K.M. English

 

2 poems

Wave Says


I can’t speak
of the beginning and the end, mark my self by fin and finned turns under deep roam    

             what drop bodied life
into strange clause comes, come surround, might salt slights pool the site for invocation     

                           to let roll passing matters, land-
falling, crestbroke into the loneliness of a name, dune, taxon so staged for encounter

                                        whipped white as a sail…I am old
and in pursuit, instruments distantly tuned and head on now making way, swift over

                                                     sessile feeders stock waiting
a colonized again, divided light hulled to a space within you who are breaking  now

                                                                   break, now a shape held to air
now reckon this agony from both sides, torn to and air now assembling, clouds tend 

                                                                                one another one attending
all colors scatter unsaid and in full round surrounding, catch a release what’s romantic

                                                                                             somewhat sensed   
as measures felt in one place felt another kind of airless dreaming that need not arrive  

                                                                                                           need not surface for breath
but dissolve…was that then, safety? Well, close, technically I arrive but reach not in 

                                                                                                                        rough wind, how else
could desire lose touch its hard feel/ing split, a blank intention spent itself to night  

                                                                                                           moonrapt or more simply
just inside yes, one brilliance at a time revealed of gas of dust the next gesturing into

                                                                                             every next real, a reaction piece
like ever-under rhythmics training fine possibilities with lean machinery, action bone  

                                                                                to blank lock 
as sure ways to medals and prayers for, the scene come then everafter like lightning ever- 

                                                                   after sounds a strike                                       
response in the nerve, drone laughs in the back of fist-first crowds and allover red

                                                     tessellate on repeat
flat on flat arsenals of bare dark between, left rough and sunk the kind of lines that  

                                        won’t make it out
Were you there for the swallows of some-like, the last one to take it deep? Didn’t a 

                            kind of well-
meaning tide give back to gentle earths? I am yes I, delivering ever the wish to become              

             with, not portioned for
the take, moon and I shift work in praise of unrest, one petal like a shell to break and             

there you are again
afloat in a longing suggestive of ending now spring the hook, bedeviling phase music

             a breath sheen of sea
unseaming its long hood…if this feels like doom memorialize it, perform a sorrow be- 

                           low decks in slights of
hand out of sight, fate-tight at send off a tidal thrown abroad and in the heavy comes

                                        animalia kings to feed
Where was it you had hoped to arrive? This is what it looks like coming home, your  

                                                     brother stoned and grasses
ablaze by association all down the line look how the little ones burn spectacular self-

                                                                  sustaining fires, it all comes back 
in the long uncurl that is or afterwards, remembering a rigged synapse of word will   

                                                                                wingless travel itself, a
qualitative dredge of waterlogged papers, seasonally porous materials, tireless plastics  

                                                                                             uncompromising folds given
to pressures a city slipped beneath itself in real time, always the real time on a summer  

                                                                                                           day and trigger roots hot
what a storm did trouble, a sublunar spectacular a free ranging free for all where they

                                                                                             late surfaced, who wasn’t
there to see it day after day preoccupied…is there some glory list in endlessness, some

                                                                                grave grown fruit
swallowed like the early morning mountain so lightly does drape its soul, as lately was

  

                                                                   I had, having a moment with
inspired likenesses, ranging choral bells felled one after the last such that wood become  

                                                     a setting ringed with privacy
its canopied terror of feeling lost surrounding and not wanting to leave in the same sky 

                                        a stormcloud, a shoreline
newly arranged, the last name they knew you by when you were…let there be now

                           some green oblivion
resplendent event lighting sponsored in part by b-type stars, chant animus of memory 

             its kaleidoscopic arrangements
being barred eye to milk eye all night awake, weeks ripping this very same longitude  

marked by fire by lines
are we decided upon or passed over in ecstasy and brief, let nothing be carried beyond

             reach, fingers in close
distance marks a promised release and outwardly pockets of deep declination, realms

