If there is no fire, it isn't a poem

                          By Sandra Simonds

August in South Georgia

Why do I drink so much gin? Has something to do

with the way the burn the trees down here on either

side of the highway. Man selling boiled peanuts,

man selling handmade canoes. If you know the south,

you know a good woman can only really get the blues

in the winter. Summer is meant for losing weight. No white

people are going to talk about race. The Goodwood Plantation

I drive by every day has no memory – all those baby

alligators and volunteer tour guides with their quaint anecdotes

that lodge in your throat like the demented sun.

21^st Century Ars Poetica

If you touch this poem, it will turn to fire.

If you tough the fire, it will burn your finger.

If you burn your finger, you'll cry to your mama.

If you cry to your mama, your mama will die.

If your mama dies, you'll be an orphan.

If you're an orphan, God will give you a cupcake.

If God gives you a cupcake, you should probably eat it.

If you eat the cupcake, you'll want another.

If you eat another, you might get fat.

If you get fat, you can go on a diet.

If you diet too much, you'll become anorexic.

If you become anorexic, you'll get depressed.

If you get depressed, you can't fight oppression.
If you can't fight oppression, your poems have no meaning.

If your poems have no meaning, they can't burn your finger.

If they can't burn your finger, there is no fire.

If there is no fire, it isn't a poem.

From The American Poetry Review, September-October 2014.

Like a knife-winged hawk balanced on a cliff

Meanwhile in Ein Karem the doves are coloured white

Typogram and translation by Ornan Rotem.  

                                                              

MEANWHILE IN EIN KAREM

by Rachel Shihor

                        

                        I have spent my entire life at the Scottish Convent and I

have been musing over the convent in Ein Karem. Here we

heat water by shoving mouldy logs into an overhead stove

that takes up most of the space of the bathroom, and the

taps are narrow and they heat up in such a way that you

cannot touch them without slightly scalding yourself,

and the cloisters and narrow, and the cells are rectangular,

and in the dining room the carpet is frazzled and stained,

and the flowers are slightly withered, since they are not

drowned by the rays of sunlight that penetrate the room

obliquely as the day nears its end, and days turn to night

so quickly that the loss of light is barely noticeable, and the

dogs dribble, and the grape harvest is never satisfying, and

all the tools are rusty, and the main water valve has been

in want of repair for ages.

      Meanwhile in Ein Karem the doves are coloured white

and they are weightless, and the storks sojourn on the

pavilion roofs as they make their way south, and the smoke

coming out of the heating chimneys is bluish, with grey

only on the rum. And the pancakes are wafer thin, and

the prayer books are not stained, and Mother Superior

and her assistant wear fresh collars every morning, and

unhurriedly the evenings descend, and come to a close

when Sister Wanda, after putting her dolls to sleep, plays

short piano sonatas that extend over the whole valley and

then beyond, over the lowly hills finally reaching us.

This cloister-shaped typogram is balanced on the same letter,

the terminal n [the long red and black L-shapes] but given

the direction of the text, they end up being presented horizontally

and as a mirror image of one another.  The first n appears in Ein Karem,

the name of an ancient village near Jerusalem that is now a

neighborhood in the city.  Ein Karem means 'Spring of the Vineyard'. 

The other n is in lavan (white).

The book we both will write forever

Father, Insect

                      by Nick Flynn

After her

bath, as a way to apologize for all

my imperfections, I remind my

daughter, You know, before you were

born, I was not

a father. She takes this in

silently, moving a tiny blue elephant across

the carpet. If you weren't a father, she

eventually asks, then what were you --

a bug? We'd been looking at picture

of cavemen, talking

about evolution, about where we

came from, about all those

who came before -- Are they us?

she asks. I

told her about the carbon in her

pencil, about hydrogen bonding

with oxygen, about bacteria with

only one thought in their tiny

heads -- she

used her finger to write it all out

in the air, creating each

word as I spoke it. When

did want become more

than hunger, when

did need become more

than shadow? Ecclesiastes warns

about the making

of books, of which there is no end,

this chain of meaning, this

offering -- the book we both will write

today into forever.  

From American Poetry Review, May/June 2014.

The Wake

[NOTE: The author has devised a type of Old English for his narrative. Most difficulties in reading come from the fact that he uses no letters not used in Old English, but the reader catches on quickly to the adjustments necessary, such as C for K, G for Y, and F for V in heofon.]

from THE WAKE

                       by Paul Kingsnorth

the night was clere though i slept i seen it. though i slept i
seen the calm hierde naht only the still. when I gan down to
sleep all was clere in the land and my dreams was full of
stillness but my dreams did not cepe me still
      when i woc in the mergen all was blaec though the night
had gan and all woulde be blaec after and for all time. a great 

wind had cum in the night and all was blown then and broc.

none had thought a wind lic this cold cum for all was blithe

lifan as they always had and who will hiere the gleoman

when the tales he tells is blaec who locs at the heafon if it
brings him regn who locs in the mere when there seems
no end to its deopness

      none will loc but the wind will com. the wind cares not for

the hopes of men
      the times after will be for them who seen them cuman
      the times after will be for the waecend

                                                       * * * * * * * *

and i seen them i seen them cuman then and always will

this stay with me until i is in the ground under a beorg or

in a great beornan scip lic all anglisc ealdors sceolde be.

ofer the fenn from the place where the hus of the eald 

gods lay over the secg ofer the heofon i seen the eald

hunters. i colde not tell all of the riders who was mofan

with them there was so many and they mofd in a way

that coulde not be loccd at for micel time by men. all was

deop blaec and there was no sound to be hierde.

