Two Poems from The Outernationale by Peter Gizzi
-- Publishers Weekly, 3/6/2007 11:51:00 AM
from A Panic That Can Still Come Upon Me
If today and today I am calling aloud
bits of sun, the din if tires whine on the wet pavement
everything humming If we find we are still in motion
and have arrived in Zeno's thought, like if sunshine hits marble and the sea lights up
we might know we were loved, are loved
if flames and harvest, the enchanted plain If our wishes are met with dirt
and thyme, thistle, oil,
heirloom, and basil or the end result is worry, chaos
and if "I should know better" If our loves are anointed with missles
Apache fire, Tomahawks
did we follow the tablets the pilgrims suggested If we ask that every song touch its origin
just once and the years engulfed If problems of identiy confound sages,
derelict philosophers, administrators
who can say I am found if this time you, all of it, this time now If nothing save Saturdays at the metro and
if rain falls sidelong in the platz
doorways, onto mansard roofs If enumerations of the fall
and if falling, cities rocked
with gas fires at dawn Can you rescind the ghost's double nakedness
hungry and waning if children, soldiers, children
taken down in schools if burning fuel Who can't say they have seen this
and can we sing this if in the auroras' reflecting the sea,
gauze touching the breast Too bad for you, beautiful singer
unadorned by laurel
child of thunder and scapegoat alike If the crowd in the mind becoming
crowded in streets and villages, and trains
run next to the freeway If exit is merely a sign
I Wanted The Screen Door Of Summer
Opening sounds of blackbirds everywhere
everywhere in the day lost in sun opening the screen doors of summer
a blackbird glitter in the afternoon haze all day long riding a fiddlehead
in Mahler excess calling thither The TV screen afterlife reflects trees outside
jets overhead in the yard I am powerless in the air
after the stock report before jeopardy the table laid out our hopes laid out
I wanted the screen door of summer a dew drop gazing ball
uptopia bent and snapping From The Outernationale, copyright 2007 by Peter Gizzi and reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press. All rights reserved.
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