Kazim Ali
2 poems
**
september hour
After the annunciation of winter
you learned to speak
Morning’s white amendments rime
the edges of fallen red
Being drawn back to a penumbral withering,
tethered to toil
tolling the argument you have each year
with hunger
Now that you’ve grown, saying the shape
of your want is
an underground river, flowing secretly
eight hundred feet beneath you
For one hundred mornings the arrowing planes
pierced you
For all the years since then
they are still threading through
**
january hour—epiphany
sky-knife open the body to oceanic lust
why are you bothered with only a hint of storm
how will you forget so little time has passed
reef, ravener, revenant
remand yourselves to the undertow
building, unflower to waves of ash
ask the water what next blue swell
bodies unpetal to white-blue frenzy
the phone scorpions in your hand
**
return to sawbuck 3.1
**
Kazim Ali is is the author of two books of poetry, The Far Mosque (Alice James Books), winner of Alice James Books' New England/New York Award, and The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions, 2008). He is also the author of the novel Quinn’s Passage (blazeVox books), named one of "The Best Books of 2005" by Chronogram magazine, and The Disappearance of Seth (Etruscan Press, 2009).
**
september hour
After the annunciation of winter
you learned to speak
Morning’s white amendments rime
the edges of fallen red
Being drawn back to a penumbral withering,
tethered to toil
tolling the argument you have each year
with hunger
Now that you’ve grown, saying the shape
of your want is
an underground river, flowing secretly
eight hundred feet beneath you
For one hundred mornings the arrowing planes
pierced you
For all the years since then
they are still threading through
**
january hour—epiphany
sky-knife open the body to oceanic lust
why are you bothered with only a hint of storm
how will you forget so little time has passed
reef, ravener, revenant
remand yourselves to the undertow
building, unflower to waves of ash
ask the water what next blue swell
bodies unpetal to white-blue frenzy
the phone scorpions in your hand
**
return to sawbuck 3.1
**
Kazim Ali is is the author of two books of poetry, The Far Mosque (Alice James Books), winner of Alice James Books' New England/New York Award, and The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions, 2008). He is also the author of the novel Quinn’s Passage (blazeVox books), named one of "The Best Books of 2005" by Chronogram magazine, and The Disappearance of Seth (Etruscan Press, 2009).
He is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at Oberlin College and teaches in the low-residency MFA program of the University of Southern Maine. His work has been featured in many national journals such as Best American Poetry 2007, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Barrow Street, jubilat and Massachusetts Review. He teaches at Oberlin College and the Stonecoast MFA program and is a founding editor of Nightboat Books.
