Poem
Dana Levin
AT THE END OF MY HOURS
AT THE END OF MY HOURS
AT THE END OF MY HOURS
I
here I’m here I’m here I’m
here here here here cricket
pulse—the katydidic tick
(and then a pause) tick
(and then a pause) in greening trees—tales
of a gratitude for water, the hollyhock’s
trumpet Yes, Tenderness
her glove and hoe—her bad trip
love/grief, her medic tent
talking me down, kissed fissures
in the world’s despair, what I’d
loved—alive for a while—a day called
Rip and Brood, a day called
Glorious Hour, the long hunt and the worm found
in the battered petunias—every
morning in summer
that last summer
before the bees collapsed and the seas rose up
to say Fuck You
II
perplexed by how it hadn’t been
unfailingly compatible, our
being numerous—how half the time
we couldn’t see the shapes
we were supposed to make
made grave our disasters—a god’s glass
bearing down
to burn the wheat crop—to keep time alive
inside a tomato, splicing
fish into fruit—some
wanted to defy limitation
were offered famine
bric-a-brac townships
virtual cities
where you could stand in market aisles
still expecting cherries
III
his rhythms were your rhythms
Murray the cat—sleeping à deux
draped your length from hip to knee
like a scabbard—unsheathed his yawn
tortured finches for breakfast
yowled and yowled round the ravaged bowl
till you fed him chicken
from your own plate
another mouth
pearling the wheel of appetite, coveting
a bloody mash
to keep it going—such a dumb rondeau
who invented it!
eating to live to kill to eat, even
cat on a stick when fields failed, no
crave for rain against the blasted scape
nor love nor god at the end
of my hours, but
garlic and butter
a splash of cognac
steak frites
IV
and when soil burned and order failed
and dogs then people starved in char I remembered
an extraordinary peace, the privilege
of being left alone with bread to eat
and famous butter “the chefs use,” the venues
of white sleep, cannabis and Klonopin
the soma-goods of art and when
my back went up against a blackened wall
for rumored beans in dented cans I forgot
my body—became a future remembering
how it got that way, some
blah blah blah—about hoarding rivers
and hiding gold, we
died in droves—we killed each other and we
killed ourselves until our bones wore out
their plastic shrouds
V
I couldn’t quite
quit some ideas—trees and chocolate
I couldn’t stop yammering
over the devastated earth
pining for nachos—prescription drugs
and a hint of spring, though I could see
the new desert—its bumper-crop
of bone and brick
from shipwrecked cities—where now
the sons and daughters of someone tough
are on the hunt for rat—the scent of meat
however mean and a root
sending an antenna up, to consider
greening—what poems built their houses for
once, in a blindered age, teaching us
the forms we felt, in rescue—hoarded-up scraps
whirling around my cave
trying to conjure peaches
© 2012, Dana Levin
Poems
Poems of Dana Levin
Close
AT THE END OF MY HOURS
I
here I’m here I’m here I’m
here here here here cricket
pulse—the katydidic tick
(and then a pause) tick
(and then a pause) in greening trees—tales
of a gratitude for water, the hollyhock’s
trumpet Yes, Tenderness
her glove and hoe—her bad trip
love/grief, her medic tent
talking me down, kissed fissures
in the world’s despair, what I’d
loved—alive for a while—a day called
Rip and Brood, a day called
Glorious Hour, the long hunt and the worm found
in the battered petunias—every
morning in summer
that last summer
before the bees collapsed and the seas rose up
to say Fuck You
II
perplexed by how it hadn’t been
unfailingly compatible, our
being numerous—how half the time
we couldn’t see the shapes
we were supposed to make
made grave our disasters—a god’s glass
bearing down
to burn the wheat crop—to keep time alive
inside a tomato, splicing
fish into fruit—some
wanted to defy limitation
were offered famine
bric-a-brac townships
virtual cities
where you could stand in market aisles
still expecting cherries
III
his rhythms were your rhythms
Murray the cat—sleeping à deux
draped your length from hip to knee
like a scabbard—unsheathed his yawn
tortured finches for breakfast
yowled and yowled round the ravaged bowl
till you fed him chicken
from your own plate
another mouth
pearling the wheel of appetite, coveting
a bloody mash
to keep it going—such a dumb rondeau
who invented it!
eating to live to kill to eat, even
cat on a stick when fields failed, no
crave for rain against the blasted scape
nor love nor god at the end
of my hours, but
garlic and butter
a splash of cognac
steak frites
IV
and when soil burned and order failed
and dogs then people starved in char I remembered
an extraordinary peace, the privilege
of being left alone with bread to eat
and famous butter “the chefs use,” the venues
of white sleep, cannabis and Klonopin
the soma-goods of art and when
my back went up against a blackened wall
for rumored beans in dented cans I forgot
my body—became a future remembering
how it got that way, some
blah blah blah—about hoarding rivers
and hiding gold, we
died in droves—we killed each other and we
killed ourselves until our bones wore out
their plastic shrouds
V
I couldn’t quite
quit some ideas—trees and chocolate
I couldn’t stop yammering
over the devastated earth
pining for nachos—prescription drugs
and a hint of spring, though I could see
the new desert—its bumper-crop
of bone and brick
from shipwrecked cities—where now
the sons and daughters of someone tough
are on the hunt for rat—the scent of meat
however mean and a root
sending an antenna up, to consider
greening—what poems built their houses for
once, in a blindered age, teaching us
the forms we felt, in rescue—hoarded-up scraps
whirling around my cave
trying to conjure peaches
AT THE END OF MY HOURS
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