NEW POETRY
 
Franz Wright
Jenn Morea
Ted Pelton
Susan M. Schultz
Amanda Nadelberg
Standard Schaefer
Matthew Cooperman
Ed Taylor
Coralie Reed
Gretchen Mattox
Mark Rudman
Ales Debeljak
Simon Perchik
 
 
NEW CRITICISM
 
Bendall on Wagner
Schroeder on Mullen
Thompson on Gibson
Minor on Tran
Rippey on Hannah

JENN MOREA : whispered things hidden





Death Chatter

blue sky come back let me hear the one I was born to hear let me be loved don’t let the closed eye that watches look away seen and unseen all is visible now let me lonely not long the living let me deep into timelessness o how my stories from other mouths come







Interim Desire

Nearest distance, in here with me please come. Long the room has walked in circles around me.  And I’ve walked there, too, wanting by your voice to be held.  I learned listen from absence of body the way once body was the only voice. Tell again how everything reaches and reaches until everything reaches its something.







Picture

Lines of desire.  Night-blur.  Colorless bird bringing back a star’s arm.







Near, Which Was Never

I was near where once you were.

If I know this, then I do not remember I know this.  You tell me and I believe what you say.

I believe what you say like it is written in me and you are reading it.  When the wordless world first turned to me,  I could still say please and no and more.  Now I say nothing, but, I believe you.

I was near, which was never close, where once you were, meaning, I missed you.  You were there and then you left and when you left you left something there.  You tell me I found it, could see it from far away and in the dark, too, when later I came.  You say you know this because, though I do not remember, when I was not there, I told you.

You tell me the thing you left was an arc that cannot be embraced.  I remember embracing it.  It made me want to stay.  I remember when I left, I left the place near you and I left you.

I remember this like something that happens in the dark that is not supposed to be remembered in the light, or that cannot be.  You tell me I told you this one night.  I do not remember. 

Never you are here and never I am there, though once I was near where once you were.  Being near was like being there. 







Untitled

Where goodbyes are being said I cannot go.  You go and she goes and he goes.  I send with him what I cannot bring.

I dream I am there, dream I meet you again for the first time. 

Time stops here and continues there.  I watch the thin rectangle of light around the door.  I wait for time to begin.







In the Beginning

What was said was whispered.  In an unknown room no one belonged to.  The ear of night gazed.  Our day-bird flew again underground.  Light flickered in the sky, on the hill, but was unbroken between us.  We learned to let be given,  whispered things hidden and listened without rest.  Unwritten letters continued their unwriting.







Trying Narrative

I have been trying to tell you.  On the way to the place, I tried to tell you and on the way from the place, I tried to tell you.  I tried to tell you when we first got there and I tried to tell you when it was almost time to leave.  I tried to tell you in the dark-the light.  Once, I came close to telling you, but someone interrupted.

When you aren’t around, I practice saying it.  I repeat it out loud, and think of where we might be, and what your face might look like hearing it.  All day at work,  I say it in my head.  I fall asleep saying it and when I wake up I think, today I will say it to you.

When I first see you, I think I’m going to say it, but by that time it no longer seems like I’m going to.  

Then it is too late to tell you.  Then I say it to passing clouds, to strangers with sad faces.  In every place I tried but didn’t tell you, I say it. And every time, it is like not saying it.  Then I don’t say it and it is said.







A Form of Goodnight

Beautiful name reaching through a dream, in unexpected last places, you sign gentle, float deep,


inscribe the breath-part.




 

 

(c) 2005 Slope. Slope is ISSN # 1536-0164.