Thursday, April 24, 2014

























Poem in my pocket today better late than well never?
I've been learning from the late Jake Adam York since last year.



Letter Hidden in a Letter to Cy Twombly

By Jake Adam York

I dreamed I was blind

            but could make a word
by curling a strand of hair
                        into letters,

one at a time. I prayed
            the scales would fall.

At night, I waited for the river’s
                        sentence to unfold,

a tale of snake handlers, the gift
            of all living tongues.

I could write with a tooth,
                        the pencil’s other end,

regardless of the day, could etch
            my poem, salt into windowglass.

Somewhere the lost boat’s gone
                        mineral, petrified

in starlight without a bone

            to autograph. Just
one letter in a strand of code.

                        Given the right oblivion,
one hand can remember another,

                        but tonight, the river
manages only the bark of leather

                        on stone, clap
of footpalms on the bank

            its one strand curling

a word no one’s slow enough

                        to read.