Emily Brochin

Cento

from: Ted Kooser, Louise Gluck, Stanley Koonitz, May Swenson, Robert Pinsky, Robert Lowell, Robert Hass, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Richard Wilbur 

When was I silenced, when did it first seem

pointless to describe that sound

She is saying it’s time that the swinging were done with,
if I stepped out of my body I would break.

This is the force of faith. Nobody gets
what they want.

My hand draws back.

Into blossom.

This is the aftermath
a hero, dying,

Gives off stillness to the air.
Enlightenment, shade of grief.

It is always a matter, my darling–
I cannot say what loves have come and gone.
 

Canzone

I prefer to

forget the remembered things.

There were no dewdrops

lashing my back 

as you shook the drenched ketsora.

They did

not spatter across me, curled

around the curb.

The moon hated you.

And I did too.

Calligram           

                               in   the

                          lit           o 

                        rose-

                     cursed

                  waters we

                rowed the boat

             as far as the edge of

           night. she used the north

         star and marlin-wake to steer.

      we left the drowned to the mermaid

   kiss and the seaweed to the collectors’ tin.

dawn broke as an egg over the unstoppable hull. faster.

Blues Poem

Whoever has the key to the white oared boat by the dock

Should give the key to me.

Whoever knows how to rudder the white oared boat by the dock,

Should come along with me,

Down to the strange beach and the strange blue bobbing hats,

And we’ll see what we can see.

The phosphorescence is out tonight,

Trailing yellow strands of light in the murky water

And the floating tangles are out tonight

They will catch my hair in the inked water

I can still see my whiteness, fleeting

As bait set for the fish to scatter.

No one has plans to sleep

That would be a sin.

To stop, to slumber, to kiss sleep

Would certainly be a sin.

It is best to hold the faintly buzzing time,

Begging for another gin.

Blank Verse

A midnight stroll onto the jargish pier,

under the haze-blocked night, not

cooler for a huffy breeze.

I’d wished for a palm to stroke

or a thigh to stick to mine own.

And lick the cool stars brighter.

I wish I had you

begin my memory of love.

We could have swum frozen

in the winter sea.

I tried that once, alone

though diving through

the flecked brown ice, past

the balooning plastic

bags was empty grace.

Unnecessary heart—

I beat you to see

if you still tick.

Assonance Poem

This is how the slow row residue colors hours;

No one owns the coin dropping on a loop,

Nor the dour squire nursing beer—

An afternoon bar acquires ailments one by one.

Alliteration Poem

The laurels wilted watching the water,

Lording their leaves, looming tumescent, laden tendrils drooping.

The swooping, the shooting of a whippoorwill watching the water,

Done wading the weeks, now writhing the warm stems, ladling blood for a bower birth and lending low cries for the farm.

Acrostic Poem

Held by a field of bones.

Often without cause.

New shoes, green glass bottles.

Everything becomes a graveyard.

You fall; the ground warms.

Abstract Poem

gold as the goliath, strapping as the snail, push

down the riverbend, head meets nail, nil the serpent tongue,

witch the washrag, we live in this cabin here, look the rang river,

the egg nest, stole from the happenstance of estuary. ashes rush to compress it,

hold the hilt that stung what brought this pestilence. hang the song that buried the trees.