                           of wonder and loot 
filled alone /her / dream of holes again /the relative /knife
                                                     point in / gash     a /
                                                   sliver
                                        placed, was it a hallway
a closet
     afterschool radicled this seed of displacement
                                                                          from behind   a feel of
                                                                           tumbling   
                                                                   rock to temple
                                                        mouth on
                                                            rock   bring it hard
                                                                                to hard
all the ways of being a horizontal body after the bell, learned economies of flesh  

                                                                                                           pound for pound 
shovel to sky  whoever’s job it is to loosen the dirt  loosen the dirt  now  take your

                                                                                                                                                   peace
 

                                                                                                                        leave your                                                                                                   


what is experienced as color such that  petals  fruit  peeling bark   the world after is  

                                                                                             known as                                                                                 in the form of a question Were you born here   
soft opening…mouthed but     
                                                                                    breath 

                                                              unavailable and 

                                                                                                                            breath no   

                                                                                             cue the familiar boots
on their way and orderly you were   
                                                                  incidental to, discussed as
                                                                                    an episode     

                                                                                                                  slit of sunlight  

in the hold 
                     sea 

    found blue   
dear rider, tow me slow and call a parade                                                                                                                                                        a parade

                                                                                                                                     rolling long the way landing can feel like waking up after a surgical procedure, cathedral lights in your                                                                                                                                                    eyes 

                                                                                                                        all dreamy reflections

                                                                                  discrete as wings                                                                                                          russet throat then the first                                                                                                                                       cut
                                                                                                              hulled and what hand
said body whose hands said world, fixing fluid you to                wait  and water, inked
                                                                                                           pitchless
                                                                                             profound feeling out 

                                                                                                                                          farther from

one  by one each was mourned full of mind, endless cobblestones a                                            

                                                                                                           marbling
                                                                                             you had dark 
time for unmentionable means over immeasurable nights a dull equation made of, or 

                                                                                             as they say, delivered

the idea was to survive it and live
                                                                                not to tell at all, habituate to dust and                                                                                                            hills but

                                                                                 how these swells, source-
shaped like that first drink from hot pins, pulled into hunger a body’s sweet expectant  

                                                                   Was this longing for? 

A self, or the impression of   light
                             spilling light   

                                                            for the benefit of shorebirds, a tolerant company 

                                                     on pedestal toes, how to
stand to oiled and difficult in current auriculars, cut crude and streaming a timely re- 

                                        enactment, which is to say
historically, when held for questioning 
                                                                             lit   in mind her          
                           fact to get out of her  

                                        red-

eyed paddling her 

                                        shore in diplomatic strokes to belie notions of station, o captain


             o nations: grief
down a long wall of solitary, through your moment of silence dawning light in parallax 

how faraway wants finally
what I want to convince you I’m here, phenomenally sure I’m  compulsive I  follow

              foreign materials ecliptic / to
                                                               slant  

                 trouble /            
 

                                        as a kind of necessary fidelity, the bind                                                                      of gift / threat 

                                                     uses all the wrong terms
            really, is a misunderstanding of man not gift nor an eyeful of warships   

                                        on a path cut humble
beneath, gut-schooled and boxed soggy slick like floating forests a ballet of the razed                                                                                                                                                                                           as I attend to my own
movement freely becoming a boredom with depth, surface clean to the gaze in a spray

             of child-grace, star-
maker, take a moment to consider the spectrum, use object interchangeably with air 

with fluid interchangeably
with animal use object now spin the talking points then cut to stuff, the surface a glare 

                           all hours turned on
religious-like, this scene for fathers done arranging a world of sweet meats trussed and

                           rare, blanchboned each
each seed taking off to worship, leaflets vein-true, mother may I melt the batholith in  

                                        your eyes your intrusive body
increasing its size with depth but no known base, spread edge-wise simply to continue  

                                                     on and reaching form
                           like the hollow     
                                           held open 
                                                                  fist to cheek hot hurt to hurt                                                                                 impossible
                                        wall his never 

