e d w a r d s m a l l f i e l d |
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A simple lyric:
begin with pronouns
& the names of towns.
The specifics
assemble to speak.
In this half-known
dialect, nobody can own
the music.
Paris
glitters, untranslated.
A grate-
ful audience sleeps in its chairs.
All silk, underwear & scarf & purse.
'You taught me how to curse.'
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article, adjective, noun:
'pencils of rain'
'one writes only to erase again'
inside her gown
the brown
& sepia of photos on the train
grain
alcohol & the back doors of small towns
in the local dialect
a list of sins
'not like one who loses like one who wins'
from this distance the wreckage
'What is this a picture of?'
what alights what hovers
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Inside the movie
the colors
leak & scour:
a be-
bop, a see
through score:
'more,
please, sir' & 'flee
sometime me seek'
eros
because you looked through me across
from the Greek
the wreckage
'in isolate flecks'
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A thousand a million hot tears
can't melt
misfortune's frozen & bitter welts
near
& nearer the losses of so many dear
things & friends & loves a quilt
of hurts you've felt
& feel again—as the cheers
of crowd can't dissolve
the hurt of the hitter who has struck
out— fuck
your grief away, or try to— the earth revolves
& the hot meat & the wine of the feast
can't deepen your pain in the least—
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EDWARD SMALLFIELD's poems have appeared or will appear in Bird Dog, Five Fingers Review, New American Writing, Parthenon West, Traverse, 26, Volt, and a number of other magazines. He is the author of The Pleasures of C and the coauthor of One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, a book length collaboration with Doug MacPherson. |
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