What Nothing Reveals—poem

Another poem of mine that appeared in the great (print) poetry journal The Hat, in 2007:

What Nothing Reveals

                                    for Susan Wheeler

Freakish, nothing burst into nothing where you

were gathering nothing frantically, phonetically.

Nothing is flying, Nothing a

calamity of nothing–or perhaps they said

nothing. This left nothing, that left nothing

and he, nothing, had it, too.

Now nothing rearranges nothing.

On the right there is nothing, nothing

or nothing, in a bright and terrifying nothing.

Nothing altered nothing. Pressed to the rear of

nothing toward nothing, you started with nothing

with nothing that troubles you still. Like nothing

who only dreamed, you can’t shake nothing.

Nothing, straightened now, is white against nothing.

Nothing confirms. Nothing replies.

There is nothing like nothing.

Nothing drops out.

You pay for nothing.

There is nothing to fill nothing,

nothing yawing in nothing

on nothing.

The cornfields covered in last night's light snow

This poem appeared in The Hat #5, in 2005.

 

The cornfields covered in last night’s light snow

The cornfields covered in last night’s light snow

with broken stalks and clumps of dirt sticking

and poking out and up and you can go

past the long hedgerow and find deer licking

the salt lick lazy hunters put up last

fall when the leaves still had their colors and

it seemed that humid summer had just passed

but now the creek the only sound the sand

bar covered up with snow melt flowing south

and west toward the Mississippi cold

with bits of ice on roots washed free of dirt

and darker than the toothpick in my mouth

I spit and watch it float away and hold

myself still

                   cold wind through my flannel shirt

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Blue Dancers

This poem originally appeared in the (great) poetry journal, The Hat, in 2007.
 

Blue Dancers

The little rats

if only they’d stop running around

giggling and covering their mouths

soft pad of ballet shoes

if only they’d stop running around

on the hardwood floor backstage

soft pad of ballet shoes

if only they would stand still and pose

on the hardwood floor backstage

stretching smooth white legs

if only they would stand still and pose

blue skirts rustling against each other

stretching smooth white legs

they only stop to fix each other’s hair

blue skirts rustling against each other

long brown ponytails across pale backs

they only stop to fix each other’s hair

if only they would stay

long brown ponytails across pale backs

but no the next act starting

if only they would stay

and they scurry to the wings

but no the next act starting

raising themselves on toes

and they scurry to the wings

they glide out into the light

raising themselves on toes

giggling and covering their mouths

they glide out into the light

the little rats

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