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Poem by Bob Hicok

re: incarnation

To you who say you've been here before, I say
I've not been here yet, I say
I'll be here soon, I say
what a mess you've made.

Next time, come back as an apology
or broom.

Next time, bring enough doughnuts
for everyone.

I would ask if there's a next time
to be the phrase, life is brutish and short.

I would have a child who is the phrase, life is supple
and vibratory.

She would have a child
who is the clamor behind the waterfall, twin of the child
who is the ruckus in front of a waterfall, sisters
to the child who is the screaming of the sun
against the dark.

The first atom bomb came back
as whispers, fallen eyelashes, dew.

Sometimes I hope I'm shitting out
Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot.

In those moments, I wished Americans believed
in bidets.

If Americans came back as Europeans, we would believe
in bidets.

And the carrier pigeon would come back
as the carrier pigeon, only this time,
it wouldn't be the fashion to shoot them.

It would be the fashion to say look, the carrier pigeons
are back.

Everyone would turn and wait for the buffalo.

Everyone would turn and wait for us
to honor our treaties with the Indians.

And while everyone was turned, all the interesting stuff
would happen up ahead: the bumper car
would come back as making love.

Advice as minding your own business.

Slivers as roots of jungle
under skin.

And there God would be
trying on all the slippers, hoping one pair
fit, hoping one pair got him from the ball
to happily ever after.

As if.

As if.

from Washington Square Summer/Fall 2010

Four years

From Anne Carson's translation of Sappho:

"For the man who is beautiful is beautiful to see
but the good man will at once also beautiful be.





I feel so lucky.

New York Geometries

Little Bite of Light



Little Jailed Sphere



Little Striped India



Little Gate to Go



Little Squares to Save



Little Circle of Noon

A View to Sing

The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot

Paradoxes and Oxymorons

By John Ashbery


This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level.
Look at it talking to you. You look out a window
Or pretend to fidget. You have it but you don’t have it.
You miss it, it misses you. You miss each other.

The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot.
What’s a plain level? It is that and other things,
Bringing a system of them into play. Play?
Well, actually, yes, but I consider play to be

A deeper outside thing, a dreamed role-pattern,
As in the division of grace these long August days
Without proof. Open-ended. And before you know
It gets lost in the steam and chatter of typewriters.

It has been played once more. I think you exist only
To tease me into doing it, on your level, and then you aren’t there
Or have adopted a different attitude. And the poem
Has set me softly down beside you. The poem is you.


From Poetry Magazine
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=181395

Poems

I have two new poems in The Awl:


http://www.theawl.com/2010/05/the-poetry-section-kimberly-grey