woods under windows

reevaluation

KS — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:30:57 +0000

I’ve been reading the tanka translations of Tuomas Anhava, the occasionally mind-clinging abstractions of Pentti Saarikoski, and the powerfully imagistic, bohemian freeverse of Arto Melleri, who is my new literary hero. I’ve never given my compatriot writers a chance before, because all the poets I’ve read — until now — have been terrible. and most contemporary finnish poets ARE terrible. my taste is unforgiving, but it’s for the best. maybe these guys’ll be a haven for me from now on.

wolves, worms

KS — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 08:34:10 +0000

two old grey spectres moved
on old grey killers’ legs
through a moss-dark wood,
knowing that the path stirred open for them
where they moved toward shadowy rites―

it wasn’t a fast food odyssey.
it wasn’t a border-war.
they grimaced, but a panther smiled
in their failing heart-stones.

summer was burning in a spruce,
curling it green.
everywhere that water found itself
water cried a splutter of delight,
finding itself lost.

the shut houses of rocks
didn’t pretend to have fallen
from the sky―they certainly didn’t pretend
to be mortal. sun-shone sea-wind
shocked them with shells, in the hot heart
of the green land: grass-tears, rain-juice,
spells. time guffawed in a coma

and as for the wolves, worms
held many days of prayer
for the memory of their spirits,
before gnawing them into infinity.

between the iron ways

KS — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 20:38:59 +0000

a beat city, barren with colour,
withstands the nettle slips & stings of steps
as flat clubs tonguing in blunt flaps a solid safety,
a running beat the tapped bleat of the lost―this city is a beauty at the railtracks;
the empty traincars left dark
between the iron ways,
the hooked cranes paused in heavy arcs,
the far-off hum or whine of quiet unknown lights & by them all
the bent rock of the low sonic cliffs
creaking their ageless centre from human dawns,
a stuck age keeping the inner hill-wolf’s frown.

it’s this, further on, the enclave of reeds
climbing a park, or snow’s crashed carriages burning
with the hillside frost―here is a close Alone
and the absence of built stone & glass
where my next steps take me―
not even seagulls come to ruffle their prayers
over this haulbuilt harbour.

___________________________

version 1

weathervane

KS — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 23:44:44 +0000

an insane wind told me:
riddles grow in the weathervane’s brain.

every light waxes it
black as ice, as the cockerel
cackles a murder of summer―
silly god of a bird
in love with a falling rock!

the weathervane is the shadow of a wing
that is the shadow of an arrow
puncturing the forgotten tarp of space,
revealing machines we’ve built.

here a shocked crow would like to think
that order will be restored through chaos―
he pecks neat dents in dead ground,
he ruffles his glare like an attacker,
he wishes for a love of confusion.

a wind, cousin of the storm,
spins an iron sheet
the shape of a gurgling bird.
I glance at children in the sunfull street
whisk after reeling leaves, pushing their run
against the sting.

stage I

KS — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 23:39:42 +0000

I hope to make this a place to post my poetry, & occasionally other literary brainhummings.

my writing is influenced by every aspect of the natural world, & by language as a powerful web of connotations & images. here’s hoping this place’ll prosper, eventually.