Poetry and Other Artifacts

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Surfer

lcmt

This poem is no longer online. Look for it in my new book, The Wife of History and Other Planetary Characters.

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The Bamboo Cheer

lcmt

Chapters through bamboo arbors�
palm catalog features bamboo.
Go bamboo!
Large bamboo!
Way clay bamboo bamboo.

Needs racism as industries sell bamboo across
societies recent to discovering flooring.
Go bamboo!
Large bamboo!
Way clay bamboo bamboo.

Non-woods of Australia are mostly
for information clumping.
Go bamboo!
Large bamboo!
Way clay bamboo bamboo.

Unusual specializing books and basins
of the landscape.
Go bamboo!
Large bamboo!
Way clay bamboo bamboo.

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A Complaint from the Tented Field

lcmt

This very short story is no longer online. Look for it in my book, A Penchant for the Ferruginous.

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Palmed 19

lcmt

How reluctant they are to bite or chew, seduced by the reflection of their dignity in the doors of paradise.

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earthenware

lcmt

This poem is no longer online. Look for it in my new book, The Wife of History and Other Planetary Characters.

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Without Sanctuary Alone

lcmt

This poem is no longer online. Look for it in my new book, The Wife of History and Other Planetary Characters.

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Palmed 13

lcmt

In epic subways, she is lost
to the green of the confessional,
with goldleaf underfoot.

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Two poems by Rainer Maria Rilke

Translation by Stephen Mitchell � 1982

Lament

Everything is far
and long gone by.
I think that the star
glittering above me
has been dead for a million years.
I think there were tears
in the car I heard pass
and something terrible was said.
A clock has stopped striking in the house
across the road�
When did it start?�
I would like to step out of my heart
and go walking beneath the enormous sky.
I would like to pray.
And surely of all the stars that perished
long ago,
one still exists.
I think I know
which one it is�
which one, at the end of its beam in the sky,
stands like a white city�

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Before Summer Rain

Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something�you don't know what�has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood

you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour

will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.

And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid.

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Palmed 5

lcmt

Flesh wanders�
flesh panders�
such small importances when
a breath can preserve the moon.

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