June 2017
David Chorlton
rdchorlton@netzero.net
rdchorlton@netzero.net
I am a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. My poems have appeared in many publications online and in print, and reflect my affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. My newest collection of poems is Bird on a Wire from Presa Press, and late in 2017 The Bitter Oleander Press will publish Shatter the Bell in my Ear, my translations of poems by Austrian poet Christine Lavant. http://www.davidchorlton.mysite.com
Writer's Block
The simplest art is dreaming.
Mice come from the underground
to nibble at a fallow note pad.
It helps to be afraid of them,
to stand helpless
as they have their way.
They cannot be stopped, and having stripped
the kitchen they eat the hearts
from books. They arrive
in hundreds, seeming to multiply
as the night grows long,
until they are sated and leave.
It helps to imagine them as being larger
than they are, to think of them
as being armed and to forgive
them for being hungry and for taking
the perfection from paper. The rest
is instinct. Begin with any word. Nothing
worse can happen now.
Line Breaks
In memoriam Gayle Elen Harvey
Whoever lives by the line
knows how to take a switchback turn to reach
the meaning
promised in the phrases
that carry one thought into another, until
there is light in the language.
Each word
is ordinary before
the one that follows
transforms it.
Paper
could be snow
falling by the ream, or apples
become the scent of rain; always there is
an element of surprise
transforming what we think to the gold
the alchemist long dreamed of
but finding lead
would always be lead
gave up his kitchen to the poet
who knew better
how to stretch the words we use routinely
across the page
until they are luminous.
The simplest art is dreaming.
Mice come from the underground
to nibble at a fallow note pad.
It helps to be afraid of them,
to stand helpless
as they have their way.
They cannot be stopped, and having stripped
the kitchen they eat the hearts
from books. They arrive
in hundreds, seeming to multiply
as the night grows long,
until they are sated and leave.
It helps to imagine them as being larger
than they are, to think of them
as being armed and to forgive
them for being hungry and for taking
the perfection from paper. The rest
is instinct. Begin with any word. Nothing
worse can happen now.
Line Breaks
In memoriam Gayle Elen Harvey
Whoever lives by the line
knows how to take a switchback turn to reach
the meaning
promised in the phrases
that carry one thought into another, until
there is light in the language.
Each word
is ordinary before
the one that follows
transforms it.
Paper
could be snow
falling by the ream, or apples
become the scent of rain; always there is
an element of surprise
transforming what we think to the gold
the alchemist long dreamed of
but finding lead
would always be lead
gave up his kitchen to the poet
who knew better
how to stretch the words we use routinely
across the page
until they are luminous.
©2017 David Chorlton
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