andreasgripp.com
some poetry by Andreas Gripp
all poems © 2009 - 2011 Andreas Gripp
some poetry by Andreas Gripp
all poems © 2009 - 2011 Andreas Gripp
And Then There Was Light
With your hands wrist-deep
in fertile soil,
you tell me your daughter passed away
at break of dawn,
on a day that our star
rose without hindering cloud;
and you mused that early morning,
before you sadly went and found her,
stiff as a petrified trunk
and her unblinking eyes
locked upon the ceiling,
that to call it “sun” is a misnomer,
for it’s connected to Mother Earth,
and either “u” or “o”, it says the same
masculine thing.
It’s the female
that reproduces,
you said, gives seeds
a place to call home.
“Daughter,” you decreed,
call it Daughter.
It will surely love us more
and our weeping will be greater
on the days it isn’t there.
taken from Anathema: Poems Selected & New
(original version found in T.O. Loveless &
other poems)
With your hands wrist-deep
in fertile soil,
you tell me your daughter passed away
at break of dawn,
on a day that our star
rose without hindering cloud;
and you mused that early morning,
before you sadly went and found her,
stiff as a petrified trunk
and her unblinking eyes
locked upon the ceiling,
that to call it “sun” is a misnomer,
for it’s connected to Mother Earth,
and either “u” or “o”, it says the same
masculine thing.
It’s the female
that reproduces,
you said, gives seeds
a place to call home.
“Daughter,” you decreed,
call it Daughter.
It will surely love us more
and our weeping will be greater
on the days it isn’t there.
taken from Anathema: Poems Selected & New
(original version found in T.O. Loveless &
other poems)
Saturday
The backyard birds
have competition.
I came here
to hear them,
their morning melody,
rousing like a symphony
with a wind-blown branch
as baton,
small and so frail,
severed off a tree
by a sunrise gust
from the south.
The men next door
are re-roofing their house,
hammering shingles
while their radio blares
a wicked country brew:
a cacophony of twang
and Texas drawl,
with she’s-a leavin’ me
behind in muh tears
accompanied by their raucous
talk and the snap
of beer-in-a-can.
I pluck weeds from the garden,
ears straining
for the inimitable notes
of nature,
wishing the robins
could drown
the pedal steel,
the pedestrian
commercial pap,
that their crescendo
devour
the chorus of nails
and woe-is-me,
stain the fresh-laid black
with white
when they are finished.
taken from Anathema: Poems
Selected & New (original version
found in The Lesser Light)
The backyard birds
have competition.
I came here
to hear them,
their morning melody,
rousing like a symphony
with a wind-blown branch
as baton,
small and so frail,
severed off a tree
by a sunrise gust
from the south.
The men next door
are re-roofing their house,
hammering shingles
while their radio blares
a wicked country brew:
a cacophony of twang
and Texas drawl,
with she’s-a leavin’ me
behind in muh tears
accompanied by their raucous
talk and the snap
of beer-in-a-can.
I pluck weeds from the garden,
ears straining
for the inimitable notes
of nature,
wishing the robins
could drown
the pedal steel,
the pedestrian
commercial pap,
that their crescendo
devour
the chorus of nails
and woe-is-me,
stain the fresh-laid black
with white
when they are finished.
taken from Anathema: Poems
Selected & New (original version
found in The Lesser Light)
Raking Leaves with Anneliese
She holds open
translucent bags
as I heave
loads of coloured
leaves
into their crinkled,
plastic mouths
like a backhoe
dropping dirt
into a pit.
The Stasi
took my father
into the night,
she firmly sighs.
I sent letters
to the prison
but I never heard
a word.
I note golden,
scarlet foliage,
fallen
like unpicked apples.
Some have twisting
worms, limp
as flimsy laces
on my loosely-knotted
shoes.
She says mother
stays in sackcloth,
with a veil
that never lifts
in public places.
