{"id":90,"date":"2011-05-30T06:54:20","date_gmt":"2011-05-30T06:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sporkpress.com\/poetry\/?p=90"},"modified":"2011-05-30T06:54:20","modified_gmt":"2011-05-30T06:54:20","slug":"3-poems-by-martin-rock-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/2011\/05\/30\/3-poems-by-martin-rock-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Three poems by Martin Rock"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOVE POEM WITH ACCORDION<\/strong><\/p>\n

invoke again the apparition
\nof our rending<\/p>\n

the screen is dark enough
\nto eat our stippled skin<\/p>\n

a touching glow i feel
\nyour fingers inside the knapsack<\/p>\n

of my casket you rearrange
\nmy organs and replace them<\/p>\n

with brass knobs and bellows
\nthe knot in my throat<\/p>\n

a keyboard in my stomach
\nmetal reeds create sound<\/p>\n

when air is pushed around them
\nthe accordion was inspired<\/p>\n

by the Chinese cheng 5,000
\nyears old and shaped<\/p>\n

like a phoenix we have killed
\nthat bird our spirit-animal<\/p>\n

is now a cockroach
\nyou named to trap the god<\/p>\n

inside i adopted for us
\nan elephant on valentines day<\/p>\n

this might be our saving grace
\nin 1822 the handeoline<\/p>\n

was birthed and grew
\ninto an accordion inside my chest<\/p>\n

you may play it
\nwith your words i will be<\/p>\n

stalwart as the mast
\non the merchant ship which carried<\/p>\n

the first cheng to America
\nand roaches and perhaps even<\/p>\n

an elephant there is a ship
\nbeing excavated from the world<\/p>\n

trade center site i wonder
\nhow many lovers have been<\/p>\n

wooed by weepy accordion music
\nwhile the whole floor rocked<\/p>\n

beneath the stars entire families
\nlearned to read the storms<\/p>\n

and bellows creaked in speechless
\nstrain under the weight<\/p>\n

of what we have to give
\neach other in the coming<\/p>\n

of winter again invoke
\nthe apparition of our rending<\/p>\n

so that we might find a roach
\nforce open its mouth<\/p>\n

feed it until the pest
\nbecomes lethargic if the storm<\/p>\n

subsides there is still a chance
\nour roach might vomit up<\/p>\n

a diamond from the soot
\nthere must invariably emerge<\/p>\n

a very old man in this poem
\nwho sits in his basement<\/p>\n

holding a mass of organs
\neven in the poem-world<\/p>\n

objects can\u2019t just disappear
\nmy organs being objects<\/p>\n

are in the preserving grasp
\nof an ancient accordion-maker<\/p>\n

while i am filled with this
\nmusic for you that is<\/p>\n

not love but merciful proximity
\nthe film is still not<\/p>\n

finished let us see what<\/p>\n

__ __
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

THE RIVER IS A PANTOUM OF MIRRORS AND NARCISSUS IS DROWNING<\/strong><\/p>\n

We slept in uniforms of bark and wood,
\nwhile outside the night wandered
\nup the hill and across our foreheads.
\nThere was a machine made of cypress
\nwhile outside the night wandered.
\nIt was a tree and oxygen and birds
\nthat was a machine made of cypress.
\nWe couldn\u2019t build it if we tried.
\nIt was a tree and oxygen and birds,
\ndripping wet paint from the branches.
\nWe couldn\u2019t build it if we tried
\nso we tried. It was a great voyage,
\ndripping wet paint from the branches.
\nScarlet ibises dispersed from the poppies.<\/p>\n

\u2260<\/p>\n

So we tried. It was a great voyage,
\nfinding the sun. Getting there is easy.
\nThe ibises with their purse of poppies
\nwe help out of the blazing clouds
\nto find the sun. Getting there is easy
\nwhen the wind spills petals at your back.
\nWe guide them through the blazing clouds
\nthen we ourselves retreat into the elm,
\npetals sweat-stuck to our naked backs.
\nSomething roils like a school of fish in the sky
\nand then retreats: we ourselves are at the helm.
\nUp the hill and across our foreheads
\na school of fish roils like the sky.
\nWe slept in uniforms of bark and wood.<\/p>\n

__ __
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

IF A SOUND COULD SOUND <\/strong><\/p>\n

Thirteen miles to the nearest gas station
\nand there isn\u2019t a place I\u2019d rather be.
\nLook how the roseate spoonbill is invited inside
\nto eat soup with the villagers.
\nLook how everything is covered with white sheets,
\nhow there is light beneath the sheets.
\nThe first animals to arrive sunk
\nlive trees into the primordial soup.
\nRoot systems formed into a kind of electricity
\nand the tree houses glowed from within.
\nThey communicated by shaking
\ntheir trunks and the leaves would radiate
\nwith kinetic energy. When the leaves turned
\nblue, it meant \u201cwe are making love
\nand would rather not be disturbed.\u201d
\nWhen the leaves turned red it meant
\n\u201cwe are making love and you are welcome to join us.\u201d
\nIf a sound could sound angry
\nit would have no place in the village,
\nuntil one day a visitor from New York arrived.
\nNo one wanted to be the one
\nto put their hand into the lion\u2019s mouth that night,
\nbut in the end everyone did.
\nIn the end there was a great fire,
\nand people developed language to distinguish
\ntheir bodies from the sounds they made.<\/p>\n

__ __<\/p>\n

Martin Rock<\/strong> is a poet, editor, and translator with work appearing or forthcoming in La Petite Zine, DIAGRAM, The Tampa Review, Salamander, NANO Fiction,<\/em> and other journals.\u00a0 His collaborative chapbook with Phillip D. Ischy, Fish, You Bird<\/em> was published by Pilot Books.\u00a0 He edits Loaded Bicycle<\/em><\/a>, a new online journal of poetry, art, and translation, and Epiphany, a Literary Journal<\/em>.<\/a> He would like to be able to say he lives in the mountains with his dog but he lives in Brooklyn and has no dog. martinrockpoetry.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOVE POEM WITH ACCORDION invoke again the apparition of our rending the screen is dark enough to eat our stippled skin a touching glow i feel your fingers inside the knapsack of my casket you rearrange my organs and replace them with brass knobs and bellows the knot in my throat a keyboard in my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","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=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}