Monday, January 3, 2022

Daniel Owen : Three poems

 

 

 

 

WHY'S THIS THING NOT WORK

 

defining for several decades a
discussion offered by more
attention to provisions and

descriptions. the next thing
is discipline, amalgamating

illegible value more than a long
important breath, forms

defining what you mean to
them to you
 

a religion of z's, product
of negotiation (even
as they are leaving) necessitates

convivial tricks (connivance,
confidence, etc, etc) that fall to

habit. blur burbles may stretch
their legs but not leave

this circle without calling
down the dogs with bees in

their mouths (or the bees with dogs
in their mouths (and their songs that

chronicle misused scare optics from
month to month)). we've always

been discussing that blue smoke that
manifests the sky. turtle's eggs

often come up too, sickle and shovel
of stories. grass-stained thank

you cards addressed to the remnant grass
uphold some oil above their heads.

small space emerges all the time, barnacles
on creed, meeting in one

question. lil' imposed multiplication
tables. exoskeleton or shell?

its communication rubs up on variousness's
suspicions in doggy years.

 

 

 

POEM WITH A HAMMER AND COFFEE POT
for Diyah

  

raggedy in the archive i surface looking
for summer — midnight sweats, pale
bread, mayo, carrots, chewy sipple in the dark

corner. opening the leaves a little
further into the brush you see lakes in the future

or latkes — big pillowy cakes like at b&h
or the crisp birds' nests mom makes —
 

speak earth people, you too into
the selvage.
intercosmic grip on the hammer family

called, swung like topical
snowstorms into the soft

thicket — i chew on and
on the name not named for a way to

procure names, get right here fast.

buttering up to your star, i
look away to see across, dewy and cold as
a can — and there you are

rearranging the walls rather
than the furniture. eh, i fumble with the lips of towards

i must teethe on to love, the broke myself of
feeling around inside being for

a lost worm worms in found earth.

and baby cats strike the waves of an era and one
no longer knows the meaning of no one. and river dolphins
get lost at sea, their bones one day become

vinyl records to play back the past at a vanishing
point vantage — allow me
 

to install the ideal of where we'll stroll
tomorrow, rhymes quit stalling. o we speak so
deep into the feet of our lovers, fêteless,

unfettered — somebody try and
stop me from sewing some design to the coffee pot.

now move your hermit crab house into permanence
become plantlight and dew — let's go over

to see you. 

 

 

POEM ON FISH AND HUMANKIND AND STRAINS OF FLOWER

 

just put a name in that machine 

          and let it fuck you up

    the words 

                     sure as    individuated pieces

          curses in a school, a flock a gaggle a band,
         
a badelynge, a coven, a bunch, a hive,
         
a gathering, a pride, a family, a pod,

         
a herd, a group, a few

       birds are still    in flight                believe the birds

in the bed, in the eye of the moon, why's everyone

        think poetry's got so much to

                        do with words

    with you

         we must destroy the government

and every language that has one in it

fruit farmers, poets, flower growers, ones
who wait, those who are on, minute singers, the
professionless, the expressionless, bodhisattvas, and

bedbugs beg the question's sentience

          the quest's    sentence

      how i speak the moon or the tile floor        or

                             anything in particular        to your fullness — 

             the moment's    incompletion

                       like ticks in the lawn 

                                                            makes sense

     remember radio?
    
remember reed boats plying the tigris at dusk?

                  in the densities of any

                          concrete slab 

                                 kernels of breath's

                       bequest 

                                remember

            for what 

     nostalgic for nostalgia (monopoly    of speaking
                                           
perfectly with death)

              longs only

                        for what's left to be done

                                          

     

 

 

 

Daniel Owen's recent publications are Celingak-Celinguk (Tan Kinira, 2021), Up in the Empty Ferries (Third Floor Apartment Press, 2021), and Points of Amperture (dos-à-dos chapbook with Jennifer Soong's When I Ask My Friend, DoubleCross Press, 2021). His translations from Indonesian include Afrizal Malna’s Document Shredding Museum (Reading Sideways Press, 2019) and poems by Malna and Farhanah published in various journals and magazines. Recent writing and translations have appeared in Circumference, Asphalte, Columbia Journal, and The Poetry Project Newsletter. He edits and designs books and participates in many processes of the Ugly Duckling Presse editorial collective.