Jean Donnelly
from ANTHEM
villainous handkerchief
of coastline
& crabtraps buckled
with miles of lilies
& lost socks
in Delaware
Leslie turns the music up
how does one country
prepare
for invasion
or strap a border
with an angry smell
pieces
of the moment
stay to gender
perception
& nourish
the air
with authorship
for the dead
******
Montana predicts
the height of chairs
& the sunflower genus
lodged in a gritty
window postcard
bottom filled creek
of usual farewells
merchants say
good-bye too their
burden of witness
is collaboration
an air of darning
houses kid engines
a metaphysical flag
it pulls & whittles
my starry pledge
outside the trees
are empty
******
|
|
most children enjoy the sound of their own voice
let's go look at something & talk about it
the Indiana skyline for example its brave
400 year old tree a tin of tobacco (we weren't
meant to move our bodies faster than they can
carry our souls so they arrive a bit later
which explains the sense of delay & growing
accustomed to foreign places) children are also
kind kindly for real reasons of kindliness which
throws us a bit when we expect them to share
*****
how do I look beside madness
a bit lemony & all cluttered
to pledge is not a sound
to follow a flag a long pause
in the photograph Iowa's
industries in birth & death
choosing the perfect awning
to part in a mother's body
extends a civic frontier
a banner calling me to kneel
*****
nothing magnificent
translates
dissatisfaction
seagulls on the soccer field
woman shot in back of head
rabbit hutches trash compactors
giant pecan trees
all populate
the fondly local while
commentary
demands a face
a bewildered
aesthetic figure
loose at the landscape
Missouri's quick glow
of sorrow anything
mouthed or mentioned
with gentleness
*****
that we have nothing bare
means we are restless
the mind is a fist in repose
a pebble slipped from a lemon
the next morning he appears
sad in blue pants in Massachusetts
he says the ancient future rags on him
not one thing makes me quicker but you
*****
West Virginia I hear you
I can't stop hearing you
selecting fragments
of everything every
past the eloquent
senator the shape
of a boy's eyebrow
people who die
or live & rock
in the mystery
of separation
language the next
spiritual plane
in which the poem
rages because Ted &
Jack & Gertrude are
dancing in it with
friendly partners
& children of course
the children
Jean Donnelly studied poetry at the creative writing program at George Mason University, where she co-founded the journal So To Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language & Art. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, among them Big Allis, Fence, The Germ, Lingo, Situation, and Volt. A chapbook, the julia set, was published in 1995 by Edge Books. Her first full-length collection, Anthem, was selected by Charles Bernstein for the 2000 National Poetry Award Series and has just been published by Sun & Moon Press. She has co-curated the In Your Ear reading series at the District of Columbia Arts Center and has taught poetry at Georgetown University in the District of Columbia where she lives with her husband, Arthur Linde, and sons Alex, Jack, and Naish.
Published in Volume 3, Number 1, Winter 2002.