Ready
It is always possible.
There are several forms
it is more or less
likely to take
at any point—
but it won’t
except by chance.
I need you
to locate this,
get at it
where it almost
is, almost isn’t
floating in near vacuum.
Feel it out
until “ping”
is its pronoun.
I am ready
to be displaced.
Chill
Ta-dum.
I want to make something
out of nothing
then sparkle and chill,
chill and sparkle
like a constellation.
A silver droplet hanging
from the tip
of each split leaf.
A drop
and its odd
diminutive.
Your Business
“It’s hot in the summer,”
you tell the stranger,
speaking in code
you no longer understand.
*
The wings of the iris
are ruffled, you say.
Bach’s muscular pauses
allow for repetition.
*
Beings vary only
in stress
and duration,
occupation and
preoccupation.
*
While you push a dung ball
uphill,
with infinity’s
patience,
you propagate bursts
of viral
likes and shares.
The Sleep Problem
1
“If there’s anything I can do
to help me,” I said.
That’s not what I meant.
I must hold my intention
in my mind’s eye
or it will go astray.
I must remember
to intend
to hold it
tenderly.
2
“Kickity-doodah,” I say,
when you flop over
in bed, thrashing—
meaning zippity-brouhaha
in a language I keep forgetting
you don’t speak.
3
A sentence
begins and ends
in the present
but on the way
we need to hurry.
Zippity-Doo-Dah
is a slave song
commissioned by Walt Disney.
Elmer Fudd aims
his blunderbuss,
his boundless, abstract
rage.
2 thoughts on “Four Poems, by Rae Armantrout”