November’s
biting wind
scatters half
our work away,
our faces
turning numb
in waning light.
taken from Anathema: Poems
Selected & New (original version
found in Beads on Blossoms)
She holds open
translucent bags
as I heave
loads of coloured
leaves
into their crinkled,
plastic mouths
like a backhoe
dropping dirt
into a pit.
The Stasi
took my father
into the night,
she firmly sighs.
I sent letters
to the prison
but I never heard
a word.
I note golden,
scarlet foliage,
fallen
like unpicked apples.
Some have twisting
worms, limp
as flimsy laces
on my loosely-knotted
shoes.
She says mother
stays in sackcloth,
with a veil
that never lifts
in public places.
November’s
biting wind
scatters half
our work away,
our faces
turning numb
in waning light.
taken from Anathema: Poems
Selected & New (original version
found in Beads on Blossoms)
Nine
There’s a beauty to our numbers
that I note with admiration:
the shape of cipher 6
and its curving, crescent close;
8, with its weaving, double loop
that skaters strive and scratch to mimic;
3, and its ability to complete,
to divide as trilogy, to manifest
as Trinity.
1 which finds the wholeness
in itself, never wishing to flee
its core or essence,
for the sake of multiplying:
One times one times one
will always equal one.
2 is the sum of love
and the most romantic of all
our digits,
and in terms of teaching math,
it gives a break to all our children:
Two times two is four,
and the answer’s the same
when adding.
7 is Biblical,
the time for God’s creation,
the length of telling tales
of Harry Potter,
of Narnia,
the complement of 12.
5, the Books of Moses,
the fingers and thumb
on our hands,
giving us ability,
the gift of grasp
and molding, making shapes
from slabs of clay.
4, a pair of couplets,
the voice of poems
and song, the rhythm
and march of the saints.
Yet when I come to number 9,
my spirit starts to sink:
it has such lofty expectations,
aspiring to reach new levels,
only to fall so painfully short –
missing the mark of 10
by just a meagre, single stroke,
always being known for
“almost there,”
remembered for the glory
it could have gained
but never did,
its cousins –
19, 49, 69 –
bearing the brunt
of all its failings.
99 is but a stepping stone,
a grating lapse towards 100,
a number we only watch while it rolls,
a humble countdown to celebration,
unable to give us merit on its own.
I spent all of ’99
yearning for 2000,
anticipating a new millennium,
the fears, excitement
we thought awaited us
in a dawning, changing world,
never enjoying the year for what it was,
practicing the writing
of an exotic date –
January 1, 2000
and eager to see
the masthead of that early morning paper,
ridding myself of the nines
that only accentuate defeat,
thinking I’ll pass some kind of threshold,
a singing, flowered archway
bidding come, enter,
leave what troubles you
behind.
taken from Anathema: Poems Selected & New
(original version found in Angel Clare)
There’s a beauty to our numbers
that I note with admiration:
the shape of cipher 6
and its curving, crescent close;
8, with its weaving, double loop
that skaters strive and scratch to mimic;
3, and its ability to complete,
to divide as trilogy, to manifest
as Trinity.
1 which finds the wholeness
in itself, never wishing to flee
its core or essence,
for the sake of multiplying:
One times one times one
will always equal one.
2 is the sum of love
and the most romantic of all
our digits,
and in terms of teaching math,
it gives a break to all our children:
Two times two is four,
and the answer’s the same
when adding.
7 is Biblical,
the time for God’s creation,
the length of telling tales
of Harry Potter,
of Narnia,
the complement of 12.
5, the Books of Moses,
the fingers and thumb
on our hands,
giving us ability,
the gift of grasp
and molding, making shapes
from slabs of clay.
4, a pair of couplets,
the voice of poems
and song, the rhythm
and march of the saints.
Yet when I come to number 9,
my spirit starts to sink:
it has such lofty expectations,
aspiring to reach new levels,
only to fall so painfully short –
missing the mark of 10
by just a meagre, single stroke,
always being known for
“almost there,”
remembered for the glory
it could have gained
but never did,
its cousins –
19, 49, 69 –
bearing the brunt
of all its failings.
