rapid i movements and other poems
by Marjorie Stein
rapid i movements
again—I find myself
in someone else’s dream angling to name the there between slow-running realities where you are not you
and I am sparrow
song burden unsurprised to fly under the thunder & mold a weather with mud, howl, runoff color tea-stained shade of
carnelian sun
set is transferred
by transitive verbs
listing in the latter
phase of be-ing
with all its ache & tear
pre-pares the people
in hill-cradled channel
of wind & runnel
seedlings at the slant
end of scant grasses
bramble & gravel
quarried out of gray
scale fog & follow
myriad ships of
breeze-borne leaves be coming un-documented incarnations of we
The Line is Fold in Human Time
c o l u m n
o f
b r e a t h
& line\\
as seed bank
where it spoors
we
o
r
p
h
e
-us
WITHWITH
A P A R T
in the vagrant trace
\\paper knives
as line of defense\\
\\ sometimes \\
breaks before the oldest telling\\ heartbreak in the\\ duration
imposed by bells
uncertainty
asked us
to inhabit the
\\ unconcluded\\
back of the mouth \\ occupied by harsh alphabets
\\ god-guttered longing
\\ mournful : O \\
great relief when it
e
n
d
-ed
we were as \\ precarious as \\ commas \\ unnamed in the analog
\\we tether in the telling\\
NOTE: This piece was inspired by Gillian Conoley’s August 5, 2021 Napa Valley Writers’ Conference talk: “The Practice of the Poetic Line: Sonics, Syntax and Time (in Time of Great Change).” The title and italicized phrases are quoted from her.
world order
Once, at the zoo I watched
a polar bear turn
to rust in winter mist
I tossed stale popcorn
then the empty bag
then the car keys
At last, she lumbered
up false rocks and danced
for my amusement
Animal ampersand
of scat &
scathe
How to be a being
bound—apex predator
trapped in flat snapshots
[tomorrow’s rain]
tomorrow’s rain
already grounded
leaf rasp
tree shiver
decommissioned forest
each calendared
day awaiting its turn
to be crossed off
the stream will
soon scroll off
screen:
pixelated late snow
tines of the harrow
hauled over dust &
rut: fallow ache
strained to
maintain the grip
on grid
& axis // given
as answer
without question
// marred
the west
marred the weather
with strut & bluster
bodies of water[shed]
// blood[shed]
the christ umbrellaed
& readied by
soul miter to
cedar, cypress,
pine sap
amber trap
//tired yellow
& bruised purple:
oil-slick spectrum
of day’s runoff
Marjorie Stein lives in Northern California with her beloved wife and their furry feline companion. Her first book, “An Atlas of Lost Causes,” was published by Kelsey Street Press. Marjorie credits many wonderful people, but especially T.M. and “Paula’s Other Writing Group” for keeping her on a poetic slant through the best of times and the worst of times.