share


The Cloud of Knowing

There are those who would have paid that.

The amount your eyes bonded with

(O spangled home) will have to work it out in a room

like they have certain chairs set up together

which were blue-violet. We all have to fail

at end of days, yet not so pronto

she said. And lo, it was like a breeze of vacuum

beyond the stiff perimeters already granted us.

A whole goes. And then a whole lot.

 

Most valuably, no one writes a letter

to those sprinting up ahead, who wouldn’t read it anyway.

In Dodge and other windswept places

the evening news took pride of place.

Attentats were back. Parental concern loomed. Peckers

swollen by the rainforest beckoned.

Many liberals and even some conservatives

called for a business replacement. Jeez, you guys,

can’t you hum anything? What about little Elfrida?

He’s not the famous young person I knew.

That one had a lot of little bits in it,

you know, soothing, from home, a minefield.


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

(1927-2017) was one of the great American poets. This poem was published in The White Review No. 8.

READ NEXT

feature

January 2016

Suite

Pierre Senges

TR. Jacob Siefring

feature

January 2016

‘Suite’ was born of an invitation Pierre Senges received to contribute to an anthology on the future of the novel (Devenirs...

Interview

February 2014

Interview with Lisa Dwan

Rosie Clarke

Interview

February 2014

In a city where even the night sky is a dull, starless grey, immersion in absolute darkness is a...

feature

Issue No. 7

Comment is Fraught: A Polemic

Mr Guardianista

feature

Issue No. 7

When not listening to the phone messages of recently deceased children or smearing those killed in stadium disasters, journalists...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required