Discomposed
Stuart Greenhouse
What do we call
those limpid flowzy flowers
that look like someone took notebook paper
worn soft from pen-pressure—writing and crossing out,
writing and crossing out—weeks of heartneed drafting—
then, seeing their words also had changed, in the way weather does
staying weather, continuously
forward, away from itself,
in an electric-storm frenzy shredded it, abandoned it
scattered
around the bare
unrealized trunk
of whatever idea had birthed it
like drought-shocked, not autumn-full, leaves
before, like words come back to a voice after crying, returning
to gather the scraps in a pile, and with their last ink
dyeing them a gentle wash of pale blue
and gluing them—absentmindedly now—not inattentive,
absentminded the other way, absentminded past habit, absentminded
near to the point that someone watching, if anyone were, couldn’t say
for sure it was a person there doing it and not their body hove free
of the held breath one’s name is—absentminded past the point
where concentration could matter any more
than the pull and swell of tide could to a bird's altitude—

into a moment vacant and wide as an insomniac’s dawn,
the closest thing
this world has seen
to a halo?
from the journal TRIQUARTERLY 
READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM
Share Share
Tweet Tweet
Forward Forward
Color portrait of Lord Byron
Byron and Borgia: an Impossible Encounter

Poet-in-Residence in Rome for “Byron 200,” Scarlett Sabet probes Byron's fascination with Lucrezia Borgia. "Byron stole a strand of hair from the blonde lock calling it 'the prettiest and fairest imaginable.' This strand of hair, a cord, a lifeline through time, through centuries and different societies, connected these two notorious beauties. A golden thread. Stealing it was an act both bold and tender."

via LIT HUB
READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES
Cover image from The Missouri Review, Spring 2024
What Sparks Poetry:
Gilad Jaffe on Language as Form


"Temporary things don’t want to be permanent—at the end of the day, I like to think they fall in love with their own uncertainty. The purple vinyl seats melting into the Iowan wall, the orange traffic cones stationed at an intersection in Rhode Island, blossoming. 'The yellow horses spilling from their sidewalk stalls, sidestepping fruit vendors in an inharmonious derby…'"
READ THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
donate
View in browser

You have received this email because you submitted your email address at www.poems.com
If you would like to unsubscribe please click here.

© 2024 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030

Design by the Binding Agency