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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
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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
Mon Dec 13, 03:43:00 pm 2010
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