Poetry

It’s normal to do it alone, the feint-and-jab
           of forgetting. I believe in only what I can recite 

from memory, like the ninety-nine names
           for thirst: soft-hell, root-torn-from-soil, rain-

i.m. Greg Greger (1923–2015)

I. West of Chekhov

A month since Father died. Back in our old house, 
sisters, where were we? Desert of childhood, 
      great preserver, 

for you we opened another closet.
Father the farm boy––what didn’t he...

Africanus has a million bucks, 
and still he wants and wants and wants. 

Do I have to talk about fear? 
So much has already been said 
about hidden spiders, compass needles
lodged in the soft of an eye. 

the bloodshot eye cannot swallow any more red sunset rose after sunset rose in the mouth of the field godless

Train on the rails
Moon buttonholes the sky
The sorrow, the sails
Your hand, my thigh.

Moon buttonholes the sky
Lines trail airplanes
Your hand, my thigh
Doors close again.

is fragile as speech in answer when you ask me please go light the fire in the drum

Turn out the light and I’ll explain. 
—James Fenton

It’s where I’m heading
It’s what I overheard
The lines in the corner
The flaming word.

It’s what you expected
Your greatest fear
A chip in the teacup
Bills from last year.

Yes, I’m that Martial known all across the world 
for my elegiac couplets, hendecasyllables,

Consider the bowerbird and his obsession
of blue, and then the island light, the acacia,
the grounded beasts. Here, the iron smell of blood,
the sweet marrow, fields of grass and bone.