The Earth With A City In Her Hair

To get things started again, (again), I was thinking of posting one of my own poems, and for some reason or other I've decided on the Emily Dickinson imitation exercise I composed for Bernadette Mayer's Spring '97 St. Mark's Poetry Project workshop, and later published in the Ohio magazine that's printed much of my writing, Ken Warren's "House Organ" (the asterisks in the poem's title are intended simply as asterisks):

Euphony Variations *Orbiting Emily*

When Fiddles shoo 'way--their Spikes of--Pride--
Where--Bells let fly their Knots
Might Clocks--forego--the toxic--Traps
Hide nestled--in their Tocks?

Praise--best Trumpets abhor--the Armor's Gleam
Rapped Drums--rebut the--Fight
Shout Grace--when abject--Throats still weak
Can grasp--soft--pliant Bird Song's--Might.

15-18 April 1997

Labels: Dickinson, Mayer, my own poems, St. Mark's