99 is but a stepping stone,
a grating lapse towards 100,
a number we only watch while it rolls,
a humble countdown to celebration,
unable to give us merit on its own.
I spent all of ’99
yearning for 2000,
anticipating a new millennium,
the fears, excitement
we thought awaited us
in a dawning, changing world,
never enjoying the year for what it was,
practicing the writing
of an exotic date –
January 1, 2000
and eager to see
the masthead of that early morning paper,
ridding myself of the nines
that only accentuate defeat,
thinking I’ll pass some kind of threshold,
a singing, flowered archway
bidding come, enter,
leave what troubles you
behind.
taken from Anathema: Poems Selected & New
(original version found in Angel Clare)
November Rose
It's a Jane or Johnny-come-lately,
the solitary rose in my garden,
a harvest holdover or belated bloom
that's risen when the others have died.
It has none to compete for attention,
isn't lost in a sea of red.
I ponder its predicament,
think of it as lonely,
regretting it didn't blossom sooner
when the buzz of flying insects
were droning their affection.
I'll water it in the evening,
as stars speck the sky in Autumn's cool.
I'll sing it to sleep
as I retire,
pray for grace
should the frost strike swift.
taken from Anathema: Poems Selected &
New (original version found in T.O. Loveless
& other poems)
It's a Jane or Johnny-come-lately,
the solitary rose in my garden,
a harvest holdover or belated bloom
that's risen when the others have died.
It has none to compete for attention,
isn't lost in a sea of red.
I ponder its predicament,
think of it as lonely,
regretting it didn't blossom sooner
when the buzz of flying insects
were droning their affection.
I'll water it in the evening,
as stars speck the sky in Autumn's cool.
I'll sing it to sleep
as I retire,
pray for grace
should the frost strike swift.
taken from Anathema: Poems Selected &
New (original version found in T.O. Loveless
& other poems)
The Language of Sparrows
Your sister is dead.
We plant seedlings
by her grave in April,
when Spring seduces
with all its promise,
moisten the ground
with a jug of water
and say how, years from now,
a bush will burst and flower,
be home to a family of sparrows,
each knowing the other by name.
I ask you if birds have names,
like Alice, Brent, Jessica and James,
if mother and father bird
call them in when it rains,
say settle here in branches
amid the leaves that keep you dry –
not in English, mind you,
or any other human tongue
but in the language of sparrows;
each trill, each warbling,
a repartee,
a crafted conversation of the minds.
I then notice
that we never see the birds
when it rains,
how they disappear in downpours,
seeking shelter
in something we simply cannot see.
When we’re old,
when we come to remember
the loved one that you’ve lost,
they’ll be shielded in our shrub,
not a short and stunted one,
but a grand, blessed growth,
like the one that spoke to Moses,
aflame, uttering
I AM WHO I AM,
one that towers,
dense with green,
a monument to the
sister you treasured
and to the birds
that she adored,
naming the formerly fallowed, hallowed,
sacred, remove your shoes,
Spirits and Sparrows dwell
and whisper secrets
we’re unworthy to hear.
taken from Anathema: Poems Selected & New
(original and earlier versions found in The
Language of Sparrows and Angel Clare)
Your sister is dead.
We plant seedlings
by her grave in April,
when Spring seduces
with all its promise,
moisten the ground
with a jug of water
and say how, years from now,
a bush will burst and flower,
be home to a family of sparrows,
each knowing the other by name.
I ask you if birds have names,
like Alice, Brent, Jessica and James,
if mother and father bird
call them in when it rains,
say settle here in branches
amid the leaves that keep you dry –
not in English, mind you,
or any other human tongue
but in the language of sparrows;
each trill, each warbling,
a repartee,
a crafted conversation of the minds.
I then notice
that we never see the birds
when it rains,
how they disappear in downpours,
seeking shelter
in something we simply cannot see.
