Mark DeCarteret
4 poems
**
plain
the sky's been reset
& the farmers have taken the fields once again
w/their scythes & their coveralls
soon we will see where their wives
have dismissed the tall grass
w/their formidable ankles
I resist saying anything:
the rain reminding all of us
when it was we last rested
who wouldn't want to be awoken
w/everyone of our questions
punctuated by more dark birds taking flight?
**
the worlds we've lulled to speech
how the ages have laden our lashes:
to have known of those oft-descending snows
& the dust which would preface each thought
to be sampled by way of more tragedy
how that even w/this liturgical whisper
& these zeros heat-forced into opening
we would always be faced w/what could only
be silence or fate by another's translation
**
act of creation
....................for Everett
he has planted
himself on a stump
by the edge of the bay again
each of his axe-bites
that much closer to a form
not dissimilar to the wind that
addresses his soul
& the geese he has stenciled
on the brim of his hat
their winged dispatches
and these accounts he has kept
crater-deep in his pockets:
more white caps and oft shifting ice
& this phantasmal crop
w/its oft-bluish light
he's materialized as if he was
the original man swarmed by atoms
trying to conjure up
lost constellations & flight
the patterns of overheard birds
which his wife has always had
the best take on the flock of them
& who'll dribble some marmalade
on his oatmeal and convince him
to accessorize his coat w/a trash bag
& come in when the sleet
has translated his mermaid
with her chiseled smooth
flesh into instantaneous myth
along with the totem pole
& its many chaptered spine
& the coffee canned parking posts
its figures of charred men
who have looked in on God
& the boat that would take him
to that oft-imagined shoreline
where during the summer amidst
these webs on the grass
& his retriever always kicking
himself down the slope
trying to get at an itch
& the swallows huddled
under the eaves of their house
o the many singed photographs
curling up into smoke
for then nothing is lost
(what then to make of his hearing:
aren't most of the senses for sissies
those who've chosen to worship
at alters with only themselves in mind?)
not the meadowlark's repose or
the fisher cat's claws as it steadies
the earth or the clattering commotion
of a northern bound train
or the warbler by the slider
w/its snapped neck & speck of a pulse:
for time can be slipped beneath by tools
that can sit in the hand as if fitted
many ages ago in some faraway shed
and though the teeth of the saw
may acquire a taste for our blood
it only figures to twice bless
this wood complicating its perfection
**
coming down
stalks bow behind me
this more fear of losing
more land into wood
who would place any value
on this marooned head?
I mistook a neighbor's
wink for absolution
a sparrow not blinking
so why try to talk
when the wind takes
her kisses to town
let's go down the list
just for kicks
how she came back
from the store on the corner
her nose done
not smoking but squinting
impressionistically
no not even squinting
so let's go down the hill
then for kicks
experience them emotions
you have to look like
a million to solve
who couldn't convulse
in this atmosphere?
such stones in my heart
the moon all my own
wanting only a bit
of my previous pulse
you write lefty but read
coming down off the hill
there's a squirrel left orphaned
yes worlds have been cursed
for much less yes much more
**
return to sawbuck 1.4
**
Mark DeCarteret's poetry has appeared in over two hundred different publications including AGNI, Atlanta Review, Caliban, Chicago Review, Cream City Review, Conduit, Hotel Amerika, Mangrove, Phoebe, Poetry East, Quick Fiction, Salt Hill, and 3rd bed, as well as the anthologies American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon Press, 2000) and Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader (Black Sparrow Press, 1999), and a poster (broadside) in Mudlark. Work is also forthcoming in Mudfish, New Orleans Review, and Third Coast. He has published three books total: Over Easy (chapbook-Minotaur Press), Review (Kettle of Fish Press), and The Great Apology (chapbook -- Oyster River Press, for which he also edited Under the Legislature of Stars-62 New Hampshire Poets). A fourth, (If This Is the) New World, is due out this year with March Street Press.
