inspiration

[novapsyche]

Some poets I read last night: James Tate, Nick Flynn, John Ashbery.

Reading their work inspired these three poems.


The Reality of the World

The voice that liberates
sweetens the daffodils. The calico

undulates near the weathervane:
the wild violets sparkle in her paws.

The day moves in earnest.
Men shift in their suspenders,

coal breath, cotton breath,
atomic breath. Tobacco ripens.

The shirt and tie get grimy.
Heat. Labor. The atomic farm

grows dusty, curls up like a pillbug.
The worms are wisest, shacking up

with the origin of the universe,
the mouth, the tail, the marvelous organ.


Observation

Our knowledge builds on each other,
licensures and melodies from the past
cropped on top of each other successively.
It was never like this in the dream,
only in reality. Only in a gelatinous
curvature of earth could this truly exist,

this trace metal and protein shaken
into being, this sweetening of atmosphere.
Heroes are born here. The hillsides are rimpled
with the glistening of memories, and we are had.


Confession #9

The tremors wither me to a spinster.
At night, I rock myself and wobble
like a dowsing rod. Shall I certify?
Should terror splinter me into a thousand girls,

warbling like drunk parrots? The wise water
becomes a swallowed refrain.
The bones will wilt, marrow thin and anemic,
a harem unswollen, no member at rest,

nerves awry. The future music
worries with its bell and guitar,
its unfriendly warning, the cynical chime,
the sweetness of going toward certain danger.