When we’re old,
when we come to remember
the loved one that you’ve lost,
they’ll be shielded in our shrub,
not a short and stunted one,
but a grand, blessed growth,
like the one that spoke to Moses,
aflame, uttering
I AM WHO I AM,
one that towers,
dense with green,
a monument to the
sister you treasured
and to the birds
that she adored,
naming the formerly fallowed, hallowed,
sacred, remove your shoes,
Spirits and Sparrows dwell
and whisper secrets
we’re unworthy to hear.
taken from Anathema: Poems Selected & New
(original and earlier versions found in The
Language of Sparrows and Angel Clare)
The Decoy,
or Why No One Takes Me Hunting Anymore
My hunter friend,
the one I haven’t converted
to my “animals-have-feelings-too”
frame of mind,
uses a wooden decoy
in attempts to lure some ducks,
the painted, smiling duplicate
successful in its duty:
three already shot today,
bagged and ready to carve.
If objects
had living souls,
I wonder how it would feel:
a traitor,
causing the death
of what it mimics,
floating on water
like a wannabe bird,
even feign it could fly
if it wanted to,
have its pick
of choicest mates;
like Pinocchio,
eager to be turned into the real thing,
hoping its
rifle-bearing Gepetto
will make it flesh and bone,
allow a brook of blood to pump
throughout its winding veins,
pray it might even bring salvation
to this hunter’s calloused heart,
spot a chance
at its own redemption,
have its maker
see its feathered shape
as something
more than food.
taken from Anathema: Poems Selected & New
(original version found in Angel Clare)
or Why No One Takes Me Hunting Anymore
My hunter friend,
the one I haven’t converted
to my “animals-have-feelings-too”
frame of mind,
uses a wooden decoy
in attempts to lure some ducks,
the painted, smiling duplicate
successful in its duty:
three already shot today,
bagged and ready to carve.
If objects
had living souls,
I wonder how it would feel:
a traitor,
causing the death
of what it mimics,
floating on water
like a wannabe bird,
even feign it could fly
if it wanted to,
have its pick
of choicest mates;
like Pinocchio,
eager to be turned into the real thing,
hoping its
rifle-bearing Gepetto
will make it flesh and bone,
allow a brook of blood to pump
throughout its winding veins,
pray it might even bring salvation
to this hunter’s calloused heart,
spot a chance
at its own redemption,
have its maker
see its feathered shape
as something
more than food.
taken from Anathema: Poems Selected & New
(original version found in Angel Clare)
On Solving the New York Times
The broken bits of pencil
only spoke of your frustration,
and it wasn’t from the headlines,
the Pax Americana and things
pertaining to Bush.
Your seething led you stomping
to my door,
to the greying goatee clippings
left unswept. To the empty bottle of rye
I’d purposely hid, miserably.
To every quip and inane joke
expressed at breakfast.
The Cream of Wheat is burnt
and I should have made it myself.
You play it taciturn,
and I go out for a timely jog,
feigning smiles to the neighbours
in case they heard us fight.
Darling, do a complex
crossword,
just for me. Squeeze in words
not yet invented.
Damn the dictionaries
to a mangled heap.
Scribble
“I never loved you anyway”
and find a synonym for lies,
in your thesaurus,
before that too is discarded
as my heart
in seven down,
twelve across.
taken from Anathema: Poems Selected & New
(original version found in Like Darwin Among the
Gods)
The broken bits of pencil
only spoke of your frustration,
and it wasn’t from the headlines,
the Pax Americana and things
pertaining to Bush.
Your seething led you stomping
to my door,
to the greying goatee clippings
left unswept. To the empty bottle of rye
I’d purposely hid, miserably.
To every quip and inane joke
expressed at breakfast.
The Cream of Wheat is burnt
and I should have made it myself.
You play it taciturn,
and I go out for a timely jog,
feigning smiles to the neighbours
in case they heard us fight.
Darling, do a complex
crossword,
just for me. Squeeze in words
not yet invented.