                                                                    will, braced
again what it takes what is more useful than being always on the way and having no- 

                                                     thing to grant but salt
spumes, what kind of offshore boom time am I rigged to, some epic slick leaked abroad  

                                        I’m soused at the break
if shore was meant to be claimed, say gift, goldmine mornings hyped pistils real fruit  

                           perfume, an unincorporated 
bloom delivering lost meadows awash a stigmata blazing pink, are you tired? Dare you  

             lean sister they coward by    
 night, wired concrete his sweet flesh        
      pockedorgans swelled                                                                                                      
              gases burnand                                                                                                          
          musk of the fluidwiredconcrete
        hissweet flesh  pocked organs swelledgases
 burn andthemuskofthefluidwiredconcretehis sweetflesh
         pocked organsswelled gases burn and
                  musk of the fluid
                           wired concrete his sweet                                                                                             
              flesh pocked organsswelledgases                                                                             
   burnand musk ofthefluidwiredconcrete his
                          sweet flesh
           pocked organs swelled gasesburn
              and musk of the fluid wired
           concretehis sweetflesh pocked
       organsswelledgasesburnandmuskwiredconcrete
                       hissweet
              flesh pocked organs swelled gases
   burnandmusk of the fluidwiredconcretehis
                   flesh
        pockedorgans swelledgases
                 burnand muskofthefluid
           wired concrete his sweetfleshpocked
        organs swelled gases burnandmusk
                          of the fluid
did surround his brain un-
             bodied still your egg  your real  you remember the root to boil for forgiveness

                               what has been done to you
has been done when they offered the choice between sear and blaze  and you were

                           handed an apricot, some-
where delicious the gate is everywhere open breaking skin in your hand
                                                                                             seam to seam  

                                        a roseate world discovers
unfurling alterity in long form, deep-set seed in the dark taste of copper stone   

                                                     cold extraction / shatter 
seed memory you, drawing a crab at the table brown parabola legs unsteady aboard                                                                                                                                                                                                                      night to sea, unsteady to-
night the difference between sear and blaze breaking in hand, memory                                                                                                            seed   is the sun
                                                                                                               still 

                                                                                             hanging /  

his clothes drip sea another end without sleep, coppered
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    sand shifting sands lift the weight
of taken back sea, mouth of stone  sorrow  sea  song  angel blue  boy rocked in                                                                                                                                  what holds      
                                                                                                                             
                                                      these rifts in the sun
watched you swell, did you sun, watch him swell? Untouchable lightness becomes you  

                                        and I honor this principle
like a mother I owe then I pay, hold becoming over more before a jawless armored fish  

                           but consider the cruelty
of a labor and nothing held then no end, irrevocable nature all  change I  
                                     radiate                                           
             no    surround no
mine to lose…Can you relate? Forget it
             wanting is what’s left 
     to enter another
perfect contradiction like you devouring likenesses in form, relentlessly drawn outside

             a phantom circle 
as a posture assumed I’m in process, suggestion, and dream  

                            this feeling as
we before he’d had enough the moment broke angel sorrow to surround, assume again

                                        a visiting body in climax
when you look at me do you see a mountain stream emptying the last, drop bombed   

                                                     his alate hands  there
faith in lift, considering cloud him electric before the word was birch leaves in morning  

                                                                   shine shine shine they
say say say in their diversity of experience, selving wind like these trees express but  

                                        are we anywhere moved
under questioning here I have been arriving too as you consider, boy, I see you bend to  

                           sticks I see you trying for the spark
that might hold inside you wireless eyes blown concrete boulders, trashed world mean 

             burn blue angel
boy  I see you trying for the spark that might I am rushing too as you consider, break                                              
                           by your lash, backskinned
real, sun body winged in me stroke stroke  stroke our way on to what may be there for  

                                        you     

                           a  sea,  

                                            nothing     
 

                             less

 
than shimmering gills, it is only light can pass from pass into water, the beadboard raft  

