but what we got was some sequel
made for the merchandising rights
so let’s instead unpack this strange
light after a summer storm near
evening with its light bouquet of
back pain—in those glowing clouds you
could believe the benevolent
aliens might pop down for tea
and cake and perhaps slip you a
few space-time secrets but they fail
to arrive again so climb to
bed and nudge the little dog from
her pillow throne and sink and sigh
chest collapsed but eyes on the sky
-
Sonnet
-
Sonnet
having made peace with the rocks that
I call shoes, grown accustomed to
the furry creatures living in
my sinuses and the shows they
watch into the deep oven nightI watch one fork of lightning free
the tree that dropped only small sour
fruit, and return to arranging
oyster shells to resemble a
wave and ask is this the dream it’sso quiet here it’s hard to hear
the song of my empty stomach
or the rattle of the bones of
the dead like pills stuck in my throat
-
early evening early in the death thinking about death all day the video game deaths I played the music death all the death TV shows the same even if they try to death it my back still sore but better death than the dog deaths her new toy
and no I never did get around to that I gave up on connection and went down paths they warned me about to make blurred photocopies of those same mistakes my hands stumbling fat then thin leaves fell and grew the early sun in winter faithfully rendered in Minecraft reddened the tips of things in a neighborhood or that or this heavy frenemy in my chest sometimes makes his strange will speak
-
Sonnet
what prize did you hope to hold in those smooth
hands for the plan sketched in cloud and unbuilt—
what melody might have flown forth if you
freed yourself from petty politics of
the boardroom and tested those scrawny wings—
but you sat with a job safe as socks and
a single number near the cold solsticenow in the damp the aches where you bend while
those black glacier teeth topple in tepid
tea you mumble to the cat it wasn’t
all bad these bloody feet could still march this
hand salute the lurking shadow who smiles
at the coughing cubicle dwellers soon
to be churned into cheap fertilizer
-
Sonnet
sweet voices in a mist-filled wood like a memory of the moon just a few drops of blood from your yearly broken back and you can play until fat with all the things this difficult crossword puzzle doesn’t attract me now that some grey has snuck in so why not stay I lost my train of thought again but with the mental gps installed it was no problem to rejoin and then pick from one of the available choices and at last enter new star city
-
Sonnet In Which the Last Two Lines Have Shipped But Are Running Late
do you clap when it arrives in crumpled
corrugated cardboard dropped on the steps
of your demand and expectation—me?
I long to hear the soft song of
the box cutter the little sigh
as light uncovers the gifts of darknessbut enough of my many weaknesses
let’s upgrade our kitchens hats and bookshelves
lounge in the recycled air gulp supplements
unthinking of the debt and folks living
in fire and try to laugh since we never
got the hang of writing protest songs
-
Sonnet
since the selfie came out blurry
giving that mosquito my cheek
to suck its snack while the old crows
guffawed my self-promotion by
the abandoned railroad tracks may
not have been my finest momentso in this phlegmy rain I wait
for the final ferry and this
may be the encephalitis
talking but I feel I grow fat
or waste on the food of strangers’thumbs as I grope
in the dark for
a light so you
can learn my name
-
please ask me to
kill for you ask
me to imprint
each foot with the
ridges of my
best teeth ask me
to comb the clouds
into candy
for the joy of
toothless trash cans
throughout the land
-
Sonnet
skimmed emails we deleted too quickly
may have mentioned the forest of bright spears
and ships ready to launch, but once we saw the
reports on the quarterly report from
Ichthyosaur & Associates we
had no doubt what they were up to with those
color-shifting lobbyists and gift baskets
reeking of brine and though they wrote of missed
opportunities no one missed the flotsam
flecked with blood, tossed by ceaseless waves that could
break on our belovèd beans just learning
to climb towards those heavy clouds pierced by sun—he stopped, mumbled something roses fingers
dawn and walked away from the empty chairs
-
The Carrier of Ladders
Poems by W. S. MerwinDISCARD
Ferguson Library
Date DueJun – 3 1975
Jun 9 1976Nov 16 ’76
Jan 24 1977
Aug 15 1977
Feb 21 ’78Jan 11 1979
May 19 1979
Jun 13 1979
Nov 22 1980May 6 1981
Jun 22 1982
Dec 4 1982May 25 1983
May 28 1987
RENEWAL
Jun 17 1987RENEWAL
Jul 7 – 1987
Jul 28 1987
RENEWAL
Aug 17 1987
Nov 2 1989
Jun 11 1990
RENEWAL
Jul 2 1990RENEWAL
Jul 16 1990RENEWAL
Jul 30 1990
Sep 7 1990
Oct 11 1990Oct 31 1990
-
do I admit shamefully sheepishly that I love the stream of music video podcast my phone tablet computer can provide the immersion in old loves missed opportunities new lush lands to be lost in but why not what’s better for those of us who lose the thread so quickly what was that Pavement tune that Philip glass bit I love but maybe I’m getting too Prozac I mean prosaic I think maybe now anyway all the hints can drive you mad you think they’re heading somewhere but one turn around the lake and we’re back at the front door unkissed
-
though my eyes blur in this light there is a
certain after-cataclysm path that
feels as though you were walking upstairs
but maybe I’m not explaining it right
it’s like now that sex is out of fashion
how do you explain movies from the 80s
but let me stop you right there before I
need to write a ticket though you are my friend
-
sometimes there’s nothing human you can do
the white sky mo(u)rning a single bird across
the courtyard bricks for a new pyramidso where can you go how can you
think after they refuse to be
born itwon’t help
steer this weary ox fromthe prized flowers won’t re
construct the squirrel’s bones
-
Sonnet
with false starts buzzing around my head what do I do do I recall one fly I cut in half with a glass while trying to trap and free it—then sculpt some little line to be stomped bloodless by the sound of boots on the ceiling—so do I then try to persist with this misty I and words like persist—but to speak plainly there is no window in which to speak plainly about a small flower past my boots that I wish could fly into colors that open a window into a land where I could lie…
but now I’m cut in half and half of me
may persist and maybe that I will fly
-
what hope in this pen and an ink
nearly invisible
earlier the morning sun on
the trees made me think of
large mammals and their humid scent
in the sun in the grass
the countable galaxies of
bright dew and now the chair
makes sarcastic music of my
musing but the night is
still and so wide without a moon
-
those little hopes for the
weekend with green softness
over the lawn insectsfloat or dart the breeze
was so important thatit might keep me up tonight
I know it’s not your problemthe pickles came out so well
you know the darkness
catches up before
summer really gets
going I should stop
saying you know you
know anywhoo thelast time we spoke
you were spitting
in the eye of
a hurricaneit’s always the way when the days get less
generous with their light and walking the
dog you see furry legs in the trees and
a noise near or far you choose to ignore
-
Who I’ve Been Reading
Ada Rae Merwin, T. S. Coleman,
Allen Louise Eliot, Edna
Limón, Geoffrey D. Graham, Anne Glück,
John Kalytiak Davis, Emily
Gay, Joshua Sexton Cummings,
Jorie Whitman, Gertrude Stein, John
Armantrout, William Aimee Wordsworth,
Tracy K. Marvel, E. E. Ashbery,
Wanda Joy Ginsburg, Kimiko Bennett,
W. S. Dickinson, John Rich Smith,
Ross Berryman, Andrew Keats, Walt
Nezhukumatathil, H. Harjo
Hahn, Adrienne Chaucer,
Olena St. Vincent Millay,
-
after great doubt eye strain and intermittent rain some peanut butter and crackers but months grow crumble and blow away in the humid breeze it never left
other animals 