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New Poem by Todd Swift

Face of the Author

At last the closing of the day
opens the window to a face.
A self-setting, a moon;
blind spirit – awareness-glass

that devils the stare.
Cannot bear to go on seeing eyes, hair –
all that style – what style evades –
a god beneath reflection?

Behind the head two horns shoot off –
a highway in the desert; demons.
One called for ecstatic words; shelves
bare as crowless fields after harvest.

Winter’s sterility licking the countryside
with low white yields of nothingness –
that blessed root to pull – uncovering
yet more of least.  Least rises.  I stare

onto a page ink throws back, an alibi
lying set down, a shaving bite of teeth.
Buildings past the jocund face pimple
me bright, I’m architectured, stone

and wood, no less here than there.
Can’t be good to rehearse a loss
in verse; not this voice –
how it wants to start and end out of

a transient apercu – discursive glancing up
pained, forming opinions, a U-turning moan.
The man across from the poet looks so queer.
Only when the library closes do we disappear.


UEA, December 7, 2010

Comments

Poetry Pleases! said…
Dear Todd

Interesting poem. It reminds me of my poem Lament.

'When I look in the mirror
I see lines of age
But it's better than staring
At an empty page.'

('Images of Istanbul' Franglo.com Literary section)

Best wishes from Simon

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