                                        sopped flags of fabric
scrapped red orange yellow green blue and violets in the river the band ahead where we
          
                                                     drank because she
kept returning in argument, her body shoring against rest, a river knowing does not     
                                                    
                                                                        tear-like, scar-
made split from feeling what cannot hold whole, gripped fast the heart a matter of slips 

                                                                                let, not a myth of
some naturalism but beasts blind to witness the edge  beyond the edge  of the edge                                                       
                                                                                             again impossible  
away, no single thing made but getting upright, pine stand in and beneath you simply  

                                                                                more you, look now
steal close for a moment, pray do not misunderstand so intentionally as all I want is to  

                                                                   touch down in this
brief blue scrub jay stutter-landing breaks a sunset bitter, find your glamour in service  

                                                                                ruffling trees in homage
to the old going way of green fixing rare and feathered pearls to sky, who can afford

                                                                                                            these returning flocks
over the broken city is to mind, traveling light or end staged  light appearing as meaning 

                                                                                              drenched peach
a canned revolution then alone lengthy darknesses no one tried to explain the language
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          an after-mask rehomed
by sparrows, truly I want to be clear about belief its heavy end products at the collapse 

                                                     I call myself force

by falsehoods / equalizing

                                                             in postures like law I say nothing
                                                                                obscurely known as
                                        these borders root to 
your only impermanence, shape slant notions from which we came so flexibly against  

                           the moon, seasons to escape
wherever   between life and predation is touch
                                           your finger 
                                                     wrapped 
                                               worlds 

                                                                    stop insisting
                                        on surface   
                         a screen for 
                                            inevitables 
and under pressure yes  I loved mystery 

                                                                   being always the same
in this place and hard, what it cost to be a girl 5% 10% 20% cornered, all the fish                                                                                                                                                                                                                       as if                                                                                       

                                        together a shining slivering
wall I come spilling names unto, undecided  on swagger, having body but no point  

                           I came today I 
             filled what was
expected, taking orders I rogue

                                                              now watch me get off I’m taking what I was told were

                                         deeply miscalculated strategies, a                                                    
time I no longer assume something else   I gave up on instruction if not belief I                                                                                                                                                    betray I  

                                                     am done with relentless
authorities, gusting shear indifference through slough and soul                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
             what body takes

                                                                                                            and then some 

                                                                                                       I won everything I   dis-


                                                                   appear, it’s like that
I work now on contract I blew the money regular I repeat I tear                                                                                                                                                                                                                                this wreck pure gold


                                                                                methodical, remember                                                                    you were dazzled
                                                                                                                             try
                                                                                                              by me   

                                                               and resist  

                                                                                did you think it could go on like… 

                                                                                                            

       am I not your well made thing, no  

                                                                                                   tool
                                                                                             unbreakably   yours I’m
                                                                                                           unconsumable, of nowhere
             come  

                                                                                                                        breathbodied   
                                                                                                                           

                           breath 

             loose into a gulf conundrum, if I demure it looks like an act…can we talk

                                                                                                           about touch? Of back there?
A pool shimmering with cast away coins? It’s the failure of surface I’m here for                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         a space untenable  

           what some between won’t float, long ago plumped on open waters you became                                                                                                                                                      an event

                                                                                                                        born beached                                                                                                                                      you   dehiscent  

being your clamor for safety is unscientific and without warrant, if you really want to  

                                                                                             know you’re inswelled  
 

                                                     fugitive armed
                                                                         with/

    out
a straight story I surrender                   

                                                                       slipping through  

                                                                                             you/
                                                                                                           I  mean   

                                                                                                                        your body                  
                                                                                I mean                           

                                                                                             you/  

                                                                   shell of 

                                                                                    you, rendered                                                     

                                                                                                                                     imperceptible 
                                                                                                                           now I’m not now not        
 

                                                                   lacking faith in                                                     
auroral skins they can’t touch what  uproots    

