To begin ...

As the twentieth century fades out
the nineteenth begins
.......................................again
it is as if nothing happened
though those who lived it thought
that everything was happening
enough to name a world for & a time
to hold it in your hand
unlimited.......the last delusion
like the perfect mask of death

Thursday, October 11, 2012

John Martone: A Suite of Poems from Molecular Lament

please note. a list of postings after january 12, 2012 can be found here


bare

for Cecilia Vicuña

               Their books were loose bundles of string.
                                             -- Charles Mann

just
about
done

here

dressed in
rags


~

story
of

yr life
string

all
balled up


~

in
the end

telo
meres

&
spindle –
some

children’s
book

~

all those
cells

di
viding

there
you are


~

want
to ask

those
chromo
somes

               why

~

such a clever
molecule

making you
not so

~

-- all those
hy

drogen
bonds

& you’re
still
lonely?

~

there it
goes
again

that
codon

~

all those cells
dividing

& you never
feel a thing

~

get
ting
too

big
for
your

brit
ches
that

mo
le
cule

~

take
all
those

mo
le
cules

tie
your
shoe


~

still
lost in
that

tangle
of

inter
state

roads
last night’s

dream
a thread

~

some molecules
dream up pictures

that are nothing –
there you go

~

you pick
that knot
apart

& then
what? –
tie it

again?
study
its length

in sun
namely
nothing --

or just
the sun?
                                             -- johnmartone

                              summer 2012

 [note. Both John Martone and Cecilia Vicuña have appeared several times on Poems & Poetics.  With Martone my fullest accounting of his work & achievement as a poet was in the posting of his poem “geometry” on August 18, 2009.  I describe him there as “our greatest living miniaturist,” an appraisal that holds for me into the present time. The new book from which this comes, Molecular Lament, is ready for publication from Martone’s own imprint (samuddo / ocean), along with an on-line version on his scribd page, http://www.scribd.com/john-martone-2968. (J.R.)]

1 comment:

Ed Baker said...

John just put up the entire book/run on scrib'd...
and freely given.

each section prayer

http://www.scribd.com/doc/109830423/molecular-lament

JM is one of the very few people/poets 'out there' who doesn't need to sign his name to a piece of his for (this)
reader to know who's "voice" it is.