Geometry

Painting by Brian Day


geometry



circling
this lake
to left
counter
clockwise


~


log—
hollow

long time
now

down
to this

empty
skin


~


fallen trunk
my path’s one
straight stretch


~


beaver dam—
farther on
fire circle
!


~


wood
pecker
yes

way
up
beaver-

girdled
oak


~

burrow—
room for
5 words


~

beaver
blue heron
bald eagle

& you


~

beavers too—
chisel-tooth’d
pen


~

that
beaver
dam’s

human
look—


~

cdnt do better
than this beaver dam
yrself

~


but this
beaver dam’s
conical
symmetry—

this beaver dam’s
geometry


~

beaver dam—

ought to
bathe today!

~

adding 9 words
to this beaver dam

here’s a poem


-- john martone
november, 2009


In the present blogger format, a few of the poems presented above have had to do without occasional indentations, but it’s my hope that the fineness of the work comes through in spite of this. He remains throughout our greatest living miniaturist -- his art a scaled-down work of nearly epic dimensions.

Jerome Rothenberg

Posted over on Poems & Poetics