Signs of Passerines

I try not to think. All the things I’ve left behind.
My name on a white page, clack of my words clattering down.
The window: taking it apart. The center.
I did not have to throw all
my belongings in a box.
(Only small dreams.)
The god of wisdom is the patron of
metalsmiths, musicians, and sailors.
Beauty’s long etymology tells us only
that we’ve long thought the lovely good:
Small though it will be in poetry form:
gratitude pressed thin and broad like a sail.

—

This selection comes from Marilyn McCabe’s book Perpetual Motion, available from The Word Works. Purchase your copy here!

Marilyn McCabe’s poem “On Hearing the Call to Prayer Over the Marcellus Shale on Easter Morning” was awarded A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Orlando Prize, fall 2012, and appeared in the Los Angeles Review. Her book of poetry Perpetual Motion was published by The Word Works in 2012 as the winner of the Hilary Tham Capitol Collection contest (available from Small Press Distribution, http://www.spdbooks.org). Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as Nimrod, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Painted Bride Quarterly, French translations and songs on Numero Cinq, and a video-poem on The Continental Review.  She blogs about writing and reading at marilynonaroll.wordpress.com.

Marika von Zellen has a BA in English and Creative Writing from Cornell College (no, not the one in Ithaca). She’s had poetry and fiction published in Open Field, Temporary Infinity, The Grin City Monthly, and the anthology Rock & Roll Saved My Soul. As an Editorial Assistant for Sundress, she’s copy-edited the book Picture Dictionary (2014); as a freelance editor she copy-edited the photography book Face It (2013). In the summer of 2012, she attended the Grin City Collective Artist Residency in Iowa. Besides writing, she enjoys theoretical physics, playing piano, ghost-hunting, climbing trees, and drinking good Czech beer. She’s also a scholar of Lewis Carroll.

The Human Equation

Let a = your neighbor The one with the pool and all the screaming
kids and his incessant mowing, clipping, leaf blowing, and all the while
blasting Billy Joel over everything else, and every Sunday evening his
Aunt Millicent’s mufflerless Ford.

Let b = a stranger Who forgot about the flame on the stove, and the
sports page left on the counter, too close to the flame, and the grease in
the frying pan from breakfast, all of which conflagrate so quickly that
the man, who is upstairs taking a nap, wakes to choking smoke, and
stumbles to the hallway, to the stairs, down the stairs partway but there
is so much smoke, so much smoke that he stumbles, falls

If y = you,

consider that

z = y(a) + y(b)

if z = how you are able to hate wholeheartedly a, wish him ill, brood
over your coffee cup at him out the kitchen window, snarl invective
daily, and once drove right past him when his car was stuck in the snow
that one year that was so bad, pretended you didn’t even see him;

Yet,

one summer morning, driving to get the paper, hot, you saw the flame
eating the house (b), pulled over quickly, ran from the car to the house,
banged on the door, threw open the door to the beast of smoke, ducked
inside calling, calling, heard b mumble from the darkness to the left,
plunged forward, kicked his foot by mistake, grabbed at him, half
dragged, half carried him out, as his cat shot through your legs, and you
all gasped and choked in the smoking air.

(Does b ≠ a?)

Solve for z.

—

This selection comes from Marilyn McCabe’s book Perpetual Motion, available from The Word Works. Purchase your copy here!

Marilyn McCabe’s poem “On Hearing the Call to Prayer Over the Marcellus Shale on Easter Morning” was awarded A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Orlando Prize, fall 2012, and appeared in the Los Angeles Review. Her book of poetry Perpetual Motion was published by The Word Works in 2012 as the winner of the Hilary Tham Capitol Collection contest (available from Small Press Distribution, http://www.spdbooks.org). Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as Nimrod, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Painted Bride Quarterly, French translations and songs on Numero Cinq, and a video-poem on The Continental Review.  She blogs about writing and reading at marilynonaroll.wordpress.com.

Marika von Zellen has a BA in English and Creative Writing from Cornell College (no, not the one in Ithaca). She’s had poetry and fiction published in Open Field, Temporary Infinity, The Grin City Monthly, and the anthology Rock & Roll Saved My Soul. As an Editorial Assistant for Sundress, she’s copy-edited the book Picture Dictionary (2014); as a freelance editor she copy-edited the photography book Face It (2013). In the summer of 2012, she attended the Grin City Collective Artist Residency in Iowa. Besides writing, she enjoys theoretical physics, playing piano, ghost-hunting, climbing trees, and drinking good Czech beer. She’s also a scholar of Lewis Carroll.

Guide to Home Birth

What happens in a womb?
Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny:
first you are a lizard, then you are a man.

Some days you think you have wings.
Sometimes you have gills and swim
everywhere through murky water.

Some days you gaze
through thin flesh, blinking
in the diffuse glare. There is doubt.

Once you enter the womb,
there is no going back. No matter
how long it takes, you come out.

Birth is spasmodic. There is
a violent peristalsis. Life comes
in a hiccup, a paroxysm.

In spite of your best intentions there are cries,
tears. For a long time,
you have no teeth.

—

This selection comes from Marilyn McCabe’s book Perpetual Motion, available from The Word Works. Purchase your copy here!

