ars poetica

HEAD OF AN IDOL
       circa 2000 BC

Or the round shape of a paddle
that plunks in and out
of the aqueous surface
       aquiline on its own
               beak-like
gliding past definition
over comprehension
through seconds that count
its infinity
       curves that trace its shape
from the Cycladic Islands      it knows
               only in these words
       the cold currents
positions of the moon
       smells and tastes
               cloaking us
       in time’s oblivion

—Nancy Cavers Dougherty

Entry on the Line

'A sidewalk is a narrow location in history, and no bright remarks can hold back the dark'
Rosemarie Waldrop, Inserting the Mirror, section 5

      putting
one foot forward
            opens the line's
      clear questions
about action
            about care
      a line is a narrow place
in history
            but an action
      that makes up history
nonetheless
            at the end
      of the line
the line looks
            back at us
      with time
with care
            the time spent
      in its care
emergency
            or the sexy fearful
      dream of crisis
narrows our locations
            makes no word
      seem bright enough
but here is the line
            stuck into space
                  drawing the light to it

—David Kennedy

anutha

—Jason Christie

PAGE OF WRITING

Removing copulatives makes matters mysterious,
relieving images of causes, effects
deburred for a smoother ride

—Anne Talvaz
____
(original published in "Imagines", Editions Farrago, Tours, France, 2002)

KAGERO NIKKI

The drizzle repeating itself, the mountains' murmur,
white as the mist and sky. Today,
no music in the mother-chamber, behind the

curtains, and both wooden blinds. Today
the weather has darkened, and left sleeves damp. Despite the charcoal burner,
the resplendent fabrics, something nostalgia itself

can no longer contain. And behind the fierily flushed cheeks, the sweat-drenched hair,
the ink-stained fingers, perhaps
the sadness is true.

—Anne Talvaz
____
(original published in "Panaches de Mer, Lithophytes et Coquilles", Editions
Comp'Act, Chambery, France, 2006)

Ars Poetica: Hitting the Curve

The only trouble with hitting a curve ball
is that your knees are in love with your skull.

To make them lean towards something someone
has flung with clenched teeth at your chin

you have to fake that your front-cleat is soaking
in an old milking pail. And believe for an instant

the truth isn’t true—that even the Gods, even
Williams and Cobb, fail more often than not.

It helps to know Plato’s is from becomes—
that the field was a field, the bat a creaking ash limb.

To know even your withered, pale father was beautiful
once, the bat falling from his shoulders like silk

as you lift your foot from the bucket and wail
like Achilles, without spilling a drop of the milk.

—Patrick Phillips

the project is the art

—Ruggero Maggi