Have you lost wax?

I've lost wax.

Have you hollowed stone?

I've hollowed stone.

There are voices there, you know,

saints and rams and cave dwellers,

the trash of centuries I collect

in a corner with a dustpan

I trip over, spilling everything together.

My candle the angels gave me flickers.

Visitors walk through me, a door

to thin air. I will creak, I will tussle

lightly the tour guide's hair.

I've lost wax I can't get back.

No one seems to notice.

That'll be $24.95. 

I sneeze.

You must never sneeze.

They'll sweep me up.

They'll spackle over you.

They'll say I was a giant

come down from the hills

with my pack of wolves

to eat the moon.
from the book TEMPORAL ANOMALIES / Ricochet Editions
READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM
Share Share
Tweet Tweet
Forward Forward
The more I write, the more poetry feels primarily about rhythm. I find what interests me—in this case a story about a medieval king in what is now Ethiopia who carved a series of churches out of solid stone with the help of some angels—and let sound suggest the path of each successive line. This process of playful iteration adds spontaneity and fun and motivates me to keep writing.
 
Color mid-length photograph of Tishani Doshi
"Poetry Can Leap Across Time with Just a Line": Tishani Doshi

"How do we talk about women’s bodies, the violence, the power, and how do we do it in a way that doesn’t feel like a repetition of violence or degradation, but about reclamation, and about the difficulty of just holding these oppositions and dualities? There’s no answer, but I think what poetry can do is bring together things that are in contradiction, or things that are difficult and overwhelming and try to look at them aslant, with complexity, and with the possibility for some kind of transformation." 

via HER
READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES
Cover of "The Margins"
What Sparks Poetry:
Cindy Juyoung  Ok on Other Arts


"'Home Ward (Seoul, Korea, 2012)' approximates the physical layout of a room. My memory of the real room, one of the last where my grandfather stayed, is marked by the concentration of patient beds in a rectangular space that, if empty, I would have considered a wide hallway."
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.

© 2023 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030

Design by the Binding Agency