A Caledonian megalith.
A tinted bather from Cape Ann.
The 1937 kith
and kin of a Kentuckian
beside their Model T sedan.
The Celts. Who set me this arith-
metic of icons? Who began
by pasting in Bob Dylan? Zith-
erpicking rhinestone charlatan.
He tries to be American.
Self-hatred? No, no dear: that seems inflated —
chagrin: the shame you feel when friends withdraw
for reasons they leave tactfully unstated,
leaving you to guess at your faux pas
From all you did and didn’ t say for ages,
as in some vast congressional report,
your sin, at last, is lost among the pages;
a snow of detail cuts inquiry short.
In downtown windows where late sunlight glares,
you see yourself, as if you’ d never met.
Who is this rumpled lookalike who wears
a blouse like yours, the armpits dark with sweat?
They billow from a hillside in Cha’ am.
Together, they are more than plural:
the planet’ s darkest song, a tongue,
a serpent muscling air apart,
a dire banner come unfurled,
a river flowing wholly from
the old, mute mountain’ s desperate heart,
the last confession of the world.
Geof Huth
More About Visual Poetry >>
II. iv
I am writing this poem
about the 1965 massacre
of Indonesians by Indonesians
which in an article ten years later
I could not publish
except in Nottingham England with
a friend Malcolm Caldwell who has since
himself been murdered
no one will say by whom but I will guess
Plankton rise toward the full moon
spread thin on Wakaya’ s surface.
Manta rays’ great curls of jaw
scoop backward somersaults of ocean
in through painted caves of their mouths, out
through sliced gills. Red sea fans
pulse. The leopard shark
lounges on a smooth ramp of sand,
skin jeweled with small hangers-on.
Pyramid fish point the way to the surface.
Hair rush, low swoop —
so those of us
stuck here on earth
know — you must be gods.
Or friends of gods,
granted chances
to push off into sky,
granted chances
to hear so well
your own voice bounced
back to you
maps the night.
Each hinge
in your wing’ s
an act of creation.
Each insect
you snick out of air
a witness.
You transform
obstacles
into sounds,
then dodge them.
All afternoon I walk behind the mower,
Imagining, though paradoxically,
That even though the grass is getting lower,
What I have cut is like a rising sea;
The parts I haven’ t cut, with every pass,
Resemble real geography, a map,
A shrinking island continent of grass
Where shoreline vanishes with every lap.
At last, the noise and smell of gasoline
Dispel my dream. What sea? Peninsulas?
They were the lands my inner child had seen,
Their little Yucatáns and Floridas.
What kind of delusion are you under?
The life he hid just knocked you flat.
You see the lightning but not the thunder.
What God hath joined let no man put asunder.
Did God know you’ d marry a rat?
What kind of delusion are you under?
His online persona simply stunned her
as it did you when you started to chat.
You see the lightning but not the thunder.
To the victors go the plunder:
you should crown them with a baseball bat.
What kind of delusion are you under?
Past the fountain out of repair
And the boarded diner
A small studio
You’ d never told anyone about
Where old clothes have remained
Right where you’ ve dumped them
Side by side
With random notes and sketches
When someone close to you
Has a different idea of what you represent
He insisted
You’ ll write a check for the loan
There were other misjudgments
As well. Exits were being blocked
Down every hall I walked
Until a sort of muscle memory —
Well, I knew it all along, of course,