Damn the dictionaries
to a mangled heap.
Scribble
“I never loved you anyway”
and find a synonym for lies,
in your thesaurus,
before that too is discarded
as my heart
in seven down,
twelve across.
taken from Anathema: Poems Selected & New
(original version found in Like Darwin Among the
Gods)
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The Fall
I sigh at the sight
of the moth I find so lifeless
in the garden,
rarely noting
its beating white
in the days or weeks gone past,
and my friend who’d passed away,
from a toxic mix, concocted,
said the reason why
he longed for death
was to grasp the love
he’d missed while still a-breath,
that after you have died,
others speak well of you,
spill eulogies of praise,
cry that you’ll be missed,
say your poems were beautiful,
your paintings, works of art,
that all the things you’d ever done
are now immortalized,
once ignored, beatified,
that he didn’t want to take his life
because he loathed the sun,
its warmth upon his face
or the birdsong of the dawn,
but in the hope
he’d somehow feel
the intangible touch
of love,
its too-little, too-late
arrival,
its better-than-never embrace,
its invisible kiss that’s heard
when someone sobs
at the foot of your grave.
taken from Perennial: Poems Selected & New
Volume 2 (original version found in The Fall)
I sigh at the sight
of the moth I find so lifeless
in the garden,
rarely noting
its beating white
in the days or weeks gone past,
and my friend who’d passed away,
from a toxic mix, concocted,
said the reason why
he longed for death
was to grasp the love
he’d missed while still a-breath,
that after you have died,
others speak well of you,
spill eulogies of praise,
cry that you’ll be missed,
say your poems were beautiful,
your paintings, works of art,
that all the things you’d ever done
are now immortalized,
once ignored, beatified,
that he didn’t want to take his life
because he loathed the sun,
its warmth upon his face
or the birdsong of the dawn,
but in the hope
he’d somehow feel
the intangible touch
of love,
its too-little, too-late
arrival,
its better-than-never embrace,
its invisible kiss that’s heard
when someone sobs
at the foot of your grave.
taken from Perennial: Poems Selected & New
Volume 2 (original version found in The Fall)
Verses
Poor poetry,
jeered and ridiculed,
discarded to bins
half-priced,
banished
to basement boxes,
more paper
than lines of ink.
Yet I will never abandon you:
still endeared to me
for your rhymes,
your single line
that sears:
the chosen, road less traveled,
less read and far less honoured
than our ghost-wrought
starlet novels,
our fibbing
celebrity bios,
our how-to
do-it-yourselves,
our books with many pictures.
On dust-rich shelves
you sit, neglected,
the plump girl
at the dance,
watching others be held
and heard ...
but when you rise
to speak,
in those instants
the world, yes, listens,
it’s something more remembered
than what’s currently number 1:
a comparison
to summer’s
day,
from failing hands,
a torch,
a set of
shoreline footprints
and the wonder
that we’re carried.
taken from Perennial: Poems Selected & New
Volume 2 (original version found in The Fall)
Poor poetry,
jeered and ridiculed,
discarded to bins
half-priced,
banished
to basement boxes,
more paper
than lines of ink.
Yet I will never abandon you:
still endeared to me
for your rhymes,
your single line
that sears:
the chosen, road less traveled,
less read and far less honoured
than our ghost-wrought
starlet novels,
our fibbing
celebrity bios,
our how-to
do-it-yourselves,
our books with many pictures.
On dust-rich shelves
you sit, neglected,
the plump girl
at the dance,
watching others be held
and heard ...
but when you rise
to speak,
in those instants
the world, yes, listens,
it’s something more remembered
than what’s currently number 1:
a comparison
to summer’s
day,
from failing hands,
a torch,
a set of
shoreline footprints
and the wonder
that we’re carried.
taken from Perennial: Poems Selected & New
Volume 2 (original version found in The Fall)
Strings of the Great Depression
In your chair,
covered in a shawl to warm you,
hot milk by your side,
arthritic, gnarled fingers
pulling limply
on elastics
(ones that held
your meds together),
you speak of your farmer-father,
coming home
without the radio
he'd promised,
and of rubber bands,
how he stretched them
over a can,
plucking them
with his thumb.
For music, he said,
while you eat.
taken from Perennial: Poems Selected & New
Volume 2 (original version found in
The Lesser Light)
In your chair,
covered in a shawl to warm you,
hot milk by your side,
arthritic, gnarled fingers
pulling limply
on elastics
(ones that held
your meds together),
you speak of your farmer-father,
coming home
without the radio
he'd promised,
and of rubber bands,
how he stretched them
over a can,
plucking them
with his thumb.
For music, he said,
while you eat.
taken from Perennial: Poems Selected & New
Volume 2 (original version found in
The Lesser Light)
Francesca, Weeding the Garden
My daughter, all of six
and bursting with a Big Bang
sort of energy,
zigzags across our fenced backyard,
picking dandelions she holds
in her fist,
for an "I love you daddy" bouquet,
like the lofty ones
I snagged for her mother
before the tumors took her away,
their sunny heads of yellow
jutting freely from curling fingers,
my steady, sturdy voice
now a downcast, trembling shell,
saying they last a little longer
than flowers,
we'll wish you better
when they turn to spores.
taken from Anathema: Poems Selected & New
(original version found in The Language of
Sparrows)
My daughter, all of six
and bursting with a Big Bang
sort of energy,
zigzags across our fenced backyard,
picking dandelions she holds
in her fist,
for an "I love you daddy" bouquet,
like the lofty ones
I snagged for her mother
before the tumors took her away,
their sunny heads of yellow
jutting freely from curling fingers,
my steady, sturdy voice
now a downcast, trembling shell,
saying they last a little longer
than flowers,
we'll wish you better
when they turn to spores.
taken from Anathema: Poems Selected & New
(original version found in The Language of
Sparrows)
The Astronomer
Even on the eve of June
you’re early,
your telescope set
by six o’clock
to scan the roofless sphere,
as you used to do with your child
before the day she succumbed
to sickness,
before her locks of hair fell out
and your lulling-to-slumber stories
were heard by eager,
itching ears.
She’d said from the hospital bed
her ghost would guide you
to discover –
stars and worlds
not seen by a sea
of billions and billions
of eyes,
when the hues of tranquil sky
have come to lose
their sun-birthed blue,
become
the midnight black
that’s needed for light
to speak from afar.
taken from Perennial: Poems Selected & New
Volume 2 (original version found in the
Metronome chapbook)
Even on the eve of June
you’re early,
your telescope set
by six o’clock
to scan the roofless sphere,
as you used to do with your child
before the day she succumbed
to sickness,
before her locks of hair fell out
and your lulling-to-slumber stories
were heard by eager,
itching ears.
She’d said from the hospital bed
her ghost would guide you
to discover –
stars and worlds
not seen by a sea
of billions and billions
of eyes,
when the hues of tranquil sky
have come to lose
their sun-birthed blue,
become
the midnight black
that’s needed for light
to speak from afar.
taken from Perennial: Poems Selected & New
Volume 2 (original version found in the
Metronome chapbook)
September 11th
When we set a date
for coffee,
you picked Sunday,
September 11th;
and now I don't think
of espressos,
of bagels or a patio chat,
only airplanes exploding,
towers imploding,
a war on terror
launched.
I want my September
11th back,
without the carnage
that now comes with it.
I want its return
as a late summer day,
with a sun
that warms our arms
still bared
by breezy, short-sleeved
shirts,
with the kids settled in
at school,
first-day jitters
all behind,
a time to stroll
through country fairs,
red and yellow
coding games of chance.
taken from Perennial: Poems Selected & New Volume 2
(original version found in Beads on Blossoms)
When we set a date
for coffee,
you picked Sunday,
September 11th;
and now I don't think
of espressos,
of bagels or a patio chat,
only airplanes exploding,
towers imploding,
a war on terror
launched.
