My idea for a poem was brilliant because it left me
before I could get my hands on it. The shower rinsed
it away. A delicate network of sugars turned gelatinous,
a killswitch offensive. The poem already knew me from
before I was born. It showed itself to me the way two birds
showed me their plumage yesterday by crashing into a window.
Instant death, and with it, taxonomy! Azure blue wings.
Stripped of miracles, the idea can live unbound. It was
an Eastern Bluebird, I think, a male and female who saw
nothing but sky ahead and then nothing at all. All day
I knew I had killed them. My settlement by a marshland
bashes small necks and makes mud of the spark of life.
I sing “The Owl and the Pussycat” in my mettlement,
my clever harshland with its runciple grasses. I move
the birds to a stone out of sight, my mind shivering crystals.
Hi friends! I had a hard few days at work and in life and am now 4 days behind. Trying not to let that bum me out. But I’m back!
Wow. I love this one so much. Feels like it would be fun to teach to students about the unwritten. So many sharp left turns
The kill switch offensive. Taxonomy! Birds made of sky. And especially the line
“bashes small necks and makes mud of the spark of life.”
Brutal and total.
So dark, gorgeous and arresting:
The poem already knew me from
before I was born. It showed itself to me the way two birds
showed me their plumage yesterday by crashing into a window.
I love this one. “It showed itself to me the way two birds / showed me their plumage yesterday by crashing into a window.” is so good. The way the poet lives in a “settlement” by the swamp. The way something being revealed doesn’t mean it’s legible.