Monday 6 April 2015

Two New Poems after John Ashbery's "Recent History" and "Mabuse's Afternoon" at the Portland Review



—after John Ashbery
As long as the soft touch of the Pacific bellies up tufts on yonder cliffs
and the Philippine plate rumbles skyward he says he’ll take the family out
of familiar as boarding schools and long commutes
left only tablet time aboard tour buses bounding inland— …


Going through my poems to assemble a chapbook or book, I noticed that "Recent History" is an example of ecologically engaged poetry. I wish I would have submitted it to an eco-journal, though it is precisely the sort of "ecopoetry" they would find "not quite what we're looking for." (7 July 2018)



—after John Ashbery
The city dealt the peninsula a zoo, widening trails for joggers to get sidetracked.
Clouds of arsenic stacked up at the hips of docks, sifted
into furrows leaching into leeks and parsley.
How is this double-talk, following your margin of error
to hold on to a passing scent on congested walks …

links to poems at
Portland Review

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