I want my September
11th back,
without the carnage
that now comes with it.
I want its return
as a late summer day,
with a sun
that warms our arms
still bared
by breezy, short-sleeved
shirts,
with the kids settled in
at school,
first-day jitters
all behind,
a time to stroll
through country fairs,
red and yellow
coding games of chance.
taken from Perennial: Poems Selected & New Volume 2
(original version found in Beads on Blossoms)
Metronome
You never had a clock
within your home,
just a single metronome,
keeping tempo
more important
than the time,
its clicks a call to dance,
without the chains
of start and stop,
that never
issue edicts
to awaken,
no pre-set ring
to jolt
from peaceful dreams,
no big and little hands
that point to numbers
which command,
saying when it’s time to eat
and when to leave,
when to walk the dog
or check for mail,
just a steady, rhythmic beat
of unfettered sound,
the passing of the hours
all unnamed.
taken from Perennial: Poems Selected & New Volume 2
(original version found in the Metronome chapbook)
You never had a clock
within your home,
just a single metronome,
keeping tempo
more important
than the time,
its clicks a call to dance,
without the chains
of start and stop,
that never
issue edicts
to awaken,
no pre-set ring
to jolt
from peaceful dreams,
no big and little hands
that point to numbers
which command,
saying when it’s time to eat
and when to leave,
when to walk the dog
or check for mail,
just a steady, rhythmic beat
of unfettered sound,
the passing of the hours
all unnamed.
taken from Perennial: Poems Selected & New Volume 2
(original version found in the Metronome chapbook)
The girl I would have married
The girl I would have married
had we met
is on the other side of the street,
a walking blur
I only notice for a second.
And her hair is a shade of blonde
or maybe brown I can’t recall,
nor anything about the jacket
she’d been wearing nor the boots,
only that for some silly unknown reason
we would have married had we met,
maybe at the bookshop
where I would have bumped her arm,
said sorry for my clumsiness,
which caused her to drop her classics
and a dictionary too;
or it may have been at a party,
hosted by a mutual
friend,
finding that we shared
a favourite song,
or that we’re social
democrats,
or that neither of us
can stand
the sight of blood;
then again, it may have been something
random,
her seated in the row
just ahead,
in a theatre
with a paltry slope,
her failure to remove the hat
that blocked my view,
my gathering the brazen courage
to tap her shoulder,
whisper into her ear
that I’m unable to see a thing.
taken from Perennial: Poems Selected & New
Volume 2 (original version found in The Fall)
The girl I would have married
had we met
is on the other side of the street,
a walking blur
I only notice for a second.
And her hair is a shade of blonde
or maybe brown I can’t recall,
nor anything about the jacket
she’d been wearing nor the boots,
only that for some silly unknown reason
we would have married had we met,
maybe at the bookshop
where I would have bumped her arm,
said sorry for my clumsiness,
which caused her to drop her classics
and a dictionary too;
or it may have been at a party,
hosted by a mutual
friend,
finding that we shared
a favourite song,
or that we’re social
democrats,
or that neither of us
can stand
the sight of blood;
then again, it may have been something
random,
her seated in the row
just ahead,
in a theatre
with a paltry slope,
her failure to remove the hat
that blocked my view,
my gathering the brazen courage
to tap her shoulder,
whisper into her ear
that I’m unable to see a thing.
taken from Perennial: Poems Selected & New
Volume 2 (original version found in The Fall)
Initials
After you left,
I carved our initials
into the stump of a fallen tree.
I tallied its age before death,
thought of its stunted remnant
as a trunk, soaring
to swirling heights, with arms
that housed the bliss of many birds,
our love now wrapped in the rings
that spoke of years, to a time
when heart and bark and wing
were very much alive.
taken from Under the Evergreens
After you left,
I carved our initials
into the stump of a fallen tree.
