Michael Gessner Verse-Virtual 2018 August

August 2018

I live in Tucson with my wife Jane, a watercolorist. Our son Chris writes for screen in L.A. My more recent work has appeared in Juniper, New Oxford Review, (forthcoming this fall,) North American Review, Verse Daily, Innisfree, and others. My most recent collections are Transversales (BlazeVOX, 2013,) and Selected Poems (FutureCycle, 2016). I enjoy writing articles and reviews and these may be found in Jacket2, The Edgar Allan Poe Review, NAR, and The Kenyon Review, C. V. Mosby, Times-Mirror, and Allyn & Bacon Composition Series.

                                             FROM THE KNOWLEDGE OF SLEEP
Ein finsterer Korsar
Im salzigen Meer der Trübsal.
         -Georg Trakl
                                             The wooden boat bobs
                                             in the milky water
                                             in a milky sky
                                             in an inlet of a salt sea
                                             where warmth becomes
                                             body and body lullaby.
From Juniper (Toronto)

Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF