sound waves collide like body languages
baffled by traffic pace irregularated
meeting perpendiculars no smile for awkward dances

sinuses become the reed of body instrument
all of the musicians practice on separate scores
nausea begins a purr too polite to roar
shoulders roll to knit forward towards making
a conjoined grind of binary socket

isolate out a bird
chippering bird answered
response
distinct sparrow makes dimension of tree (  reply)
focused song, weight doesn’t bow strand of branch
(  chippering  ) angle to leftmost higher (   reply)
(walk   wait)
(chippering       )
echo falsetto voiced right sneaker
the pattern replays. Bird, bird, shoe,
bird, bird, shoe, bird, bird, quick shoes

I can hear the shoe if I stay
inside 3 long strides behind

squeak speaks to the chirp
the sounding depth directions
chirp reply chirp squeak

a diesel bus, its paroxysm of gears groans out all 3
but my eyes carry the beat
(left step) right foot (unheard chirp)
(reply) (       ) right foot
(          ) (          ) (           )
(shoe squeak) and the clamour is the
accompaniment
(Chirp, chipper, squeak) that feeds against beat
street chaos settles into a musical structure

feet find themselves, a rhythm, face relaxes from search
voicebox unfricatived, past halfway pattered patterned to song.

Decorum is by Stephen Dunn from his New and Selected Poems: 1974-1994. It’s on a workshop debating the right word choice for a poem/ experience on “making love”? or not. It just slays me for being painfully accurate and funny. Thanks for Jude pointing it out.

Dunn‘s a writing teacher from New Jersey who won the 2001 Pulitzer for his book of poetry published in 2000. In P&W he talks about what effect that had. In it he defines a “trivia poem” as any that is “nice”. He was asked this as well,

P&W: What constitutes a “failed” poem to you?
SD: A failed poem would be one in which I didn’t get beyond what I already knew.

He’s got quite a lot of titles out including 14 poetry collections and a back-in-print book of essays on poetry and autobiographical anecdotes.

What I see of his poems from what I can get online is that there is very much storytelling and truth-seeking, but he’s got a wonderful rocking rhythm in pieces like The Unsaid. The capture is of an observant external eye the US, as in Hawthorne in Tuckerton,

“Scratch an American,” he was overheard saying
at the diner, “and you’ll find a Puritan.”
And one man nodded while another
in a John Deere cap swallowed hard,
changed the subject to the Phillies.

The local library only has one book by him from 1986. I can keep my eyes open to see more samples tho. He was not on my radar at all but once blogs pick it up, blip, blip, blip.

Tangentially, in Poets & Writers, Surviving a Month Without Internet By Stephen Elliott.

—

Rounding the brick edge
a wind to whip loose my hair, shirt —
sidewalk sailing gust

Poetry of the Sea

I suppose it’s rather late to mention but the yearly poetry month program of a poem a day selected from U.S. primary and secondary schools is still all up .

Look at the wisdom of a grade 4 student, Mariella:

You tell me that it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten

Thinkers, feelers and expressers aren’t constrained by age.

btw, you know May 1st is the e-book free-for-all of electronic poetry books being downloadable from Rick’s Poetry Superhighway? [Details]

fingering the gauntlet of day (April ghazal)
spring-brown grass sparrows
where people wait for buses
non-paths bulge hard-packed
low wet edge twist treads with shifted weights
wait there is time yet to procrastinate wart
worry slip toe mudded delicious sink
wind river lashed rain
dash for cover is for others hermetic skin
long shrift skywaterland silvered all 
is tact and tactile past words shiver
to clouds down is abstracted seamless
without glasses branch ends peter out
buds will surround the downtown
a glass holds water as you hold me
moments of grasp are subjected to 
leaden arms might lead to 
embrace strop of cock 
crow tomorrow’s skyline erased
climate controlled thought scratchy dry
reheat us the winter tuber watery
bland waiting for profuse green May might
eventually is a luxury we fester
in individual darks
squared away re-re-retidied rooms
bed-caught by practical
sigh the cross of shadow ribbons
a gift box from window to ceiling
mullion blacker than sky’s night
–
Not hitting the original ghazal form nor modern shape in Canada but maybe the draft will become something.