{"id":4671,"date":"2014-02-26T02:55:04","date_gmt":"2014-02-26T02:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sporkpress.com\/?p=4671"},"modified":"2014-02-26T02:55:04","modified_gmt":"2014-02-26T02:55:04","slug":"awp-special-4-poems-by-ken-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/2014\/02\/26\/awp-special-4-poems-by-ken-white\/","title":{"rendered":"AWP SPECIAL :: 4 Poems by Ken White"},"content":{"rendered":"

THIS APPARITION<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nTo have nothing is sometimes better
\nthan one could have hoped, yet as lamp posts
\n 
\nstutter to admit that at dusk the sky is somehow darker
\nthan the water, to have something is even less. I confess
\n 
\nI have withheld from you by night I am comprised of thread
\nspun from carded air, can divide
\n 
\nmyself or seduce the loom and widen such with wind
\nthat if you abide yet on this earth and breathe
\n 
\nyou cannot help but contain me
\nin some small portion. If by some chance you do not
\n 
\nthe mistake is mine; I have arrived
\nat the wrong world, or at the wrong time.
\n 
\nThis thought so small, so wholly indivisible \u2013 every eye I have
\nturned to the matter of your whereabouts. The windows
\n 
\nof the city as innumerable as your body
\nand I count them as I count you in compendium
\n 
\nwhile as passenger on slumbering pelican
\nI coast the thermal of the column, on hold
\n 
\nto be deafened by recollection of plenty. Bronze strokes
\nannounce ghosts of abundance
\n 
\nthat flatter broken alleyways. In the risen wall I count
\nas from indigo robe and spangled cowl the sun strips
\n 
\nto skin, home in its marble sash, an aperture,
\ninanimate. There is nothing to be done. I am poured back
\n 
\ninto this vault my body. I am interred and falling into this
\nhold my body and from that far-off rim the kohl-rimmed edges
\n 
\nof your eyes retreat, like shadow-puppets stepping back
\nfrom rice paper at the final act. If this is you, again
\n 
\nyou are too fleeting; raise up your hand to me
\nand I will see it finally – this is only substance
\n 
\nhere between us, yet inconstant as memory
\nof remnant breath, we condense and return
\n 
\nto dampen cracking continent \u2013 we are exhalation
\nbearing headlong for every entrance we can find. We are
\n 
\nstop-motion of ourselves in flight, mesmerized by the tide.
\nWe are light on hold and will resume as form requires
\n 
\nus converge again in some other room
\nas above the window closes
\n 
\nyour hand appears \u2013 it kindles
\nat the fringes and I see it \u2013 there is only
\n 
\nsubstance here between us \u2013 we are light
\n& proof. We are light & fire; I parse the parts
\n 
\nof firmament that flood the room \u2013 we touch
\neverything and are touched.
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nEIDOLON<\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nPresumably the figures, the monument to the dead
\nbetween them on the urn, the winged glimpse
\n 
\nat hover above or rising, indicate what can be expected
\nin the afterlife, that broadest prison — such love
\n 
\nof our own devising. White-ground glaze a tender ornament
\nof aromatic change, vases arranged
\n 
\naround the figure comported in deep repose and gauze,
\nhushed brittle reeds harboring a clutch of eggs.
\n 
\nAside from that, a martial scene: round shields of leather
\nand of metal, corselets or cuirasses, halberds\/falchions\/greaves,
\n 
\nthese implements of warding off and cleaving \u2013 love
\nfrom antiquity rarely survives. Scrutinize the curve
\n 
\nover earth pursued. Beneath this, the whole bay ochre plain
\nshaped by fingertips on palest clay. Flexing ankle
\n 
\nkeeps the wheel at spin. Before I breach horizon, my only wish
\nis that my speech might stitch the atmosphere
\n 
\nbetween your ear and (figure clasps hand to breast) here.
\n 
\n 
\n***
\n 
\nDay stretches through the gorge. The gorge bends
\nalong the day. I am buried under platform buried
\n 
\nunder sun. The clock in the wall of light through every
\npanel of the floor tessellates into stagnant waves
\n 
\non curve of wave-syncopating eye \u2013 this far-off range
\nlies down, this thing we call the tide, from the great blind
\n 
\ncurmudgeon who judges and berates. The whole un-
\nchoreographed design takes shape around the precise
\n 
\nflow of pattern the right-hand woman holds. And so
\nfolds the owl his semaphore of flight, and so
\n 
\nI signal as I rise. Forgive the darling fleeting
\ntoward surface, above the figures arrived, solemn
\n 
\nand oblique, convened of tracing over air
\nthe sign. Dispersing as the god was framed.
