“Soubasse” is the first section of the third poem in I Have a Bird to Whistle (7 Palinodes), my new chapbook.
The book is available here to U.S. residents for $7.50, shipping included.
Non-U.S. purchasers can order it directly from me by emailing aBirdtoWhistle@yahoo.com.
The pre-publication order period for I Have a Bird to Whistle ends on February 24. I believe that there will be a small increase in price after that.
From where do these poems come?
The third poem in the chapbook, (soubasse, plenum, leaf), started with an interest in the sounds trees make when suffering from drought, and moved on to etymology, politics, questions of measurement and, as always, perception. The definitions of “plenum” were particularly illuminating, as were the origins of various units of measure, as were those sounds we sense but don’t hear, those feelings tugging at us, perhaps without our knowledge.
The book is available here to U.S. residents for $7.50, shipping included.
Non-U.S. purchasers can order it directly from me by emailing aBirdtoWhistle@yahoo.com.
Which is an Eye or a Bowl, a Dream
Or well-placed mirror in a sunburnt room, shivering through shifted
images: that hand, blackened and stout, opened like a dark peony;
the tattooed chin; shovel and torch; hook and owl. You say no one
chooses one fist over another, that bread’s rise completes its cycle
and begins anew, pressed flat and rounded. Take this heart and seal
its chambers. Note the anterior descent. Compression, lesion. Plaque.
Consequence. And your friend, who slept, never to awaken. Lying
in that strange bed, you taste salt, acknowledge change, whisper
to no one: audible house…audible tree, knowing that time’s limit
remains unclear. The air swirls and you accept this new light.
Note: “Audible house…audible tree” is from Jane Hirshfield’s “Not Moving Even One Step,” from The Lives of the Heart.
The Echo is Neither Sound nor Hope
empty trees
a darkened
window
the void
between chairs
unchanged
as if you’d never spoken
* * *
This first appeared in April 2015.
Luminous Press will be releasing my chapbook I Have a Bird to Whistle: 7 Palinodes later this month. I’ll post links when available. Many thanks to editors Iskandar Haggarty and Julia Ortiz for publishing this collection.
I’m looking forward to participating in “The Larger Geometry: poems for peace” reading at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at Texas State University. We’ll read our own poems, but will share others from the anthology as well.
If you’re able to attend, we’d love to see you.
Glass with Memory
When I remember you
glass comes to mind,
but nothing so transparent
as an unclothed thought
or warmth trickling in
through the pipes or
under the haze of
the second night’s sheet,
no two alike except
in appearance, but under
the lamp’s unconscious glare
I find warmth spreading
across the hard surface,
telling me all is
not lost, that smoothness
persists beyond our reflection.
“Glass with Memory” made its first appearance on the blog in February 2017.
