CHRONICLE (i)
systole of wanting
cuff this crude faith
voile mercies
lathe the sky-duct
in the ear’s
abandoned camp,
shadow-struck
the debris of wings
hammered
into the nation-state
the spear’s prey
averted in the long
vein’s
canopy dust
we are perhaps
beings in name only
the threshing blade
a prick in the dust’s
graph, shirred
star that ripens
into history’s honey
REMMNANT OF WALL
I-87 median, Ulster Co., N.Y.
shallow graft of want’s
clean thurible, pale
shimmer (-splendor)
tattooed in priory
a clef motion succors
visible from passage
& theft’s shed
interstice needling
hope’s urban specter
to “bewilder” vs.
to “estrange”
washing its blue claw
the oaks’
low congregational
absolves nothing
(in any [human] sense)
wolf-heft & wolf-
space, shadow (-nation)
milk-slat, milk-lath,
wreathe this sine-
minster, densest-mark
slowly the forest’s
gun going off
again & again & again
THORN DIALECT
enhespered wavelength
a bit of fur shaved
from some tether-lamb
bright in noonshower
your blue hiding places
at the cost of blood
& blood’s plaqued hand
seep-clot, breath-clot
dull foam of May-copse
replaced, a lightning
left parched in aseity
grown into man’s grasp
adrift in granite’s vast
unquarrying breast
define your inheritance
ARARAT
feeding from the archive
& the root
unlike my friend hawk
she takes her prey
on the wing,
says the other poet
I saw her take her prey
on the wing,
says the other poet
perhaps a robin
perhaps a sparrow
—better that than
to be counted
the orphan-
constellations
in their secret skins
(among debasements)
the polymath orchards,
whose debris
clutters these shores—
G.C. Waldrep’s most recent books are feast gently (Tupelo, 2018), winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America; and The Earliest Witnesses (Tupelo/Carcanet, 2021). The Opening Ritual is forthcoming from Tupelo in November 2024. Waldrep lives in Lewisburg, Pa., where he teaches at Bucknell University.