Category: Poem of the Week

In memoriam Tennyson said
Nine years of things about his friend
Who’d died. He brought him back by slow
Degrees, from sunsets, wind in the trees,

Gathering pieces painstakingly.
Tennyson, in his purity,
He never lied, never missed his line.
Grief became him metrically.

It made him blind. All he could see
Was Hallam’s absence: the whole world
A cancelled cheque, crumpled and furled,
Unspent inside his pocketbook.

There its yellowing edges curled
Until his friend crept out, imbued
Everything and made it new.
At second look, he saw it through

Lost eyes, and it was dearer far
Than it had been before. A borrowed
Death does that for you. Your own cannot.
We each will miss the lesson that

We’ve taught. Compassion is what we learn
From those who die and don’t return.
Grief gives us that hitch in the eye,
Catching on things as they pass by.

Today my ski boots disintegrated on my feet.
It is getting more difficult to play
the role of The Adorable Little Boy
now, and I will confirm what most of you
have suspected: I am ill,
I have the distinct sensation that my head
is donut-shaped. But don’t let that
stop me from wriggling my way
into your hearts, those of you
who are not empty blue suits.
I am still very aware, I am hyper-aware.
A beautiful ass makes me sneeze and cough!
But now I suspect you are looking for something
and here it is: Pliny described trees that speak.

I

I am not going to sing.
A temple existed for real,
its stairs are solid

the gods, unwilling to
let go of it,
danced,
then decided to die …

leaving behind
them,
although barbaric,
a sun that we loved.

In the sealed obscurity of the brain
plants grow,
and fish swim,
while we think we’re seeing
landscapes, and looking
at the sea.

we will not know if life is reversible
but written in the pain
a joy that hurts

even more,
as in the heart’s desertion
memory’s fingerprint.

1. follow me out of the backdoor of the world.

2. how do you tell someone that they are helping you stay tuned into life?

3. what does it mean that her first breath was also her last?

4. i am so sad that i burrow into the absence of every boy who has held me.

5. i kiss him knowing that when i wake up i will be in a body differently.

6. the future is already over, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have anywhere else to go.

winter water blue melt backlit
life suddenly in thin chemise
steadfast
in questions and old silences

in the puzzle of proper nouns
and barking city: February
slow eyelashes that beckon to love
and spinning tops

foliage of word for word
gentleness that evades meaning
plunge into the dark
with metronome

I’d have liked to go to the corner
café, to watch the cold file by while I’m
in the warm, or even to make love …
but bombs are raining down on Baghdad

this evening, my friends, I’m going to bed
early because the dark is too thick. I’ll try,
contrary to what’s usual in dreams, not to let
myself be carried by waves, nor hunt
for my key. I’m going to try to sleep,
I believe, as children do

there’s a time in autumn when the
trees change their nature, and
wake up beyond
matter; then one sees them come back to
their ordinary selves