< previous       next >

ROB FAIVRE's poems have appeared in Talisman, Notre Dame Review, Hazardous Materials Review and Aught. His chapbooks include Looking for The Lost and Walking, which is due this summer. He lives in upstate New York.


THE WORLD, AGAIN

Saturday mid-day, the world turns
its attention to a student of the world,
funnels down through his myopic lenses,
here in a second-floor niche of the public
library. Due north, straight ahead:
Confederate flag in the apartment window
over Mino's Sushi House. The world allows
discontinuities to collide in the tunnel
of vision. A Confederacy of Sushi!
Fresh fish for General Sherman!

The student releases the pencil and returns
to the reading. The world scans the first
sentence - "Representations of the world
in written discourse are engaged in con-
structing the world" - and jerks
the pink house from the eastern periphery
into view. Pink, but not so pink
as flesh, salmon or otherwise.



pearl(s)

He recited them one by one
one after another

from the year's work
typed and clipped in a binder

He was surprised to hear anyone
was studying Marx

since the wall came down
He levered his leg

straight over his head
and touched his foot

to demonstrate a flexibility
He wouldn't advise revising this

but perhaps I have written hastily
without the necessary labor



four studies from stills

one

eyes down
the mouth pinched

paused in intake
chin and cheek flexing

to draw another
measure of breath

to form "expulsion"
to form "implode"

two

hand to face
and forehead darkened

in recollection
as if but not

regret neither sorrow
but consideration

hair white in the yellow light
even this little makes too much

three

reading
index to eye

reading
the drawn isosceles

of cheek and mouth
arc of hairline

vectors of woodwork
reading

four

within the familiar
frame

directness is a look
not a smile

not mere regarding
but

beyond the frame
arms open