Designed For Pottery

DESIGNED FOR POTTERY

One real rose
in a glass vase
a cup of concave petals
filled level
to the vermillion ruffle of its surface
the stem makes angles in the water column
the long teardrop shaped

* * *

Yannai
from the Cairo geniza
from the past
800 different poems
like the stones of a temple scattered
reassembled
Hebrew
you sing of fields and flocks
the fields clothed in sheep and blades in dew
the farmers and the herdsmans world
as in those days they did
you were
you do emerge
from the empty spaces
the blank areas of the past
what shall we learn
what was going on
what shall we know of you

* * *

it changes lane
on the interstate
citybound on the right
southbound therefore
over 60
lights on
rocking
on its new suspension
reflections on the chrome wch frames its lights
or traveling
across its curving windshield glass
as good
and no better
as it has to be
as is desirable lets say
(all things considered)
in such things

* * *

remembered
names of categories
thin orange and fine orange wares
a series going back to crude beginnings
diversified diachronically
vessels with rattles in their feet
or figures moulded on them
with whistles and pictures
or portrait vases
or vessels for the interment of a child

* * *

or read Su
or anyone
and translated thru the mists
see the past emerge
the trees and plants take place
on the space of earth
the rounded boulders
the office-holder
riding thru snow
is seen by the suffering of the villagers
he offers what he can

Seymour Faust

Posted by Jerome Rothenberg on his site, Poems and Poetics