Diana Adams
I am interested in poems that rise above constraint. Frankenforms, poems based on borrowed body parts as in "UnHinged", or as in the case of "Oh", fusing the sound poem and elements of the ghazal. "Destination" is an attempt at innovation within a grid of repetition.
_______________________________________________________________________
Destination
1.
It can't be lowered to the atmosphere of paper.
A desert ocean liner, suitably adrift, might catch smells,
sighs, fights-- the fat of each day reduced to shavings,
locked in mind's coffin.
2.
Blood and liver know paper
can't cover. Our clocked smells.
Bellies cut open reveal shavings,
the body at work on its coffin.
3.
At my side you put on paper,
pour wine over all ill smells.
The sink, your iron shavings--
will you be my coffin?
4.
The breath of branches within paper,
locked, unthought, sea-deep smells
propel us to the feet of pines for shavings,
doorkeepers for coffins
5.
I'd burn better than paper,
out of the barn, my smell.
Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. Piles of shavings.
Anse, my coffin
Oh
Slideshows for pharaohs,
echoes of frescos.
Borrowed airflows--
the hello from cellos.
and oboes. Sparrows at windows.
Crows with halos in cornrows.
Pintos in gumbo, heros
of the meadow.
Othello's pillows. Desdemona
in nightclothes, willows, Iago.
Transposed cantos,
demo-roses, minnows, lows.
UnHinged
Born to this blocked light, aerial web
and rub of sun, one chafe of limbs
and the mating's done. Evening is an injury
of stars and on the trees a print
of something fungal, moving slow.
--Hinge, Joan Houlihan
Tops of trees are stalled with blight,
it takes a bird to track their ebb.
Fruit is no longer translucent, I break
the skin to see what's left. A parting starts,
music for the relatives, both dead, undead,
born to this blocked light, aerial web.
Sky cracks a makeshift face,
heaps dark on spruce and aspen.
Deer run in bled light, the tree line
opens to catch a hoof, to hold it
safe as pet, feed it leaves as next of kin,
with a rub of sun, and chafe of limbs.
Between now and dawn there's nothing
but body: undoored, porous.
It's the time to protect our throats
Disease can't shake its need of us,
in its own way it is warm. One whiskey
and the mating is done. Evening's an injury
of stars, and on trees a print of something
fungal. Deeper down, seawater burrows,
cows, refusing to lose its goodness.
We will not recover from this. Eye to eye
we will bruise to slush, no one can tow
our herds, gorged, moving slow.
_______________________________________________________________________
Diana Adams is an Alberta based writer with work published in a variety of journals including MiPoesias, Shampoo, Pindeldyboz, Pagitica, Jones Av., Burning Word, Ink Pot, Del Sol Review, Perihelion, Bayou, Apostrophe, and Spire. Her first book of poetry 'Cave Vitae' was published this Spring by Plain View Press.