from Odes

by me


8.
No more than subtext my/your own text under every word only words falling waiting characters casting letters under your breath above my words over under (knowing something waits under forgets to take) on the opposite of wondering the opposite forgetting, a springboard, no, sill of the flower pot. Placing one letter after another placing one letter after another placing each side by side (cleverly you thought but not this quickly may I remind you) if the pace precedes (I am) each character drifting into singular space taking shape.

Lorine Niedecker

from The Granite Pail


In the great snowfall before the bomb
colored yule tree lights
windows, the only glow for contemplation
along this road

I worked the print shop
right down among em
the folk from whom all poetry flows
and dreadfully much else.

I was Blondie
I carried my bundles of hog feeder price lists
down by Larry the Lug,
I'd never get anywhere
because I'd never had suction,
pull, you know, favor, drag,
well-oiled protection.

I heard their rehashed radio barbs--
more barbarous among hirelings
as higher-ups grow more corrupt.
But what vitality! The women hold jobs--
clean house, cook, raise children, bowl
and go to church.

What would they say if they knew
I sit for two months on six lines
of poetry?

Lorine Niedecker

from The Granite Pail


I knew a clean man
but he was not for me.
Now I sew green aprons
over covered seats. He

wades the muddy water fishing,
falls in, dries his last pay-check
in the sun, smooths it out
in Leaves of Grass. He's
the one for me.