pain. / I don’t want to kill my enemies, / but I dream about buying a gun.”
Poetry |
“After Reading Bashō, I Remember the Rain”
“I found a quail’s nest under sage plants near the house / woven, I think, while we were traveling, / & the yard seemed abandoned. // The hen burst out under a torrent of hose-water / I unknowingly sprayed into the leaves.”
Poetry |
“Reading Nadezhda Mandelstam in Virgin Islands National Park”
“Every trinket and provision and provocation arrives / By ships riding over sunken ships few remember. / The sea turtles surface for air only when it is safe. / Time is boats rocking their length against waves.”