poet
April is the month long celebration of poetry. Join me and other poets at these events:
Sunday, April 10, 1 p.m. at the Artists’ Cooperative Gallery, 7 Canal Street, Westerly, Rhode Island
Friday, April 15, 7 p.m. at Byrd’s Books, 126 Greenwood Avenue, Bethel, Connecticut
Saturday, April 23, 2 p.m. at the Minor Memorial Library, 23 South Street, Roxbury, Connecticut
Support the arts and poetry in your community. Participate in other events and activities.
From Nomad’s End, Finishing Line Press, 2010
Before Your Train Leaves
a handful of minutes need to morph
into their shape, crust like atoms
becoming a molecule and tell a story
with thrift. No time to dawdle.
Back-story, established by your eyes,
advances the plot, though I am more interested
with the syllables of touch than
the tactility of speech. We pool
into the sparse bed and handle
each other like pottery clay, mold ourselves
into familiar shapes. I smooth
your back as moments hoof between
the walls of the room. They assemble
in the sphere of a clock above our heads.
Before your train leaves, the hands
will complete their circle; our story
will end as most do, with goodbyes
filling the grooves between scripts.
Curds and Whey
“Blessed are the cheesemakers.”
~Monty Python, Life of Brian
Temperatures regulate
and acid swirls; curds curdle
and tell reluctantly
of brown bearded goats
chomping grass
with pliant teeth and wandering
eyes. Far off in a kitchen.
the maker, with her chewed
apron and dangling cross
waits sourly for the spider.
Stone Harbor
rocks: amalgam of minerals
condensed space, boulders of infinity
and pebble-like acuteness
temple builders
misbehaving polygons
companion of trees; envious
of light eaters, their spiraling wood centers
and the green
perplexity of veins
the philosopher’s hourglass
kinesthetic anchors
between the sphere’s smooth,
unfinished edges and the jagged
catastrophe of no ending
havens of pressure
harbor masters
jetsam of intransience, compressed
and scattered, weathered and beaten,
spit and shine
5 lines x 7
Elsie, The Roller of Big Cigars, and the Grasshopper
so much depends
upon
the maker’s rage to order words of the sea
will never wholly kiss you—
Wholly ordered: rage to kiss words
five +/- (6)
“Atoms for Peace”
graffiti seen
at the Café Mondrian
on the Boulevard
Saint-Germaine, etched
on a coppery bathroom ornament,
some kind of announcement
for all the little deities
who have survived the smashing
and orbited back to the void.
The Absinthe Drinker, Edouard Manet
Atoms for Peace
5 lines, day 5
I pledge to read each
day’s oncoming slaughter
as a penniless
dark spur opening beneath
a cataclysm of daisies
Five lines (+/-), day 4.
Iron skillet
You school me with your trochees and well-oiled forgery
seasoned with elbow grease so that nothing
not the overnighting left overs
not the knife marks
not the hunger
stay for long, the most
anyone could ask
from fire.
Lines Composed after the Lasagna Dough Has Been Made
I get it now—elasticity—
the tug and curl of edges
against arms and flat surfaces.
Forcing the matter. The staying.
The giving.
elliptical shifts
bequeath February with
truant light; shape shifter skies—
like lamppost bulbs—following
the timed ascent to evening
Amy Nawrocki 