**
plain
the sky's been reset
& the farmers have taken the fields once again
w/their scythes & their coveralls
soon we will see where their wives
have dismissed the tall grass
w/their formidable ankles
I resist saying anything:
the rain reminding all of us
when it was we last rested
who wouldn't want to be awoken
w/everyone of our questions
punctuated by more dark birds taking flight?
**
the worlds we've lulled to speech
how the ages have laden our lashes:
to have known of those oft-descending snows
& the dust which would preface each thought
to be sampled by way of more tragedy
how that even w/this liturgical whisper
& these zeros heat-forced into opening
we would always be faced w/what could only
be silence or fate by another's translation
**
act of creation
....................for Everett
he has planted
himself on a stump
by the edge of the bay again
each of his axe-bites
that much closer to a form
not dissimilar to the wind that
addresses his soul
& the geese he has stenciled
on the brim of his hat
their winged dispatches
and these accounts he has kept
crater-deep in his pockets:
more white caps and oft shifting ice
& this phantasmal crop
w/its oft-bluish light
he's materialized as if he was
the original man swarmed by atoms
trying to conjure up
lost constellations & flight
the patterns of overheard birds
which his wife has always had
the best take on the flock of them
& who'll dribble some marmalade
on his oatmeal and convince him
to accessorize his coat w/a trash bag
& come in when the sleet
has translated his mermaid
with her chiseled smooth
flesh into instantaneous myth
along with the totem pole
& its many chaptered spine
& the coffee canned parking posts
its figures of charred men
who have looked in on God
& the boat that would take him
to that oft-imagined shoreline
where during the summer amidst
these webs on the grass
& his retriever always kicking
himself down the slope
trying to get at an itch
& the swallows huddled
under the eaves of their house
o the many singed photographs
curling up into smoke
for then nothing is lost
(what then to make of his hearing:
aren't most of the senses for sissies
those who've chosen to worship
at alters with only themselves in mind?)
not the meadowlark's repose or
the fisher cat's claws as it steadies
the earth or the clattering commotion
of a northern bound train
or the warbler by the slider
w/its snapped neck & speck of a pulse:
for time can be slipped beneath by tools
that can sit in the hand as if fitted
many ages ago in some faraway shed
and though the teeth of the saw
may acquire a taste for our blood
it only figures to twice bless
this wood complicating its perfection
**
coming down
stalks bow behind me
this more fear of losing
more land into wood
who would place any value
on this marooned head?
I mistook a neighbor's
wink for absolution
a sparrow not blinking
so why try to talk
when the wind takes
her kisses to town
let's go down the list
just for kicks
how she came back
from the store on the corner
her nose done
not smoking but squinting
impressionistically
no not even squinting
so let's go down the hill
then for kicks
experience them emotions
you have to look like
a million to solve
who couldn't convulse
in this atmosphere?
such stones in my heart
the moon all my own
wanting only a bit
of my previous pulse
you write lefty but read
coming down off the hill
there's a squirrel left orphaned
yes worlds have been cursed
for much less yes much more
**
return to sawbuck 1.4
**
Mark DeCarteret's poetry has appeared in over two hundred different publications including AGNI, Atlanta Review, Caliban, Chicago Review, Cream City Review, Conduit, Hotel Amerika, Mangrove, Phoebe, Poetry East, Quick Fiction, Salt Hill, and 3rd bed, as well as the anthologies American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon Press, 2000) and Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader (Black Sparrow Press, 1999), and a poster (broadside) in Mudlark. Work is also forthcoming in Mudfish, New Orleans Review, and Third Coast. He has published three books total: Over Easy (chapbook-Minotaur Press), Review (Kettle of Fish Press), and The Great Apology (chapbook -- Oyster River Press, for which he also edited Under the Legislature of Stars-62 New Hampshire Poets). A fourth, (If This Is the) New World, is due out this year with March Street Press.
