Ralph Hone, and French Fogle) have filled my head and soul with Beauty, as did my father and mother. I offer my deepest appreciation for all these specific ones loved and for my many students from whom I have learned, as well.
A Perhaps Line
Poetry of the Material and Immaterial Worlds
Copyright
2014 Gary D. Swaim. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
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Cutting Cedars
It is a dark, heavy sound, that cleaving
of wood from wood, of dead or decaying
from green life.
An axe, never sure of its mark, cuts
indiscriminately into browns and greens,
and cedars shout their pain down hillsides
toward the river, but the river will not
have it—sends it climbing back over scrub
and underbrush, back to the sharp blade edge
I hold in my hand.
Decision
It will be in February.
So much is well resolved
in February. Leaves living
deep inside bare limbs
grow into April and beyond.
Ice-rigid rivers locked in histrionic
forms move unnoticed to the sea beneath
frozen surfaces of a blustery month.
All things change. Only dying stays
the same. It is a matter of time.
Inexorable February. It will be
in cold, hard February. Decisions
are well made then.
Beginnings
Extend long, needy fingers
deep down through pulpy folds
near the hypothalamus
or pituitary gland
feel there the surprised word
yet unformed, squeeze it
between the thumb and forefinger
until its diminutive voice weeps
with the complicated cry of a castrato.
Separate it from its fleshy place,
situate it by the others who have spoken
their pain on being found,
and you have the beginnings
of a poem.
Bossa Nova
He gathers her from a metal
chair, cradles her cautiously
in his arms.They dance.
Jobim and Gilberto
know nothing of MS, nor tonight
does she as, with closed eyes buried
deeply in his chest, her mind moves
to slow, complicated rhythms
of the bossa nova while limp legs trail
marionette-like along the polished floor.
Six Measured Months, 2006 (I)
Prufrock counted spoons, day after night,
after day: coffee spoons, demitasse, bullion,
dessert spoons. I counted finger pricks:
index finger, right hand . . . ring finger, left . . .
thumb, each hand. Ten probative stabs to the heart
every day of the month. We are all quietly wounded,
at two in the morning, four in the afternoon, and evenings
just after the six o’clock news.
Six Measured Months, 2006 (II)
May
Ken Lay guts Enron and five-thousand lives.
Mel Gibson screams anti-Semitic virulence then
apologizes, of course. Gunter Grass admits
membership in the Nazi SS. I sleep.
June
Episcopal Church names a woman its leader.
Iraq mission still not accomplished. Bang the drums.
Palestinians and Israelites trash the peace talks, again.
Three Guantánamo detainees cinch ropes about their necks,
swing from low-hanging rafters. I still sleep.
July
Saddam Hussein, fed by tube for weeks (not unlike I)
is dead. I stir and smile, I’m told. Stem cell research bill
passes,