      at the head of the hunt was eald woden who I had seen

at the deorc ea that night his kenep long and hwit his one

eage locan at me specan to the blaec hunds what ran

before him in the heofon their eages great and scinan and

with the hunds was the great hwit wulf I had seen by the

ea the wulf what had loccd at me. great woden rode a

great blaec hors but many of the hunters was on goats

with eages of fyr and was blowan horns though no sound

was macd by them. sum loccd lic eald cyngs with helms

and sweords but others was ealdor than cyngs ealdor

even than angland they did not loc lic men they was lic

eald wihts lic the treows them selfs blaec and carfan into

scaps not of this world. they had cum up from the treows

bum up from the mere cum up into the heofon they had

cum baec for angland lic my grand father had telt me.

they had cum for me cum for me and i cnawan now that

it was time and i cnawan what I moste do

      i gan down to my cneos then in the secg and i felt

them go ofer me and i felt great weland locan ofer as he

gaf them sige and i cnawan again who i was what i was

what i had cum here for

     i is buccmaster of holland and the eald gods has ridden

for me. 

 Review from The Guardian.
Paul Kingsnorth web site.

In the land of the wolf Verdi was playing

A She-Goat and Seven Kids

                            by Rachel Shihor

―Dear children, said the she-goat to her seven kids before she went out; there now, I am leaving you, but I shall return soon and I shall bring back something tasty. Now you lot, don't get bored, don't quarrel, and don't open the door to anyone. Now I shall lock the door behind me and that is how I want to find it upon my return.

    She-goat skipped numbly in the roop, leaping over two chairs and a half-full pail of water that she'd prepared in order to wash the floors before she took the slightly brash decision to venture out on a quick shopping spree, leaving the kids to fend for themselves. And so, the she-goat leapt over the two chairs and the pail, charging the room's music system with electricity, and leaving the kids with Verdi's Requiem.

―It's a long piece of music, she said to them, but by the time it is over, I shall be back. The she-goat grabbed a basket in one of her front hoofs and off she went. The kids were all alone. The eldest said: ―If the wolf shows up we shall not open the door, but if Uri comes over, we shall open the door and play with him. All the while, Verdi's music did not cease, and from within it, loud voices could be heard. The wolf knocked on the door, but the kids couldn't hear the knock, since it mingled with the calls of 'Requiem! Requiem!' The wolf decided to return later. When he did, the music was still playing but now it was the Lacrimosa, and the kids peeked through the keyhole and saw the wolf. ―Open up, dealing kids, I am your mother and I have brought you tasty foods from the market; the wolf had changed his voice making it sound like that of a she-goat. The kids really wanted to give in to the temptation because the wolf's voice was very pleasant to t hem. They were also getting a bit hungry. However, they had seen the wolf through the keyhole and they recalled their mother's warning.

    Retracing his steps, the wolf returned for the third time. This time he had dipped his front paws in some flour, which he had at home and which he had set aside for occasions such as these. ―Look at my hoofs, darling kids, the wolf said, have you ever seen a wolf with white hoofs? I am not a wolf, but your mother, the she-goat. The kids were gradually being won over, since the eyes can occasionally be misled - that much they had already learned at school, and, the oldest kid, said, given that, beyond doubt, the senses occasionally deceive, it is prudent never to trust them completely. The eldest kid decided that the door should be opened even if it did incur a slight risk, and he announced his decision to his siblings. None objected. Meanwhile, mother-goat had decided to stay out a little longer because she thought of buying another pair of shoes, white this time, for her front two hoofs. At that moment, in the land of the wolf, Verdi was playing his Agnus Dei, and the eldest kid heard within it his mother's voice entreating him to look after the children.

From Rachel Shihor, Stalin is Dead.  London: Sylph Editions, 2013.  Translated from the Hebrew by Ornam Roten.

The white keys that have no song of their own

               

                                 by W. S. Merwin

O Silent Hands

Hands born of silence hands of silence

hands born of darkness hands of darkness

left hand of silence right hand of silence

hands of darkness in clear daylight

fingers of fire without sound or brightness

silent hands that bring music to pass

and it goes on echoing day and night

silent fingers' touch on the strings

or on the white keys that have no song of their own

finger ends commanding the dark openings in the flute

and it takes up its song of distance

the music touches the waiting darness of the heart

touches it once and without recognizing it

and the silent heart welcomes the song home

The Laughing Child

When she looked down from the kitchen window

into the back yard and the brown wicker

baby carriage in which she had tucked me

three months old to lie out in the fresh air

of my first January the carriage

was shaking she said and went on shaking

and she saw I was lying there and laughing

she told me about it later it was

something that reassured her in a life

in which she had lost everyone she loved

before I was born and she had begun

to believe that she might be able to

keep me as I lay there in the winter

laughing it was what she was thinking of

later when she told me that I had been

a happy child and she must have kept that

through the gray cloud of all her days and now

out of the horn of dreams of my own life

I wake again into the laughing child.

The Mapmaker

Vermeer's geographer goes on looking

out of the window at a world that he

alone sees while in the room around him

the light has not moved as the centuries

have revolved in silence behind their clouds

beyond the leaves the seasons the numbers

he has not seen them out of that window

the world he sees is there as we see him

looking out at the light beyond the window

Under the Tree of Idleness

This is where I was going the whole time

when they thought I was lost and were looking

for me everywhere I was right here

but as look as they were looking for me

they walked past and never laid eyes on me

it was only when one stumbled on me

by accident that I seemed to have been

found for a moment before I was gone

again following shadows on the leaves

of the oldest limb where they might never

have been noticed but I watched them as though

I was remembering after a long

time without seeing them although that had been

no time in the life of the tree where I

had heard far away a voice calling to

someone and asking what are you doing

until I answered to call it nothing

From "Nine Poems," The American Poetry Review July/August 2014.