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

fiction

Issue No. 16

Walking Backwards

Tristan Garcia

TR. Jeffrey Zuckerman

fiction

Issue No. 16

‘Moderne, c’est déjà vieux.’ La Féline   I.   I pretended to remember and I smiled: it was time...

fiction

Issue No. 8

Estate

China Miéville

fiction

Issue No. 8

Two nights running I woke up with my heart going crazy. The first time, as I lay there in...

fiction

March 2017

Slogans

Maria Sudayeva

TR. Antoine Volodine

TR. Jeffrey Zuckerman

fiction

March 2017

A Few Words on Maria Sudayeva   Slogans is a strange, extraordinary book: it describes a universe of total...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required