\n 
\n 
\n***
\n 
\nWrapped in sable scarf her sable offering of sleep
\nthe same that through your avenues
\n 
\naccelerates, twitch of hand and flicker under lid,
\nlivens with intruding streetlight
\n 
\ninsomniac hours, down-tipped eyes. Pebble,
\npebble, elegant press, you step as if in heavy
\n 
\nweather \u2013 a screen of geese, a reef of down \u2013 pallor
\nnow opaque. In the extended hand, a fragment
\n 
\nof crumbled leaf. Do not unseat the favored
\nthrone, where sorrow goes
\n 
\nto bow beneath the scepter and the cape
\nas dust grows deep to time, the second wave,
\n 
\nflight of valor \u2013 the queer green queue
\nof lime-green translucency.
\n 
\n 
\n***
\n 
\nFramed by wraith of smoke the shape of arrival
\ntoward surface from submersion, revealed
\n 
\nby feathery touch of close attention: here I am,
\nvictorious memory of youth, of commanding
\n 
\noblique, opposite you, the ripe fig of your lips, trying to speak
\nacross the complex skirting of the floor recovered from
\n 
\nantiquity as all around the dusk and amber swallows falter
\ntoward mortar. Excavate by respiration. Breathe with
\n 
\nthe softest brush and mark thread\u2019s slim glyph as pennant
\ntracing wind. And dismiss the faint pale particles
\n 
\nto reveal again figures taking form, their eyes agape with
\n(now old shapes, old tales) seashells knotted in their hair.
\n 
\n 
\n***
\n 
\nApparent under added color, she points
\nto his ankle below its greave, adorned
\n 
\nwith icy scars, a silken wreath. In attitude
\nthat echoes the lyre \u2013 silent \u2013 the wings
\n 
\nof his bearded face. Who says the dead must cross a river
\nutters lies. It is a white-ground plain \u2013
\n 
\nhe was wounded above the floating rib, wounded
\nin the groin. Edge deceived the hollow over clavicle
\n 
\nalso where his helmet failed his throat. In his left hand,
\nthe muted instrument, despite bearing
\n 
\nthe scar-bearing hoplite shield, a handle at the rim
\nand in his grim right fist a spear \u2013 bronze leaf
\n 
\npins his requiem against the fired air. Our sky
\nassumes a golden hue as we drown in glaze.
\n 
\nHis dirge will never reach her ear. I go to meet you
\non the plain of our own devising. This city
\n 
\nfor years at war and here the peace is terrifying.
\nAs is this down-white ash descending in great number
\n 
\nas it interferes. As is this funerary dust.
\n 
\n 
\n \u2003
\nWE LIVE IN A TIME OF WONDERS <\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nWe live in a time of wonders. Groomsmen sway,
\nmainmasts in waiting. Not a grove but a fleet of trees
\nswaddled in chattering flocks as bratwursts grill
\n 
\nin the stadium parking lot. Pennants snap. Trilliums etched
\ninto hurricane glass. The ferrous fibrillation of the ruddy train
\ntrack – the cherry tree! I stand under it and some airy thing
\n 
\ngouges great swathes of leaves from its brittle nosegay
\nto swirl untouched, a short-lived drift. Dented dinghy bids adieu
\nto port. Tiddly-winks and mud. There are no strings attached
\n 
\ncan attach to me, born unprepared as I was for such
\nwreck and splendor \u2013 the big bouquet \u2013 an iron road
\nthat doesn\u2019t scan. Bubble holds the suture
\n 
\nof retina detached. A vision colonized quite publically
\nand nothing so delicious as that power in decline. Clean
\ncoal. Drew Brees. We live in a time of wonders.
\n 
\n 
\n***
\n 
\nUnmoored in a time of wonders. Enshrined upon the hill
\nbehind a castellated wall of tulle this tinsel prize and things
\nperhaps we should consider before rigging knot is riven
\n 
\nfurther \u2013 a clue; hypothermic hunters don\u2019t talk parcel post
\nwhen they mean air courier. Ask Boeing. Boeing parties
\nlike a bachelor, gossips like a neighbor. On the carousel
\n 
\nfascicles of Samsonite parade as Kevlar plunder and I tremble
\na thoroughgoing tremor of delight, a hot and starry
\nshudder that sizzles as it solders \u2013 a slow broadside
\n 
\nor reluctant bride, all comes round in time, tagged with day-glo
\ncandor. The tag! The ticket! A flickering monitor makes curious
\nsynchronicity of palish moths, miraculous vehicles
\n 
\nof policy, a passengers\u2019 reminder. Avast! Awash! Surrender
\ncuticle scissors. Pipe down to jock itch, a rash of rickets.
\nCool treacle. Hard cheese. We live in a time of wonders.
\n 
\n 
\n***
\n 
\nAt large in a time of wonders notable sometime haberdashers note
\nthat in absence of an oar or sewing notion a small, cold room
\ncan be made colder. Also made smaller. In absence of cufflink
\n 
\nor tie tack, limbers altered to double draft can multiply our labor.
