|
I asked my friend Dave Jordan to do some reverse ekphrasis with some of my poems: that, is, create images inspired by poems, rather than the other way around. These are the amazing artworks he created, along with the poems he drew them for.
|
|
Coming Alive
dry bones turn over make the fresh water hot again god's dead creatures boiling alive to eat honey off the comb stick wildflowers up their nose bring clover to their mouth as they all fall back from heaven a mount hushed in a dream brittle skeletons rubbing rosewood oil to make a skin gleam again |
|
|
Get-Down
get down from that story the mulch twitching as if asking to be foraged intoned upbeat unbridled as if a horse or an image of a horse is it decadent this ceaseless parsing of reference and referent the responsibility to master be mastered see hooves where rider and saddle have disappeared the human referents fall away can you read what has not been written yes—it’s all been gristled and knowing there are only horses where the human should have been get down that ghost saddle get down that rusted carriage they went south with the burning lanterns this is the endpoint the horse rears into a shadow of a man with horns |
|
Softness soften my mouth weave the smell clamor to the thigh wet its rebellion flood the decisions to dispatch a moan was that pleasure indeed or just a wire humming in me |
|
|
Dark
rain laden the palm black with water a quarter finger opening its vein to let the water in with the smell of pine this memory makes itself a cloud passing over and away |
|
Country
backwoods blare across America rags and scraps shuffle the natural order toughened to a dull knife pounding the soil until flowers bloom spring’s illusion of change thick orange petals cut blue the sky open shut the white clouds occlude a memory rage sharpening against skin metal with nowhere to go not cut not cut a dead woman lives tulips sprout spread a wash of color where her hair should have been America has conquered this tragedy the silver lining a stately state where green grass grows the backwoods gathering up the weeds |
|