Marilyn McCabe’s poem “On Hearing the Call to Prayer Over the Marcellus Shale on Easter Morning” was awarded A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Orlando Prize, fall 2012, and appeared in the Los Angeles Review. Her book of poetry Perpetual Motion was published by The Word Works in 2012 as the winner of the Hilary Tham Capitol Collection contest (available from Small Press Distribution, http://www.spdbooks.org). Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as Nimrod, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Painted Bride Quarterly, French translations and songs on Numero Cinq, and a video-poem on The Continental Review.  She blogs about writing and reading at marilynonaroll.wordpress.com.

Marika von Zellen has a BA in English and Creative Writing from Cornell College (no, not the one in Ithaca). She’s had poetry and fiction published in Open Field, Temporary Infinity, The Grin City Monthly, and the anthology Rock & Roll Saved My Soul. As an Editorial Assistant for Sundress, she’s copy-edited the book Picture Dictionary (2014); as a freelance editor she copy-edited the photography book Face It (2013). In the summer of 2012, she attended the Grin City Collective Artist Residency in Iowa. Besides writing, she enjoys theoretical physics, playing piano, ghost-hunting, climbing trees, and drinking good Czech beer. She’s also a scholar of Lewis Carroll.

Perseveration

I’m walking downtown under the ghost of a half moon in the day sky
and think, I’m on a planet circled by a moon surrounded
by other planets circled by other moons in a galaxy circling something
and surrounded by other galaxies circling, and I’m dizzy from it,
and wonder why we developed the consciousness to ask why
we developed the consciousness to ask why we developed
that consciousness, and if our brain has a center whose tendency
is toward believing in a higher power does that disprove the existence of God,
or prove it? So I get an ice cream cone, and why not,
and carefully lick around the edges, a great tongue moon
lapping the ice cream planet, a great God tongue forming the ice cream mind,
like a thought moving around and around making sure nothing
drips out of the cosmic cone and down the cosmic arm
to fall on the pavement like the ghost of a half moon in the day sky.

—

This selection comes from Marilyn McCabe’s book Perpetual Motion, available from The Word Works. Purchase your copy here!

Marilyn McCabe’s poem “On Hearing the Call to Prayer Over the Marcellus Shale on Easter Morning” was awarded A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Orlando Prize, fall 2012, and appeared in the Los Angeles Review. Her book of poetry Perpetual Motion was published by The Word Works in 2012 as the winner of the Hilary Tham Capitol Collection contest (available from Small Press Distribution, http://www.spdbooks.org). Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as Nimrod, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Painted Bride Quarterly, French translations and songs on Numero Cinq, and a video-poem on The Continental Review.  She blogs about writing and reading at marilynonaroll.wordpress.com.

Marika von Zellen has a BA in English and Creative Writing from Cornell College (no, not the one in Ithaca). She’s had poetry and fiction published in Open Field, Temporary Infinity, The Grin City Monthly, and the anthology Rock & Roll Saved My Soul. As an Editorial Assistant for Sundress, she’s copy-edited the book Picture Dictionary (2014); as a freelance editor she copy-edited the photography book Face It (2013). In the summer of 2012, she attended the Grin City Collective Artist Residency in Iowa. Besides writing, she enjoys theoretical physics, playing piano, ghost-hunting, climbing trees, and drinking good Czech beer. She’s also a scholar of Lewis Carroll.

Root Systems

Bittersweet sucks at the apples,
and the rest wanders
hungry underground.
I see it the next street
over and the next, all
one great growth,
tree and fence, your house, mine.
And water too, doesn’t it
blanket the earth, a thirsty crust,
bonny coat all on and under?
Won’t this stream I splash through
become the sea we cruise
in great yachts, then muddy
waste of Madagascar marsh,
the turgid Sunderbans?
And it rises to cloud to fall
again across all time,
so these drops once held
the hand of a man dead
in the bloody Ardennes,
cupped the sturdy skin
-boat of Saint Patrick. Oh, man,
we’re never done with
each other and earth.
Take my tears for your tea.
Grind my teeth for your garden.
Let me feed your child’s child.
Let him suck
the bitter root sweet.

—

This selection comes from Marilyn McCabe’s book Perpetual Motion, available from The Word Works. Purchase your copy here!

Marilyn McCabe’s poem “On Hearing the Call to Prayer Over the Marcellus Shale on Easter Morning” was awarded A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Orlando Prize, fall 2012, and appeared in the Los Angeles Review. Her book of poetry Perpetual Motion was published by The Word Works in 2012 as the winner of the Hilary Tham Capitol Collection contest (available from Small Press Distribution, http://www.spdbooks.org). Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as Nimrod, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Painted Bride Quarterly, French translations and songs on Numero Cinq, and a video-poem on The Continental Review.  She blogs about writing and reading at marilynonaroll.wordpress.com.

Marika von Zellen has a BA in English and Creative Writing from Cornell College (no, not the one in Ithaca). She’s had poetry and fiction published in Open Field, Temporary Infinity, The Grin City Monthly, and the anthology Rock & Roll Saved My Soul. As an Editorial Assistant for Sundress, she’s copy-edited the book Picture Dictionary (2014); as a freelance editor she copy-edited the photography book Face It (2013). In the summer of 2012, she attended the Grin City Collective Artist Residency in Iowa. Besides writing, she enjoys theoretical physics, playing piano, ghost-hunting, climbing trees, and drinking good Czech beer. She’s also a scholar of Lewis Carroll.