{"id":9508,"date":"2018-06-30T22:28:04","date_gmt":"2018-06-30T21:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9508"},"modified":"2018-07-02T07:52:32","modified_gmt":"2018-07-02T06:52:32","slug":"three-poems-32","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9508","title":{"rendered":"Three Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"
FACE<\/center><\/h5>\n

In one language at least it sounds like \u201crooster.\u201d And before seeing the day I see crescents swaying under, and someone\u2019s face clear in them, a dense flush of pink, and then a wind again, it goes under. I fell in love with the taut skin of the caf\u00e9 chain-smoker. He had a trimmed beard and was peeling an orange. The puncture in the air was unequivocal, left no nose untouched, and its purpose wasn\u2019t me, and I was furious. I saw the face of a meadow, the hair made sense in its tended wildness, and was pleased. <\/p>\n

In the painting of the anatomy theater, the figures are rendered so accurately you see every tendon in the next, in the necks, which parts of their faces are bunched, or blanched, at seeing the figure split open on the table before them. The coat rack of instruments hung with hammer and saw, tubes hanging from them like faded licorice. The face on the table is less distinct, preference given to the musculature of abdomen, waist, ankles. It\u2019s like the feeling of your body when you wake weeping, the rest below the head inner-lit. I want you to know I no longer think of yours alone. There are other faces in attendance making silent laws. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BE QUIT OF BEING SEEN<\/h5>\n

It\u2019s a story old, like bribing a teller to yoke
\na great geranium to dust your sleep
\nwith soft applause. In martyrs\u2019 sleep,
\npain\u2019s price is fairer. Buds withstand the slant
\ngouge of rain, and sun in equal measure.
\nAnd if that means a war can hasten, bolt
\nin place, and run aground, its limit has
\na face. So it can be dealt with.
\n                                                    Glib light
\nin autumn fluents veins and girds the hand
\nyou shake with. Someone\u2019s near and cold
\nheather snapped by an assuring wind.
\nYou will not leave the drapes ajar, to bar
\nthat one from entering.
\n                                          You saw the look
\nthat stranger wore down in the well. You know
\nto tell him so would spook him, carve a gray
\naside into the day and leave an ache
\nwhere swifts rest, fluting. If he makes
\na move to wipe the sun stung in his brow,
\ngo let him go.
\n                      To save him isn\u2019t worth
\nnot knowing why that yellow jacket dropped
\nfrom your lamp like a milken eye, and rolled
\nto tell what it had seen, and twitched in want
\nof being near, but stopped and saw the look,
\nwhether yours or its, yet still failed on,
\nin love of being. Watch. Its ailing face
\nis brighter than what eyes it sees inside
\nthe cloakish morning wet, the curt degrees
\nof red on backs of necks and ankles.
\n                                                              Most
\nmartyrs, even if they live to burn, won\u2019t
\ngo asking you for kindling. Up out
\nthe well in that chapped-leafed sphere of sky
\nwhy does mostly no one think to be kind.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

MAN IN HOPE<\/h5>\n

The man in hope of better guises shot
\nthe thing he thought would not be missed. It hid
\nin brush in knots like sudden scurvy, between
\nthe berry and brittle vine, between shade
\nbranches cinched. The thing whose tint
\nwas just enough to make the man revere
\nits blood. And having just enough his own
\nto know a hollow in a thicket is
\nunlikely to complain, complicit in
\nits own departure, the man opened his mouth
\nand gnashed. The thing could\u2019ve flinched.
\nBut there was nothing to be found.
\nThe thing, unshot, would dilate among moths.
\nAdd to this the blush of certain actions. Stain
\non left incisor from what was swift and
\nheavy on the clover.
\n                                      Once it\u2019s over,
\na man like me is only ever choosing.
\nHis coat will never own its form. His coat
\nis just a thing boughs dappled while he
\ntried gunning down a present absence.
\nLook here: in the center of his life I keep on
\npainting, so the once becomes a sometimes.
\nHe shot. He glimpsed. He heard a thing be still
\nand went to find it. He left the woods.
\nThe stand would be the place it sat in.
\nThere is a logic to the fog-choked pines
\nlike the stain on a rubythroat\u2019s querulous gullet.
\nHe\u2019s got to remember to get his coat before
\nhe locks the door. He isn\u2019t trying to hurt a thing.
\nSomething came through and he forgot how to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FACE In one language at least it sounds like \u201crooster.\u201d And before seeing the day I see crescents swaying under, and someone\u2019s face clear in them, a dense flush of pink, and then a wind again, it goes under. I fell in love with the taut skin of the caf\u00e9 chain-smoker. He had a trimmed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[351,353],"tags":[355],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nThree Poems - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9508\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9508&page=2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Three Poems - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"FACE In one language at least it sounds like \u201crooster.\u201d And before seeing the day I see crescents swaying under, and someone\u2019s face clear in them, a dense flush of pink, and then a wind again, it goes under. I fell in love with the taut skin of the caf\u00e9 chain-smoker. 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He has received awards and fellowships from Harvard Office for the Arts, the Radcliffe Institute, the Academy of American Poets, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport. Born and raised in West Virginia, he currently resides in Denver, where he is pursuing a PhD in creative writing and literature with a focus on ecopoetics, literature of excess, and trauma studies.\u00a0His debut poetry collection,\u00a0Deed,\u00a0won the 2018 Antivenom Poetry Award and will be published by Elixir Press in 2019.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?author=258\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Three Poems - The Manchester Review","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9508","next":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9508&page=2","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Three Poems - The Manchester Review","og_description":"FACE In one language at least it sounds like \u201crooster.\u201d And before seeing the day I see crescents swaying under, and someone\u2019s face clear in them, a dense flush of pink, and then a wind again, it goes under. 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