Friday, January 28, 2011










In the Room of Glass Breasts

Around each word we're hearing,
there spins an original flame;
the unborn wait in a circle of commas,
upright robins wheel to Wheeler
& termites with arms in their heads
dig under the chairs—

It is impossible to describe the world;
that's why you get so sleepy listening to poetry.
The writer skates but spring takes
the gold (
ooo don't let her fall in sequins)—dusk
buzzes in its meaning kit...

maybe you drank too much but that's not it:
the sexy cadence puzzled everyone.
You were drawn to poetry by something nothing
satisfies but poetry: boundless sensation,
an abstract tone—
then one day, two normal words
had made you weep:
Unreal...City.... Not
mostly; mostly they didn't make you weep, but still:
Unreal... (then that big pause:)...
City.... Look at that slumped
italic guy over there, waiting to be in a stanza:
Sat low our lord of literature
for he was very tired

Outside the room, the spell ends,
the vowel of an owl/the owl of a vowel
dives onto a warm body, the ruined gardens
of the state, tended by the great dead—
You were called by a silence you can't understand.
You're grown up now. You can read all night
if you want in the bride's bed—

7 comments:

linhelen said...

This is amazing! Does it come from one of her books?

Pam said...

not sure...maybe, Practical Water, the new one?

linhelen said...

No, I just checked. Could be very new.

Pam said...

you can imagine my delight in googling 'glass breast' as I sought images

linhelen said...

one of those fine surprises that can occur on here

Christine said...

How beautiful.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Nothing satisfies but poetry. So I am learning.