Tupelo Press 30/30 Project - Poems 6–10

I am floored at the wonderful response I've gotten for this project. I've already got enough donations and pledges to be over my goal, so a huge thanks to everyone who has my back. Seriously.

I've decided to put the poems on this blog every five days, so here are poems 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. If you want to see them as they come up, you can still see each one on the day it is written by clicking here and scrolling down.

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Poem 6

Waking

In the second dream, a bird pilfers

all of the scraps from my desk.

None of the typing ceases or slows.

Unfamiliar but comfortable, this place

takes its grayness for granted, even outside

the rooftops nearly disappear

in fog. Dropping into half-veiled places,

chirping once, the bird only wants to be

found. Another someone supplanted

here takes notice, moving backward

despite the nature of walls (useless:

the sky is right there) remaining the same.

The bird and the other someone are quiet

now. It is time. That something moving

inside the pillow is your heart

keeping cadence, thick like a hollow bone.

_______________________________________

Poem 7

Flight

Rolling over, a train

in motion, silence:

these are all the ways I move

away from you.

________________________________

Poem 8

Windburn

Received unwillingly, a warmness under

skin confuses the body. Closed

eyes veil the room: you have not left,

no, the place has shifted in neglect.

Do not speak to me of want.

Every rearranging understands itself

in relation to the floor, window lit

on certain mornings. A man passes

my house, a grocery bag in tow.

He passes every day, the same burden

in his fingers. There is something

he does not wish to carry into night

let alone tomorrow. You are enough

whatever it is you want for today

for both of us. You can take these words

for granted, if you wish.

I will catch the singeing scraps,

impaling every one, a sapling.

___________________________________

Poem 9

Splintered Things

We become these things. Or rather,

we turn these things to pulp, ingest them

in some form or another, and carry on.

Never mind this piece of paper

spent years rooted among its cousins

in a forest or part of a forest that endured

so many fires and the exploding cold

only an arid winter understands,

the closest it ever came to touching

the other trees (not counting wind)

being when squirrel leapt from its neighbor,

bending its branch with the unfamiliar

weight of a body built for climbing.

Never mind that at all. It is nothing

like grasping a hoarfrosted fencepost

hoping what pours forth is not blood.

___________________________________

Poem 10

Revision

            —for Anie

the knife in position

the body’s division

the mind’s indecision

eyes shadowed, masks

the body’s rescission

the mind’s imposition

the knife in decision

bleeder

the mind’s indecision

the knife in precision

the body’s derision

incision, excision, suture, and out