Spinozablue: An Eclectic Journal of the Arts

Posted on: March 14, 2011

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Against Life’s Bent, a Moment

 

In the strictest branches
and the boughs that pierce with sun–
drenched tangs, lonely halt­ing
nuthatch and its mat­ing quicken.
Is a-​​​​cracking is her lance,
ter­ri­fy­ing is chance
that tells the arc’s divi­sion,
when untold breath escapes, like
tot­ter­ing at the weave, the loom.
Hat-​​​​pecking strings so grid­dle
even weep­ing wound.
It is even broader nap induc­ing
plas­tered pro­tec­tion,
as abscond­ing wounded-​​​​bird inflec­tion.
Then a firm­ing far away
re-​​​​echoes pick-​​​​falls part­ing tables,
sen­su­ous laugh­ing flocks
of start­ing fell­doms, pur­pling
callers. Then sim­ple star­ling scripts,
drop­ping lit­tle stripling snips,
oh no not dan­ger­ous at all.
Wouldn’t it chuck along the wall?
Wouldn’t it append a patch of golden geese?
Wouldn’t it ride, set the seam, charm release
nigh and augur clear? Scry after?
And this apprised blue shoring;
and these rip­pled retic­u­lat­ing lag­gards
swooped in the still­ness bell;
and the nays are bright and smooth;
and observer took to a fram­ing,
and it blew out of the pic­ture;
and it is temple-​​​​thrill tin­gling
sharply against gauntlet’s vel­vety life, bent.…

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Posted on: December 6, 2010

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LANDLUBBER IN LOVE

I smelled the sea today!

The aroma of salt-​​​​crusted roses,
of mother-​​​​of-​​​​pearl, of adven­ture,
shared its romance
unwill­ingly
with
one who is
no part of it.

YOU KNOW THEM AS WELL AS I DO

I never was a woman who could
fling a hank of lus­trous hair over her right
shoul­der to punc­tu­ate declar­a­tive
sen­tences, or one who appears frag­ile
and small when crying.

Those glossy women have the edge
in life, while the rest of us strug­gle
against the odds, grop­ing for words
to fling, words that sel­dom have the
tex­ture of silk or the imme­di­acy of a
grace­fully exe­cuted fem­i­nine gesture.

And when we cry
oh, when we cry, our bod­ies grow
steel-​​​​like and huge, our blotched faces
con­tort, and our dis­cor­dant sobs
rever­ber­ate even unto three generations.

– by Ann Applegarth

Copyright ©2010 by Ann Applegarth. All Rights Reserved.

_​​_​​_​​_​​_​​_​​_​​_​​_​​_​​_​​_​​

Ann Applegarth was awarded an Academy of American Poets prize at the University of New Mexico in 1980, and her work has appeared in pub­li­ca­tions such as West Wind Review, Bellowing Ark, Sin Fron teras, The Cresset, St.…

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Posted on: August 1, 2010

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LOVE POEM THAT LEADS ME
TO A FLORIDA CANAL

The ban­do­neon trans­ports me
to your lips
relaxed as they are
like orchids
on a late sum­mer trellis.

Orchids climb­ing the trel­lis
of your throat.

Orchids like verbs
strug­gling
with existence.

Orchids
like lovers
from the grave,
as lovers
often appear
from graves.

Beautiful.

Impossible to resist
in their splen­dor
of Spanish moss
with night herons
perched on giant oak shoul­ders
cir­cling the moon’s sil­ver waist.

Oak moon.

My moon,
tum­bled dry
so many times
that wis­dom
sep­a­rated
itself
from young poets
who occa­sion­ally slip
from their con­scious minds.

A caballero strikes a match
in a Juarez can­tina;
older women
sway;
young girls flock like min­nows
beneath a swollen crust of bread
float­ing on a Florida canal.

  –  by Alan Britt

—  —    —    —  –

Alan Britt’s recent books are Hurricane (2010), Vegetable Love (2009), Vermilion (2006), Infinite Days (2003), Amnesia Tango (1998) and Bodies of Lightning (1995…).

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Posted on: July 17, 2010

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Approbations 565

—after Trygve Seim’s Between

Between stare                          stare

blank

opac­ity

resem­bles

much

of the broken

sem­blances

cul­ture con­tains, intan­gi­ble mores

focused

finite and inex­plic­a­bly distant

from con­sis­tent virtues of

ital­i­cized

beau monde.

 

 

Approbations 566

—after Marc Johnson’s Since you Asked

 

 

 

My silence recalls bland-​​​​tongue

archi­tec­ture,

achro­matic

logic con­tain­ing

prayer­ful condi­ments, muti­lated con­nec­tion.  Your asking

con­tains metaphoric trails, my stand­ing still

of an oaks’ neigh­bor­hood of size, style—

 

rean­a­lyzes your truth of com­mit­ted understanding.

The ideal

would be con­ver­sa­tion occurrence

coun­ter­ing the silence

my sound releases

bro­ken

con­fused mean­ing of my mind’s innate sepulture.

 

 

Approbations 567

—after Bobo Stenson’s Olivia…

 

 

 

Wears inter­wo­ven light like shadows

climb­ing con­tex­tual walls of needed

iso­la­tion.  Her

alone

retrieves an image of pale, bleached stone

engrained into sand’s warmed appre­ci­a­tion, resting,

 

the curved lightness

of smoothed exterior

does not wish to wan­der into sea’s lan­guage of

unsolved labyrinth.

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