I thoroughly enjoyed these poems, David. Thanks~! No one made wonder whether
to laugh or cry...
BW
Tess
-----Original Message-----
From: David Howard <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 09 January 2002 20:35
Subject: Re: Biography Project
>TERRA INCOGNITA
>
>
>1
>
>To cleave is to separate yet also to join.
>
>Mother, coming to shove
>you understand nothing
>wonderfully. Our baby starts
>and starts to cry through
>the star-struck night, her non-
>sequitors rising like the field
>behind the house. We say
>she's her grandmother's regarding
>angel when, a pragmatist in nappies,
>she's really deep in shit
>just like us.
>
>
>2
>
>Incense conquering air, a widower's gesture
>before the Virgin's image - unbelievable
>how ritual animates this house.
>I peel garlic cloves so, stir the vinaigrette anti-
>clockwise thirteen times. Perfect.
>I've been here before. My window
>opens onto the bronzed seaboard
>cliche. As eggs cackle in the pan I hum
>Automatic love is all I want..
>Casually it happens, casually
>because there is no other way;
>for as long as 'as long as' lasts
>forget-me-nots fill the vase on the sill.
>
>
>3
>
>Rosaria, my daughter,
>hold that seaspray of white
>flowers for your mother now
>she is no longer. With us
>without - how can we tell
>her story? I want to borrow
>your grandfather's fedora
>because my words are archaic
>as the day before she died
>in another man's arms. Rosaria,
>hold me before I disappear
>after her coarsening obituary.
>
>
>
>
>
>4
>
>Bury your grief with words; tender
>flesh to earth, earth to sky
>so your daughter will no longer cry
>when her father goes on a bender.
>
>Words are the only way to go
>home: they fill the gutters,
>shake the notary's dusty shutters
>once too often. They will lay you low.
>
>
>
>David Howard
>
|