Poem of the Day
The Phase After History
By Jorie Graham
Then two juncoes trapped in the house this morning.
The house like a head with nothing inside.
The voice says: come in.
Then two juncoes trapped in the house this morning.
The house like a head with nothing inside.
The voice says: come in.
It is a loose sleeve whose hair wraps the
Bedouin on his pony and then slings him
Into the wind, always to be a monad
Everything turns into tape. It (check one)
puts the multiples on a loop (1)
reduces all numbers to one (2)
Now the trees tempt
the young girl below them
In 1954, in June
I saw a total eclipse of the sun by the moon.
I saw the flowers fold up, the birds
If the generation wither
twinkling slinky, our of which
how should I
17 floors
above 8th Avenue
in an apartment in 1962
lumbering logging lonesome
lugging muggy weather
numbs my brain
Tonight the
light is
right
I speak of one whose triumph
is like his own despair
“a prison we all carry”;
Up-and-down shafts of light brick
Lift occupants up into prisms or roofs
Of green copper, and then embark on the sky.