                                                     what  flood
                                        what  was always about 
                                                                      before
             to the beginning of    

                                                     a garden I
                                        forget                                          

             was I? Not

                             supposed to touch
again going on about what it takes and don’t talk about a progress in terms of your                                               

                                        progress, possession and tides
you shore believe I am coming back under deep instar on long rasping   

                                                                                                                wings is  dream

                                       

                                                                                                                                        as sea

                          

                           above the                     

                                 

                                                     fall

 

 

whenever I think I’m over it my fear of the water this privilege laps easy from higher
             ground a spectre

                            reds in
moments and in that wake is the wake of another  gone    

 

                                                                                             another come within the bright

 

 

             aiming close
to wrap his absence in                                                                                 














                                                                                       
                                                     white  cloth  buttons   strange  intact   hand  over    hand  I

























             thought I wanted a math
to teach it again and again like they used to all in 

 









                            questions / dictate  some
                  faceless


























                                            formula to sky’s rare







                                                                  tenacious well
my beast torrent yes the words make me feel dumb now let me feel you

 
 

it seemed half a life to find / a shore 

 

what steps through those white loops

                                         

                                                glossy distances, then 
                                                down

 

 

 

 

what looks like a wave giving way

                                                 is given 

 

                                                  away,  

 

 

 

 

                                                 oil

 

                                                giving / way

 

 

                                                                                                                                                      

 

 

                                                                                    blue-black and gilled
                                                                                                then a softly moment 

                                                            (sun-caught, sanded round)

                        

 

             dry armored shouts   
 

                                    they  they  they

                                    

                                                                        drone on          drilled through

 

 

                        

 

                                                                                                                                         

 

 

 

 

            

                                                                                                            (adrift, no

            

             

 

                                                                                                carried forth) with     

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                 

                                                                          

 

                                                                                                                                                  

 

 

 

 

 

(and what is duty but rows greening)
(and who better to sow a plot of broken glass)
(and when the fence one side) 

(still in place that 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                              

power, when in the early morning petals      ring 

hand to its dirt      metallic the light                

remarks upon: a shift finished

where agency strips to a pole, as stripping is law

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                      

 

 

 

(where)
thick 
wings 
are 
pressed 
to 
my 
eyes 


spectral
dark
how
far 


tunneled 
light
such 
is


(over) the hard thing that has grown

(split) water feeling for aired life

(before the eye) fittings in

(bear this still) seen afloat

(flank) to flank

(behind) elsewhere’s red day


(lower) chorally


(lower) trace and swell


(lower) hook-sly


(lower) current time


(blurred) that long cold


(deep) a texture of

(lower) deviced

(body) valve-tight

(body) switch play and tailed

(body) egg trails reseeding

(body) charging by design

(breath) rush-schooled

(hunger for) her brief lights

(hunger for) teeth heavily near

(hunger for) a skinned thrill

(blurred) again winter

(blurred) as light did examine


(blurred) the long suspension game


(trawling) hard kneed against


(lower) fin-right


(lower) sideworn


(lower) stele deep surround


(a hole) burrow=strategy

(blurred) wherein

(blurred) of chords again dreaming

(blurred) was scent was

(bottomed down) aka rest

(blurred)

(fingering) feels closest to

(current) else a root

(rip) freed by force of



(lower)





(lower)

(blurred) wasn’t it, and almost time

(blurred) seed memory

(blurred) my thorn my thumb

(blurred) “his childhood”

(blurred) smaller than a

(sea) the indelicate salts


(sea) this hold

(sea) supplication, or ?

(sea) the line about

(surface)

 

K.M. English has recent poems appearing or forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Colorado Review, Bone Bouquet, Poetry Northwest, Third Coast, Berkeley Poetry Review and other places. WAVE SAYS was also a recent finalist for the Kathryn A. Morton Prize from Sarabande and a semifinalist for the Sawtooth Prize from Ahsahta. She is currently working on a manuscript titled A MOVABLE BED.