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Aaron McCollough’s first book, Welkin, won the 2001 Sawtooth Poetry Prize and is available from Ahsahta Press. A second manuscript, Double Venus, was a finalist in the 2002 National Poetry Series Competition. His poems have recently appeared in journals including The Colorado Review, American Letters & Commentary, Lit and Drunken Boat.
Common Places
As good a place to start
where allwhere all mornings startshut in and quiet
the common ground of good
will I share with others
the floor I share with her
(unlock the door my love
our feet on it again
on earth again our earth
Suzanne (as an object)
asleep
a lump of comforter
awake
a handsome yawning girl
beautiful society!
Fyrst arise erly
Serve thy God deuly
And the warld besylly
in line of sight in line
through breaks in the screen
to mean
a thing
to be
in babylon-and-zion-one or the track not
a metaphor for the bear but the bear
a metaphor for the track
you should have seen the host
you had to see the host
but I am walking in
the day reflected in
the windows making plans
the snow is waving off
the walk hard and soot
adrift the drift) my plan:
believe what heat I feel
is sent from space to ME
The regimen is old – incrusted with the baked
hyacinth sealant – to man the rig of zipline
or cover scripture in net to catch loose pieces
the rabble take for magic
I stir a rabid wheezing –
drive down the new extension – bask in the valley.
Brand believing soaking in the tepid stair-step
enumerating spindles of erasure head
I do my work (am drawn away) and do my work
for work to do in view of
passing windows – spreading parks –
the garden of heaven at the foot of the hill.
That fading shape behind the town behind the hill
I lived in singing for my supper – eating it
asking for another helping another ask for
help is all I even hope
to see contain container –
on the land
(am drawn away and further drawn away from that)
an say-us-na sairlie,
but sauf us frae the ill-ane
worried so much about
the state of in I’m worrying
the hardwood floor between
my wife and me three feet
the body of our soul
together back to back
at work at worrying
the body of our soul
together
a work of worry
It is better to marry
to marry
to marry is
not
not to burn
to marry not
to burn
is to burn in
counterfeit gloom
every switch being thrown
the draft beneath the door
the light beneath the floor (I left on laundering)
this cozy little work of persisting
are you breathing enough
as good a place
to start
Shipwreck of the Singular
1.
geese, ducks, swans the tall grass called
maiden hair grass
and right
against the headline
detroit police sick and tired
of finding dead babies
our “at this point the
discussion becomes academic”
way of rising
in Gallup park not feeding
the water fowl who stay here but a term
we go on paving stones
night unseasonably cool for Tennessee
in Michigan and Canada dry air
across the bed
this is our new home we are lying down
2.
it was delivered thus
the road that runs in front of home is fast
buses and cool gliding pedestrians
making noise en route to another road
heaven is a beautiful
I once (once I
was straight
head on shoulders
had headed
had the ones
ballad hunter balladeer
dear, if you want to get to heaven on time
lord knows you got to [ ]
I know
I know to feeling until feeling no longer
need to know
beautiful place -------- there’s hundreds of daylilies
not just orange but tiger huntress carnelian and crazywork
and the cake-type mountain described is a real
with some of the friends who tried, or a little at last
not bitching about the work they reek
they roll the giant shopping carts through ruts
deep gravel not-so-shallow fords
once* nothing but a thing
*I once had
still quite hot --------- sure, and up hill except for some scenic vistas
one called needle head
the ground falls away
further
the scene: some more of the friends
building a sandy starter ramp
the way is zooming iodine
but slow
the seeings a jaundicey
fog-bound
and virgo’s hands again
“she tried to arrange for a trip
over to the island, where the people live
in very primitive style and sing tunes that
go back to slavery and earlier times. But
transportation for our machine-was- and
the heavy batteries needed for supplying
the power was a problem that we did not so
,as only row-boats were available. Another snag:”
AND THEY SHALL BE CONFOUNDED
I do not know
but one I one through the vents in my head
heaven [scratch]
earth = the origin of metaphysical belief
b/c earth is a wilderness of labor
another snag
sang the sirens between two roads
and came the furies to shit
upon our solemnity this night
we let it slide
so long S’wanee
I learned a lot upon the mountain (beat)
not that
heaven is a beautiful place
lord knows you got to [ ]
I come back to the geography of it
the sandstone bands
Cumberland Plateau
in lieu of that beneath my feet I don’t know
cushion of conifers like nails in a pail
and their faces
3.
of being numinous, G. Oppen and the addition
my mother and father of birds I saw an angel @ the CN tower
that is, I looked @ the CN tower in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
August 23, 2001
Here Magi – Here! The young woman is
hearing the voices raising receipts and
rubber bands
rejecting one for another for a false compass
Jeremiah: This captivity is long
build houses dwell in them plant gardens
eat fruit take wives
increase
seek peace have peace
I gather countries
will they be safely brought
gate of the self fall
O my mountain in the field
my pleasant portion
my mother and father of birds it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps /
correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to
nothing
I would adjust my friend’s terms; say gardener “your handiwork stops and starts”
4.
but we are a government
me, mine, numerous others’ others
and we are sick we are all sick
and tired
of death even as we long for heaven
“Oh that my head were waters” – Jerim.
“I have pictured it by a river/Secret to America
but wholly American” – DR
what about this “spanging” (a student taught me this)
wretched polis relief for America’s workers printed right
on the check I cashed and spent on making mirth
this was no relief but
“this shall seem, as partly ‘tis, their own” – Sicinius
that partly ‘tis
behind the daydream the day that wholly is
“every man that is mad / maketh himself a profit” we
walk (my mother, my father, my wife)
the perennials @ the Canadian Royal Gardens
5.
there is the rock
there is the honey
in the rock there is honey
even if the honey looks like grains of sand
even then besides the grains
honey
“sung in the dreaming voice of
the sponger”
like unto the amber in the second sight
the choirs of angels in the rock in the sea
not the rock made to look like the rose
not the resemblance in the rock
the rose in the rock
a list of some who’re seeing it: D., B., K., W., W., O., Z., J., R.
honey defined as honey, which is made by bees, in the rock
6.
this
disordered
spring
late summer this
swarming
with caterpillars
flowers
choked up
fruit trees
all unpruned
hedges
not ruined
I would make a little comedy
even under in the compass of
a pale
dangling apricocks bending twigs
sprays weeds
wholesome flowers
by way of just walking
“in the ‘yellow spot’ of clear vision”
we at time of year / do wound the bark, the skin
of our fruit trees, / lest being overproud in sap and
blood / with too much riches it confound itself
I would make a comedy
knowing prison unto
unto world unto
I in one person many people, / and none contented; sometimes
with nothing shall be pleased,
till he be eased / with being nothing
FULL OF DAYS, AMEN
comedies de vegetabilibus
comedies de animalibus
of earth, air, and leaf
wherein one’s humble weeds are weeds
and free
but not dead
sick and tired of finding dead
a pitiless world