Poetry

Altarpiece

after Kiki Smith

Lilith of plaster. Lilith of bronze
Lilith of pigment and wax. Because
you would not would not
pillow the bastard
the applecart tipped

You would not would not, and now

your ten thousand baubles to shatter
Lilith of burlap and bark. Lilith
of papier-mâché
Out of loblollies
cast, Eden’s dank sloughs

Our Father in His hip boots

gropes at the clasp of the beaded purse
Lilith of the true blue eye, show me
a body that will
contain its being
Show me. Show me. Things

just naturally fall out

Lilith of dung and other nonsense
A nest of quarter notes bears witness
What is it about?
Subtraction. A most
erotic process

And what, Lilith, my little

catkin from Babylon, fell fell fell
from the sultry ditch of your mouth? What
spun that saccadic
tongue? Black utterance?
Nothing. No thing less

than the Ineffable Name

Rib-less Lilith of slither and hiss
Of slag pulp plank rope. Lilith of The
Evangelical
Twat. Syllabic Lilith
of taint, of flay

of hunch and splay, of kneeling, of not

Coming Out of Caliban

For three hard hours
I watched my daughter watch
this kink-backed boy snort and hiss—
supplicate his scaly curses
to the will of booted men.
I answered, with all
the truth I could muster,
her questions. Calmed,
as best I could, the storm
of her young fears.
But when the wretched monster
scuttled across the proscenium
dragging the irrefutable centuries behind him—
when he slithered right
up to the precipitous curtain call
then rose on a truer man’s two legs,
then winked, then smiled, then bowed, and we
both fell head-over-heels into
the moment— I knew
soon enough, my sovereign role
would be done.

Grace Note

In the pitch and yaw of this my beating
          the untongued words newly sprung
Heart― a tuning fork or divining rod
          say it again. say it. say
Perfect pitch or prophesy, each note struck
          I know a girl made of fire
Fretless, my want for her, from the belly
          teach me the fingering teach
out of discord it came, comes harmony now
          my mouth your burning

In Defiance of January

I like it best when
against the cold—
dry and mean as jute twine—
my lip splits
and my fingertip cracks
at the quick and cuticle.

When all that I say
stings. Tastes of rust
and broom straw. When
all that I touch or trace burns
a fine path up my arms.

I like most that moment of rupture
just before the blood beads,
when flesh gapes,
its tiny howl— pink and mute.
And all that is messy and subcutaneous
is laid bare.

No salve, no balm. No denial.

Katyn Forest

I am 1939 and cold air.
I want a cigarette but will make do
with this shovel. This shovel
feels good after stale bread and weeks
in the dark.
To have purpose satisfies.

I am 1939 and too young to smoke.
Don't be absurd.
Joseph Stalin came to dinner and refused
to eat the soup. I have shovel and purpose.
My hands are free only because I do not resist.
I don't scream through sawdust simply because I don't scream.

I am the beginning of a stamp collection:
ten, meticulously affixed to a small card.
I'll be found in a breast pocket, yellowed and peeling.
This place is called Kosygori or Goat Hill.
There are rumors of orchards in the air.
All I ask, really, is that someone forward
our correspondence.

It is 1939 and we are tired.
There is much to be done, but patience
is all we can give. For now I'm content to lie
on the twenty one thousand eight hundred fifty six backs
of my father, press my mouth to the bullet hole
at the base of his skull and hum softly
until my own drum sounds.

Latter-Day Sonnet

In abject black, the crow, betrothed to up
bound to down, beats itself senseless against
the day — the night — O flea infested dupe
I envy you, your guttural pittance

Know this, the pine repudiates its root
The breastbone, excerpted, a fine tableau
To yearn — (infinitive) bridge between two —
us, un-conjugated. Out of the blue

out of the blue blue sky, dribbling pity
for the apple — its dubious drop. Hear —
the crow all ink black in its piety
is no less than a primer. However

unknowable you, I remain devout
and gift this, with true pause, to you ― my doubt

Parts of Speech

Talk to me about the ocean― she says
so I put her finger in my mouth
and when a Halloween wind peels
the fire from the back of Tussey Mountain
we drown. We drown.

Say something about bones― I say
and three dozen starlings write her name
in the gray sky over an apple orchard.
Pluck and wing. Beak and core

Turn over― I say ―turn me over― she says
and the whole goddamn world upends. It’s not so unlike
flight, this fall into her. This syllabic tumble into― What
am I afraid of?

Heartbeat: the only relevant dictum dictum dictum
I learned a new word today
Listen― let’s burn our thesaurus
call the ash by its ineffable name
I learned a new word today
Say it with me

Passion

Seven hundred years later Giotto falls—
falls a continent away into my
lap. En route to an infidelity,
I am taken by surprise. St. Francis,
to be precise. Frescoed martyr laid waste
by a retch and belch in the hot belly
of the earth. Assisi quakes. The master
of perspective succumbs to gravity.

Insist on the truth. Two of the faithful
died there. Kneel with me, we can say these words:
Hue, Chroma, Mass Tone. Color is nothing
but a particle wave phenomenon.
Theory of blue. Grace—transport us. Insist
on the truth. About some things, I have lied.

Poems by Maudie Sherrill, age 7 3/4

Abstract Myth

I think upon
a myth of wonder
like grazing in the fields
I sit upon
a grass of dream
below my fearsome force
and someday
life will
be.

Grace

Like one day and in another
thy heart will graze
in fields of hope in outrageous
forces of love

Outrageous

Thy eagle
swoop down
upon my
face with
endless grace
a star of curiosity
I can flow upon
a cloud somewhere
up there for I am
proud!

Fortunate

upon great sorrow
and in my soul, in
my heart
feel a soothing
spirit that will
stain my heart
with reality
and curiosity.
A tree of life
stupendous all
in the heart of mine.

Psalm of the Malcontent

God of noun. God of verb. God of the unbroken line.
The gutting scaffold waits with wooden patience;
block and tackle or prie-dieu, it’s all the same.
He who comes before the inkstone and nib,
God of the infinitive split. Split. The split. To
{insert modifier here} split the tongue of a crow
brings speech—sweet sacrilege and welcome blasphemy.
God of the diagrammed sentence redeemed.
I know a man who prays to Strunk & White.
God of etymologies: second coming is what that means;
resurrection—more or less—o idiomatic God. God
of gerunds. Sing ing ing. The ascension of clause.
God at the stock pot and mother tongues.
Milk tooth and tonsil. Bicuspid and cleft palate.
God of the taut larynx, taught—homonym. God
of all that bids me to speak. My question is this:
is it possible that God on the Seventh Day, that God
did not rest, that God instead broke down—terrified?
That God just stopped, things having gotten out of hand?
I’ve made this list for you, my unborn child
and when I open my palms—gravity.

Seven Trees for Lee

I know a girl made of fire, made of fire, made of echo
          call it the strum hollow, the treble drone
I know a girl made of backwards and forwards, or heresy
          let us pray― let us sing― let us kiss― it’s all the same
I know a girl divisible by two. I know a girl made of string and so are you
          the heart as catechist. my lord? her flesh and bone
I know a girl made of Octobers. All of them
          vestment of leaf and fog. need is my ransom
I know a girl made of ten. Made of nine. Made of eight, and so on
          the abacus fingered night and day
I know a dervish made of girl, spin if you dare
          shhhhhhhhh
I know a girl made of ink and font. Quarter notes. Alphabets
          call it white space― blessed stasis― call it silence

The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break

Sorely needed because, for the umpteenth
time since landing a job as line-cook
at the Holiday Inn, those damn horns of his
have been a problem. It’s the pots
that hang overhead; he keeps punching
holes in them, Management is pissed.
The Minotaur sits on an empty pickle bucket
blowing smoke through bullish nostrils.
He lows. He laments. He can’t remember
whether the Stuffed Flounder gets béchamel
or hollandaise. Moreover, the heat chafes.
About that time he spies her coming
down the ally, that new waitress the whole
kitchen is talking about. He almost gives her
the once-over but can’t get past her breasts.
The Minotaur is a tit man. - I’m a tit man-
he mouths to the Fry Cook. - What’s that mean;
You’re a tit man?- they ask. The Minotaur
can’t answer. He sits indignant, a convicted
it man, picking at the dried gravy
stain on his apron. Feigning indifference
he nearly misses the miracle beneathing her,
this apparition in slinky black.
But as she hoofs her way up the back
steps he can’t help but notice those fine shanks.
And what offers them up is not the sensible pump,
is not the stiletto heel, is nothing less
than cloven- Things are looking up- he thinks.

