Sunday, July 26, 2009

Norma Cole

from 14000 FACTS


*

Slow walking, play

of evening, the silver

ships measuring time


Venus, a sliver

of time

beyond words


*

The clearing, the light

no gate separates

day and night


more than ever

place of indivisibility


the wolf sees all


*

Like souls greeting each other

from the windows of eyes


form or harm

turn back any time


snowflakes on a blue

ground


*

Floating sea ice

as if we’d


seen it just

yesterday


not used to

hearing that


music again


*

Looked like rain


peremptory music

from the limbic


system—lucky

you’re not still


in prison

somewhere


*

To imagine

a fortress


we’re given

a loop


a curveball

come in to play


*

The manner of their

presentation


aspects of vision “we’re

getting killed”


the burning zone

shifts, continuous

carmen, song


*

See what you

expect, a page


of flames, a cloud

the color of her


old heart, displayed

in a glass case


*

Fiction: bacon

and eggs in a

parallel universe


smells just as

good


he ran away

as if


the exigency of

is and is not


*

Potatoes, stones

their living eyes


atoms existing in

unparalleled worlds


as if to turn their

eyes from particular

stars




Among Norma Cole’s books of poetry are Natural Light (Libellum) and Where Shadows Will: Selected Poems 1988—2008 (City Lights). To Be At Music, a book of essays and talks, will appear June 2010. Cole has received awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Gerbode Foundation, Gertrude Stein Award and Fund for Poetry. She teaches at the University of San Francisco.