I tallied its age before death,
thought of its stunted remnant
as a trunk, soaring
to swirling heights, with arms
that housed the bliss of many birds,
our love now wrapped in the rings
that spoke of years, to a time
when heart and bark and wing
were very much alive.
taken from Under the Evergreens
11/3/11
Blossoms
were the first to fall,
in the rumble
that ruptured the calm,
and the land was shaken
as a globe of snow
in the hands of a beaming
child,
and window and wall
were cast to the earth
like an expulsion
from heaven of old,
boats and cars
both raced in the rush
of a fleeting, fatal
sea,
and the homes of Sendai
buckled,
as an origami’s
fold,
were carried
with all the dead,
in the swell that defied
the tide,
and the sirens screamed
of fire,
reactors wailed
of melt,
while the callous sun
descended,
teased millions
with its kiss of light.
taken from Under the Evergreens
Blossoms
were the first to fall,
in the rumble
that ruptured the calm,
and the land was shaken
as a globe of snow
in the hands of a beaming
child,
and window and wall
were cast to the earth
like an expulsion
from heaven of old,
boats and cars
both raced in the rush
of a fleeting, fatal
sea,
and the homes of Sendai
buckled,
as an origami’s
fold,
were carried
with all the dead,
in the swell that defied
the tide,
and the sirens screamed
of fire,
reactors wailed
of melt,
while the callous sun
descended,
teased millions
with its kiss of light.
taken from Under the Evergreens
Adagio
The violin’s colour
has faded, like a novel
in a bookshop window
that’s faced the sun
for several weeks.
It was a brownish-
red I’d say,
maroon you’d call it,
a double entendre no doubt,
its body begotten
of trees,
its nylon voice a language
transcending all
that tongues have spoken.
You haven’t even touched it
in the three years
since he died, the one
you were to marry.
But I sense you’ll clasp it
a final time,
perhaps after gentle prodding,
to play the melody
you once envisioned,
not saying whom it is for,
though I really needn’t ask,
feign surprise
at its denouement:
a long and wailing coda,
a flinging-into-wall,
the splintered wood
and silence
entreating no applause.
taken from Ex gratia
The violin’s colour
has faded, like a novel
in a bookshop window
that’s faced the sun
for several weeks.
It was a brownish-
red I’d say,
maroon you’d call it,
a double entendre no doubt,
its body begotten
of trees,
its nylon voice a language
transcending all
that tongues have spoken.
You haven’t even touched it
in the three years
since he died, the one
you were to marry.
But I sense you’ll clasp it
a final time,
perhaps after gentle prodding,
to play the melody
you once envisioned,
not saying whom it is for,
though I really needn’t ask,
feign surprise
at its denouement:
a long and wailing coda,
a flinging-into-wall,
the splintered wood
and silence
entreating no applause.
taken from Ex gratia
Bread
In the park,
one of the pigeons
stands by the wayside,
watching the others
devour the bread
you’ve shred and tossed
about our feet.
She’s in grief, you say to me
with conviction,
recalling my scolding
from an hour ago
(for your leaving your lunch uneaten).
You add that her mate was likely killed
by a lunging cat,
or maybe its wing was fractured
and it took days to die,
unable to fathom
why the sky
suddenly seemed so far away,
indifferent
to its laboured hops,
its failure to seize
what was cast:
seeds of melon, sunflower,
bits of broken crust.
taken from Ex gratia
In the park,
one of the pigeons
stands by the wayside,
watching the others
devour the bread
you’ve shred and tossed
about our feet.
She’s in grief, you say to me
with conviction,
recalling my scolding
from an hour ago
(for your leaving your lunch uneaten).
You add that her mate was likely killed
by a lunging cat,
or maybe its wing was fractured
and it took days to die,
unable to fathom
why the sky
suddenly seemed so far away,
indifferent
to its laboured hops,
its failure to seize
what was cast:
seeds of melon, sunflower,
bits of broken crust.
taken from Ex gratia