I     Vague & Ghostly eere

 

                                                                  

       Pallid FRAGMENT

       scar phrased among the freedom strings         consoling    crenellate

                                                                                                       fret

                                                                                                            swans

                               triplet

                      zither   sharp bowls of proscenium 

                                                Of

                   The Company swerve ditch            commissionTAX cook

                                          & spreed close scrape Fanatic

 

 

       II

 

 

                SunBeam by Old Glory Tallies

 

                   terminus sounds I struggle to you           I miss you tugging

       the leap

                               Doctrines              and stunning    air

       and all those little

                                           swords     of sun       whispering the knuckle doors                                

 

 

 

                   III

 

 

    Baste The Roof The Halls children open

 

       the teething     creaks     The Tiger Wheel

 

 

 

 

 

       IV

 

                                                            Blest all our outsized waiting

 

 

    the Rodeo

                                                                       Company   swerve

 

                   ditch commission the technifiedscholarhasn’tbathedin   weeks   because of

 

 

 

 

                   V      YOU                             

                            downundertheabyssmoonstimmers

 

 

 

       fly                                 the tide

                                                 so gently                          breathes the

 

Landscape

 

 

       the wrong tone words we zeroed like fools since we couldn’t even imagine

 

                  that much burning

 

       the Company’s strongArmlove

 

 

***

 

 

face that starts a river (deafening restaurant

                            

 

 

                                                                           river glass curls no further than

                                    greater power in virtue

                                    than

HOROWITZ AT HOME 

                                                to     go    to        &silver

t  o  c  c  a  t  a    wet    spots    the    bone yard

                                                                                    dusty    t  o  c  c  a  t  a   thebones

 

                                    O, Gloria, how I kissed you quick then moved on quick

because you were so deep in your Lamentations

Schwanengesang        Burst

           The Precisionist

                                    dares not be precise

                        any longer

 

                                                Deafening

                        restaurant on an homogenous gold coast

                        whose concentric

                             street

                                                          grates

                                                     down

                                    and whorls among ourselves   float

                                 glass

                                   

             face that starts a river

 

 

 

 

 

Karen Garthe is author of The Banjo Clock (University of California Press) and Frayed Escort (Center for Literary Publishing, Fort Collins, CO) winner of the  2005 Colorado Prize. Her poetry has appeared in numerous print journals, including New American Writing, Lana Turner, Fence, and Aufgabe, as well in the online journals Flag & Void, Caliban, Altered Scales, and Little Patuxent Review. She lives in New York City. 

 

 

<Leigh Wells' corrientes series>