The Physics Lesson

1. Einstein Kisses Gödel

My little shubunkin— he says. My sweet, my toggle
switch. What business this: mind or matter.
Do you? Does it? The syllabics link
our particular alembic, trunk to tail.
Tick tock, tick tock. My little
shubunkin, my bespectacled knish.
We simply are. The you of you and the I
of I; a whirligig of epic proportions. Not
quite complete. I want to kiss you— I think,
and inasmuch as we reach futures by displacing pasts,
consider it done. My toggle switch, my
scrawny feast, my
Singapore sling.

2. Gödel in the Apple Orchard

There he goes, Gödel again.
Loose. Amok, even, among the fruit,
tipping buckets left and right.
Muckraker of the zodiac. I love him—
butterchurn and backslider; try as I might
I can’t stop his surefooted gallop—
that giddy(up) trot from tree trunk to cider
press. Gödel, flat out. Incomplete from the get go;
pawning off watch fobs and (non)sense to all.
See, my Gödel, curled in the grass,
linens all amiss— oh sweet, scattered sauerkraut,
my nudzh, my noodling noodle. My Gödel—
snagged amid the appled branches.
The proof is in the pudding.
Nothing is as great as the space between hearts— nothing
as insignificant as the distance from sun to moon,
and a thing once seen cannot be un-seen.
Come back liebling, we both know—
there are some words
the mouth cannot make.

3. Albert in the Kitchen


We have these tiffs from time to time,
time itself a dubious sovereign for us both—
but Gödel likes his eggs just so.
If _____, then _____, he claims. Either_____,
or_____. Pass the salt, I say, sick to death
of all the tautologies and claptrap.
Talk talk talk over jam pots and pill bottles,
till my noggin throbs. Go ahead liebchen.
Hurl your proofs at this leaky contraption;
few things tug with the gravity of desire.
There, at the breakfast table, our robes drably
matched and tied tight, the milky way and all
its cohorts swirl in his eyes, yet I can’t imagine
this dog-eared earth without him.
Sometimes we simply stop, bask for a moment
in the lesser miracles: breath or silence.
In my dream life, my other world, it goes like this:
Birdy— he says, the word taking flight
from the perch of his Germanic tongue.
Hurtles ear-ward. Birdy— he says,
and so loving the utterance, I swoon.
Birdy— he says, reaches to brush toast crumbs
from my moustache— You’re a mess.
And that, relatively speaking, is enough.

4. Dearest Gödel I Bid You Adieu

Einstein scribbles the line three four five times.
Gives up, subtraction not his strong suit.
What he’d rather say: My dear Gödel,
my dapper dumpling, I’ve found us, finally,
in the plat book. Pinned us down, so to speak,
among the lines. Crisscross and fifty years
later I’ll meet the screaming piha at the Baltimore Zoo.
All I really want is to hold your hand there.
In the house that Jack built, monkey minds
the store and the nail swings the hammer.
Let’s, at least, have a farewell party, musical chairs
and all: the here and now and the after while
swapping seats. Here’s a line I stole and, owing more,
give to you: like birds through an alabaster ceiling.
Oh Gödel, rug-tugger of the cosmos, what could be
more quantum than the broomstick I’m asking you to leap?
I have an idea. Let’s play universe.
You be God.

5. Einstein Sallies Forth

Bunk. Flapdoodle. Hocus-pocus and prattle.
I confess. I made it up. All
that hoopla over time and space, light and matter,
for you, Dear Gödel, all akimbo at the blackboard.
Your chalky chicken scratch and come-hither theories.
How could I resist. Ask me how
the cedar waxwing flies, and I
answer you thus: I want it.
I want the gray wing and gray wing beat,
I want the trilling cry and the silence that follows,
The beak and hollow bones, give.
If this is greed, then by god I will be greedy.
Give me the flit, the flutter, the flight itself
and the spruce bough that devours it.
Gödel, my sweet, my soup spoon, I am driving a nail
I cannot name into an unslakeable sky. Hunker down,
now; there are no instructions save
forgiveness. Look how the tiny bird tips skyward,
its red-flecked wings and blue and blue