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
a
spectral
dark
how
far
a
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.