CONJUNCTIONS: A Web Exclusive

Three Poems Brian Henry

First Snow Who among us is alive a temporary ailment between nil and naught instance of matter illusion of same detour this condition what route to take no sight to lean on some arc uncontained where are we who loiter through wherever you are please know I need you            * What falls when it melts the ground so minor the smallest shadow could cover one hand to hold one hand to shape the wet into place beneath the rays that drag the eye along every shard and absent trace            * Aside the level field of borrowed light instance of sorrow spent with the sun open upon a blaze deter a frazzled moon you tilt your mouth unward and decline how you move across the snow across without sinking horizon-drawn surface Things’ Will Where nothing’ll burn or even split by itself or in twos the air has nothing here no effect here the air is all around here things pay it no mind will not combust or divide become any less (become any thing less) what is there to learn from this Gray Easel                                  —Belgrade Innermonium nested before alkaline fiefdom the Danube breaks your poetry head erotic effigy low key factor in parquet dominance the crystal chandelier the Czech crystal chandelier cracks no shadow your armpit as wet as the Sava is pissed in no subway for the dogs to navigate & sleep in no caskets to raid nothing floating lapser of time you circle the river with your shin splints a crane threatens to hoist you erect into facets the late show of frogs carving the night into plasma polka dots sweat drag my eyes inside out fractions lose their lower halves choose not to pose bohemian bandanna’d & drag their sadder selves the sun a smallpox scar armed in arm in arm as if a guest as if a host as if a friend were to be found out of focus amid the background noise & raving eye unstar the seaside unplug the throat to listen to what rises & repeats in the aftermath of asphalt & infarct the lungs refusing to fill from the top the city’s plaster mold you stuff its cast with dimes & dinars hoard its every lack every spear of smoke the Sava cannot unriddle you perforated mass rototilled from within voice scraped to a scrap of a rasp a grayyard smeared corpuscle by corpuscle as the sky’s empty promises canopy the corpses scratching down the sidewalk flint against the blare that flicks the square with every blink of the brain your poetry head underwater & gasping for water to slake my infection & trim my sight of all this minimum mind Brian Henry is the author of nine books of poetry, most recently Doppelgänger (Talisman House, 2011). His translation of Aleš Šteger’s The Book of Things appeared from BOA Editions in 2010 and won the 2011 Best Translated Book Award for Poetry. He has received numerous awards for his work, including fellowships from the NEA, the Howard Foundation, and the Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences. □