Login
|
Join PoetrySoup
Home
Submit Poems
Login
Sign Up
Member Home
My Poems
My Quotes
My Profile & Settings
My Inboxes
My Outboxes
Soup Mail
Contest Results/Status
Contests
Poems
Poets
Famous Poems
Famous Poets
Dictionary
Types of Poems
Quotes
Short Stories
Articles
Forum
Blogs
Poem of the Day
New Poems
Resources
Syllable Counter
Anthology
Grammar Check
Greeting Card Maker
Classifieds
Member Area
Member Home
My Profile and Settings
My Poems
My Quotes
My Short Stories
My Articles
My Comments Inboxes
My Comments Outboxes
Soup Mail
Poetry Contests
Contest Results/Status
Followers
Poems of Poets I Follow
Friend Builder
Soup Social
Poetry Forum
New/Upcoming Features
The Wall
Soup Facebook Page
Who is Online
Link to Us
Member Poems
Poems - Top 100 New
Poems - Top 100 All-Time
Poems - Best
Poems - by Topic
Poems - New (All)
Poems - New (PM)
Poems - New by Poet
Poems - Random
Poems - Read
Poems - Unread
Member Poets
Poets - Best New
Poets - New
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems Recent
Poets - Top 100 Community
Poets - Top 100 Contest
Famous Poems
Famous Poems - African American
Famous Poems - Best
Famous Poems - Classical
Famous Poems - English
Famous Poems - Haiku
Famous Poems - Love
Famous Poems - Short
Famous Poems - Top 100
Famous Poets
Famous Poets - Living
Famous Poets - Most Popular
Famous Poets - Top 100
Famous Poets - Best
Famous Poets - Women
Famous Poets - African American
Famous Poets - Beat
Famous Poets - Cinquain
Famous Poets - Classical
Famous Poets - English
Famous Poets - Haiku
Famous Poets - Hindi
Famous Poets - Jewish
Famous Poets - Love
Famous Poets - Metaphysical
Famous Poets - Modern
Famous Poets - Punjabi
Famous Poets - Romantic
Famous Poets - Spanish
Famous Poets - Suicidal
Famous Poets - Urdu
Famous Poets - War
Poetry Resources
Anagrams
Bible
Book Store
Character Counter
Cliché Finder
Poetry Clichés
Common Words
Copyright Information
Grammar
Grammar Checker
Homonym
Homophones
How to Write a Poem
Lyrics
Love Poem Generator
New Poetic Forms
Plagiarism Checker
Poetics
Poetry Art
Publishing
Random Word Generator
Spell Checker
Store
What is Good Poetry?
Word Counter
Email Poem
Your IP Address: 3.144.28.50
From Email:
Required
Email Address Not Valid.
To Email:
Email Address Not Valid.
Required
Subject
Required
Personal Note:
Poem Title:
Poem
All this was written on the next day's list. On which the busyness unfurled its cursive roots, pale but effective, and the long stem of the necessary, the sum of events, built-up its tiniest cathedral... (Or is it the sum of what takes place? ) If I lean down, to whisper, to them, down into their gravitational field, there where they head busily on into the woods, laying the gifts out one by one, onto the path, hoping to be on the air, hoping to please the children -- (and some gifts overwrapped and some not wrapped at all) -- if I stir the wintered ground-leaves up from the paths, nimbly, into a sheet of sun, into an escape-route-width of sun, mildly gelatinous where wet, though mostly crisp, fluffing them up a bit, and up, as if to choke the singularity of sun with this jubilation of manyness, all through and round these passers-by -- just leaves, nothing that can vaporize into a thought, no, a burning bush's worth of spidery, up-ratcheting, tender-cling leaves, oh if -- the list gripped hard by the left hand of one, the busyness buried so deep into the puffed-up greenish mind of one, the hurried mind hovering over its rankings, the heart -- there at the core of the drafting leaves -- wet and warm at the zero of the bright mock-stairwaying-up of the posthumous leaves -- the heart, formulating its alleyways of discovery, fussing about the integrity of the whole, the heart trying to make time and place seem small, sliding its slim tears into the deep wallet of each new event on the list then checking it off -- oh the satisfaction -- each check a small kiss, an echo of the previous one, off off it goes the dry high-ceilinged obligation, checked-off by the fingertips, by the small gust called done that swipes the unfinishable's gold hem aside, revealing what might have been, peeling away what should . . . There are flowerpots at their feet. There is fortune-telling in the air they breathe. It filters-in with its flashlight-beam, its holy-water-tinted air, down into the open eyes, the lampblack open mouth. Oh listen to these words I'm spitting out for you. My distance from you makes them louder. Are we all waiting for the phone to ring? Who should it be? What fountain is expected to thrash forth mysteries of morning joy? What quail-like giant tail of promises, pleiades, psalters, plane-trees, what parapets petalling-forth the invisible into the world of things, turning the list into its spatial-form at last, into its archival many-headed, many-legged colony . . . Oh look at you. What is it you hold back? What piece of time is it the list won't cover? You down there, in the theater of operations -- you, throat of the world -- so diacritical -- (are we all waiting for the phone to ring?) -- (what will you say? are you home? are you expected soon?) -- oh wanderer back from break, all your attention focused -- as if the thinking were an oar, this ship the last of some original fleet, the captains gone but some of us who saw the plan drawn-out still here -- who saw the thinking clot-up in the bodies of the greater men, who saw them sit in silence while the voices in the other room lit-up with passion, itchings, dreams of landings, while the solitary ones, heads in their hands, so still, the idea barely forming at the base of that stillness, the idea like a homesickness starting just to fold and pleat and knot-itself out of the manyness -- the plan -- before it's thought, before it's a done deal or the name-you're-known-by -- the men of x, the outcomes of y -- before -- the mind still gripped hard by the hands that would hold the skull even stiller if they could, that nothing distract, that nothing but the possible be let to filter through, the possible and then the finely filamented hope, the filigree, without the distractions of wonder -- oh tiny golden spore just filtering-in to touch the good idea, which taking-form begins to twist, coursing for bottom-footing, palpating for edge-hold, limit, now finally about to rise, about to go into the other room -- and yet not having done so yet, not yet -- the intake -- before the credo, before the plan -- right at the homesickness -- before this list you hold in your exhausted hand. Oh put it down.
Type the characters you see in the picture
Required