\nComing up in the world becomes casualty: cabdriver
\nplucked fraught from his cab and permanently detained
\n 
\nlike, well, a cabdriver waterboarded without outboard motor.
\nPerquisites of uniform \u2013 ripstop sateen. Free massages. The dry-ice
\nmachine clears its locker. Tanks burn \u2013 hooray! \u2013 like zeppelins,
\n 
\na dome lamp gone imperially dim. No lead blocker, no barrier
\nthimble. No Best Man counter-toasts such exposure. No navigator
\nthrall to fiscal blunder, the tax on Similac. L\u2019enfant terrible! Blitzing
\n 
\nstars! An audible! The formula is long in milliliters and short
\nin number. At last believe the banner: post or flag. Fade route.
\nMission Accomplished. Surely we live in a time of wonders.
\n 
\n 
\n***
\n 
\nI wake into a time of wonders \u2013 frantic amnesiac
\nwith head plucked out a pithy root, fantastic into foreign
\nair, a tuber in the febrile air of Flanders. Or a corvette
\n 
\ncritically perfervid, like the booming nine-pounders
\nof the H.M.S. Gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 Dieu, pinnacle of diplomacy, pistol lain
\ndiscreetly on formica pay counter. .38? Too special. Corvette?
\n 
\nPlease \u2013 frigate \u2013 it revels as it founders. Blue 32? Huzzah! Across
\nthe stadium \u2018the wave\u2019, the aisle \u2013 the far-off distal plane \u2013 a goal
\npost or mizzen mast of a Barquentine. Sweet lateen blooms,
\n 
\na cherry tree. A square rig! A flag! A chance! All cardinals
\nof the orchard trill filaments of crimson. Over seas of bridesmaid
\nstitchery that old bouquet in Majorelle. Though the dream
\n 
\nof incandescent wire remains yet a dream, a bulb of splendor. Thread
\nthe needle. Buttonhook-and-go. Deep strike on deep route. Touch larboard
\npunk to starboard wick. I Do. Doubtless this time is a time of wonders.
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nTHIS APPARITION <\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nMoreover, ever after. Doorway to the altar
\nladder at wait beneath the manhole cover concedes
\n 
\nto night-leased sky. I felt it rising \u2013 it twirled like ash
\nbut I did not know what it would provoke. I know it now
\n 
\nby heart, the truth; I can be stopped by smoke, or less, a mist
\nnot quite particular, anything beguiled by solvent. Surface swells fail
\n 
\nas far away the nightmare district grows now this very minute
\ninfinitely more manifold and remote. Please, after
\n 
\ncandied mandarins in portfolio, and dates,
\npecans lax where seeds once been, fox your small
\n 
\nremonstrance close therein. I take form
\nas goldeye gilding, golden idol gone, a goldenrod
\n 
\ncovered hillside on which \u2013 although blossoms manage
\nthrough an upturned sieve \u2013 nothing drowns, but assimilates,
\n 
\nI say as current slips its lid into place and I give over
\nto the way partition fails to end or begin, where current tumbles
\n 
\nthe very substance of our passing against the substance
\nof our passing \u2013 worn smooth, then thin, then worn to nothing.
\n 
\nThe sky above ripples unlike the sky below \u2013 a spoon
\non cork, dragonfly on cork. In the inmost ear a crown of spoons
\n 
\npocked by the slight hammer of sound from the hammered
\ndulcimers. A skein of spangles, all ornaments
\n 
\nof some former breath on every strand
\nstretching up through atmospheres
\n 
\nof handmade fathoms. Let go, I say. Do not forget
\nthat light has weight we must bear or become. Glass moths
\n 
\nbatter at the glass door, a host of tiny emperors
\nablaze in cambric. No longer some far-off window, only your
\n 
\nwhite shoulders where all small agents of flight assemble
\nsuch that as you move toward me nonetheless you grow smaller
\n 
\nin my smaller-growing eyes. I see you now. I know
\nyou now by heart. How could at such distance, at such depth,
\n 
\nstarlight wait (At last I breathe you in. I am afraid
\nI have known you, moreover, ever) so long to drive the clouds apart?
\n 
\n______________________
\nKen White <\/strong>is a poet and screenwriter who divides his time between Montana and Southern California and teaches Screenwriting in the MFA program at Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. He co-wrote and co-produced the feature film Winter in the Blood<\/em>, and has adapted Debra Earling’s Perma Red<\/em> for the screen, which he is attached to direct. He is currently adapting the YA novel Stolen for the screen with Lucy Christopher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THIS APPARITION     To have nothing is sometimes better than one could have hoped, yet as lamp posts   stutter to admit that at dusk the sky is somehow darker than the water, to have something is even less. I confess   I have withheld from you by night I am comprised of thread […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}