Tuesday, September 8, 2009

One of my favorites from Scott Keeney's Solar or Leap

Solar or Leap is a newer edition to the Keeney Blogdom. It houses 377 poems from 1991-2008 with more to come. His main blog, Nobody in the Rain, is an absolute daily treasure so be sure to check that out if you aren't already addicted like me. The poem below is from 1995.


Untitled Landscape

Then there is a time in life when you just take a walk:
And you walk in your own landscape.

— WILLEM DE KOONING

1

There was no geometry today in the sky.
I looked azure into the sky.
The starlings exploded into the sky.
I thought of jets, ink-jet light, laser-printing light.
There were no clocks melting in the sky.
But in the branches
and deep inside dark feathers
where iridescence is bare brown barbules.
But under those leaves and under those wings,
there I was and here I am.
Pythagoras was playing on the radio
while I was melting
my shadow along the wall.


2

The yellow leaves, the red leaves,
those some still green leaves —
thousands of little doors to the sky.
Some clouds like silent drums.
The west wind is out of season
and I have no kids. I have a bed
bought for me by my parents.
I have the earth more than awareness.
I have a reader I hope
who has more than the earth.
A dry eye, the earth
is beyond the scope of landscape.
Skeleton, cold fingers. The pale
moon sheds its petals of daylight
in the sky, the everyday sky
where the leaves lead to.


3

Hello, Tree, my name is Sciopticon.
It feels so good to be
so obsolete. I love the way I join
with the moment like a plan.
If someone were to whisper,
Save me, into my ear right now,
that would be sweet nothing.
Though I might light up and become
aware of the earthworms walked on
on rainy days.
O I want nothing more than
the sky is my obsolete
dream. There is a sunny moisture
along with the dust moving
along in the air. I am drum.


4

The buildings corner the sky.
Corners no corners,
Where these things meet
geometry cries, the way
I see blue into the sky.
Blue as a fire engine roaring
past, forging mind.
A blue jay darting across
evergreens is a small piece
of the sky, corner-like.
When your professor asks, What is
the length of the shadows cast
by some building A, tell her,
The shadow of the building A is
a blue jay in the sky.


5

My fingertips look blue. What
blue head of what an arm
and a leg are when they are
one! In walking, I am walking
again, again through the sky,
through nobody’s sky.
I breathe and it’s like erasers
of ocean all through
my veins. A thousand spindrift
miles away. The birds, the trees,
the sneakers, the dog, the fleas,
everything, save the sky.


6

The sky is a miraculous flower.
The sky is no miracle.
I have no feelings for the sky.
If I were a flower, I would be
a flower. I might take more
notice of earthworms.
Certainly I wouldn’t step . . .
my petals would fall off the way
the moon rises. I would need
no name. Oh,
what would I say? Call me
Little Calendar.


7

Lost in the waves of sky and earth,
standing on the curb,
she waits to cross the street
like a caesura. If this were a
dream, it would be dawn,
the street would be a lake,
and she would be a nymph
and have a name like Oh,

What is that airplane overhead?


8

Suddenly becoming aware of
a person is like something
suddenly gone. The sky
changes color. The leaves
grow dark. The tree deepens
as its leaves grow darker.
Why am I a tree? My hands
like sick white leaves.
To walk. But I walk and I
curl myself into the sky as if
to sleep. Geometry, old thief,
where did my nymph go?
And those starlings that shot out?
Already obsolete.


9

Leaves exist to fall, but do they
want to? What’s the principle?
Is it greater than a Lamborghini?
What breath! A loaf of bread!
I feel like rain rising to the earth!
The sun is high! O yellow mouth
of the sky, take me as your snack!
O exclamation points of thought!
I need you, things, and I don’t.
There I am in the sky, cutting corners
I’m a blue jay how I breathe.
I have been here. I have walked
like an insect across the damp
yellow leaves. Many times, once.


10

Each star is a kiss from the ancients.
There are no stars this evening.
I am out on a limb of reset
and I am walking again again.
The sky today has been forever.
I am not a star. I am not a tree.
I don’t even know biology
let alone astronomy. Call me
Pythagoras of the blue leaves.
My name is nothing more than —
wait — I am a majuscule of the body
of language. This is my number.
I am walking and I am waiting
for the sky to tell me her new name.

2 comments:

Scott Keeney said...

Didn't see this till now. Thanks.

Rachel said...

My pleasure.