six poems from a new project : The book of questions,

In case you hadn’t seen, I’ve been working all month on a new poetry project, specifically prompted by the Tupelo Press 30/30 fundraiser, composing and posting a new poem daily all month to help raise money for their ongoing publishing. I mean, who doesn’t love a good prompt? I’d already re-posted a handful of poems from such as part of my substack, but thought it would be worth (given the poems are appearing online daily over here) to re-post a bunch of them over here as well. And there’s still time to donate to the project! Where else might the month go?

 

August, Prince Edward Island,

Gulls, aplenty. Green gables, white. Of small beginnings. Cows, abstractions. Towels. Grab your bathing suit. By the waters of North Rustico, harbour. Sea glass. By the sandstone, smooth on the beach. From away, then. To rearrange the rules. Acadian fisherman, just off the shore. Seawalk Park, such intelligence. Lobster traps, stacked. What if it stood. The same function holds. A vista of rippled hills, these coded, free roads. Paved, and unvarnished. Iron-rich. Full-fathom deep, boats and nets and traps. These wayward hopes. Pelagic, abyssal. A crest is formed. Flags, a thread of fine vintage. What people, always. This line in red sand.

 

Mark Goldstein, Roblin Lake,

Left behind by glaciers. Soluble, water-logged. Game, to recognize game. This handmade quality of syntax. A flourish, of hardscrabble. Hewn logs, by the boundaries. Hammer, hold. This widespread mortality. Lake, a loon’s call. Ethos, each structural division. Of going on, without one’s knowledge. An outhouse, closed. This grey shape, framed by leaves. Little point of land. A can of beer, on sun-drenched deck. To ask this of poetry, sport. The local library. Remembering the world. His world, specifically. Al Purdy’s Ameliasburgh; such calm, warm water. A fossil lake, which corresponds to this sentence.

 

Cover art by Jack Kirby,

Pencils, a window. One can look into. Look out. A layering of buildings. Swings, an arm. Stand, firm and tall. Proclaims! Any technique, to be useful. Kurtzberg, the Lower East Side. Rewrite history, story. How the gods died, reborn. Punching out Nazis. Widescreen energy and motion. King, always. Young Romance, New Gods. I can’t keep them separate. Slippery, Providence. To leap off the page. Soon, soon. Not soon enough. Dynamic. This architect of the imagination. What we talk about Selkirk. Put a post on a website. Unfollow.

 

How to be a poet,

Forget everything, words. Nothing much to expect. Forget speech. Hold on to the hollow. One simple question, repeated. Wrap, your fingers. The magic of water. It falls.

 

For Claudia Lapp,

Oregon, trails. Sometimes the oldest, history. Abstraction. Arm to shoulder, leapt into the world. In the Atwater Station. To be attracted, to revelation. Doctors, and durability. Concurs. A Greek phrasebook, begins. Mediterranean, honey. Pixieish ecstasies, what the stars might reveal. Description, description. L, as in Lapp. The old woman in anyone. Full of Jungian dreams, a white stallion. John Abbott. A web full of wanting. Of home, kin. What afternoon light. Beneath your smile, this blue ceiling. A way through the winter. To use the right words. A long silence, indeed.

 

The Marvel Universe,

Excelsior! For the endless, resurrected. Dime-store models, pulp. Those scrappy kids. Celestials, eternity, infinity. A cluster, stones. Behold! Creating history, continued. Continuity. The streets of Brooklyn. What the in-crowd, spoke. In whispers, secret. Chosen, many. Stringbean, puny, stretch. Big brain. These gods of thunder, hammers, patience. To still, get up. A method, marvels. Let, the perfect storm. To me, my Kirbyesque. When comics, woke. The war-time Captain, punched out Hitler. Great responsibility. My word, these hopes. My stars and garters. Exceptions, vary. The needs of the few. Amazed, we soapbox, are. We are still speaking.