Rae Armantrout: Four New Poems from a Work in Progress 2012

 

            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                       ALL SOULS

Pallid, thin skinned

potatoes bunched
like grapes
on yellow stems.

     *

I can’t remember

my mother

or

This is not the mother

I remember.

     *

When asked

if she’s frightened,

the raped child

whispers

that she is afraid

of ghosts.
 

                       FUNCTIONS

    1

We inquire about heaven

as we might
about a nursing home.

Will I get email there?

Will I have insights

and someone

to be pleased with them?

Will that person

be faking it?

Will she be under orders?

Will my words

seem foreign?

     2

“Twee, twee!”

some sound insists.

      LIVE THROUGH

    1

Fairy tales enchant the cast-off

one

cut out

of the third person.

    2

You watch the storm

bear down on you
on television.

“I hope I never

have to live
through this
again.”

    3

Find Nemo

in the sea

of bodies,

ooze and muscle,

little flick-tail.

 

            THE MATTER

The remote

is for later,

as I often

tell myself.

     *

Is it possible to speak

of rules
without picturing
the mouth of God?

He said, “You must go

everywhere

and you should take

the shortcut.”

The angels responded

at once,

as one?

Thus they are known

as messengers -

though they bring

nothing
but their gowns.

The rest of us

stand still,

flummoxed

by the hostility

of pronouns

[note.  Armantrout’s most recent book-length publication was Money Shot, published last year by Wesleyan University Press. An earlier collection, Versed (2009), received both a Pulitzer Prize & a National Book Critics Circle Award, while her connection to the most innovative side of American & world poetry remains as strong as ever. Previous postings on Poems & Poetics can be found here & here, as well as Marjorie Perloff’s essay “An Afterword for Rae Armantrout.” (J.R.)]