New faculty - weee!
Several weeks ago, IU's MFA program extended an offer to a poet, and he accepted. Ross Gay. He'll be coming here next year, and I am so excited for the opportunity to work with him. He's got awesome poems.
Unclean. Make me.
And if a woman has an issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood, she shall be put apart seven days. And if any man lie with her at all, and her flowers be upon him, he shall be unclean seven days. - Leviticus, Chapter 15
When the body blooms, you must
put your face to it. Lay tongue
to the lathe, the blessed
lather. Song like marble spun
into silk. The human
loom. The thread limning your lips. Breathe
there. Fill your lungs
with birth’s florid shadow. This is the common dream of the living
and dead: not only to meet
the maker, but to taste its sweet. Even God
should know this.
Cousin Drowses on the Flight to Kuwait
Do you dream of Saturn of molars
of the jeweled corridors of palaces dream
the commander’s robes
his crooked smile dream
sooty bellows of cumulous
dream dress dream a lover’s breath dream
wind over dunes the voices
riding night winds dream whispered
light of stars dream teddy bear dream mother
father dream baby
sister dream mirages
dream your body riding the air
dream the body’s tenuous earthen cleave dream
birthmark or crooked toe
dream every hair on your head dream
galaxies aswirl at each finger’s tip
the trigger’s smooth tick
dream brown faces your
brown face dream the commander
cockeyed the tumble of diamonds stumbling
from his toothless mouth
his florid robes flailing above a fat body
dream the dragon’s toothpick
fibula femur dream orchard abloom
in bloody soil dream
the improbability of your legs
ambulatory pleasures
sand frosty towpath gravel
road dream breezes combing
clover growth threading a graveyard’s grass
dream the random calculus of shrapnel
or your skin wrapping the chorale of muscle
and bone the galactic swell
of blood cells heaving
breathe dream
breathe
Unclean. Make me.
And if a woman has an issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood, she shall be put apart seven days. And if any man lie with her at all, and her flowers be upon him, he shall be unclean seven days. - Leviticus, Chapter 15
When the body blooms, you must
put your face to it. Lay tongue
to the lathe, the blessed
lather. Song like marble spun
into silk. The human
loom. The thread limning your lips. Breathe
there. Fill your lungs
with birth’s florid shadow. This is the common dream of the living
and dead: not only to meet
the maker, but to taste its sweet. Even God
should know this.
Cousin Drowses on the Flight to Kuwait
Do you dream of Saturn of molars
of the jeweled corridors of palaces dream
the commander’s robes
his crooked smile dream
sooty bellows of cumulous
dream dress dream a lover’s breath dream
wind over dunes the voices
riding night winds dream whispered
light of stars dream teddy bear dream mother
father dream baby
sister dream mirages
dream your body riding the air
dream the body’s tenuous earthen cleave dream
birthmark or crooked toe
dream every hair on your head dream
galaxies aswirl at each finger’s tip
the trigger’s smooth tick
dream brown faces your
brown face dream the commander
cockeyed the tumble of diamonds stumbling
from his toothless mouth
his florid robes flailing above a fat body
dream the dragon’s toothpick
fibula femur dream orchard abloom
in bloody soil dream
the improbability of your legs
ambulatory pleasures
sand frosty towpath gravel
road dream breezes combing
clover growth threading a graveyard’s grass
dream the random calculus of shrapnel
or your skin wrapping the chorale of muscle
and bone the galactic swell
of blood cells heaving
breathe dream
breathe