A Gate

By Donna Masini

Such good use of sound. This one comes to life through alliteration, consonance and assonance. Just listen to nerve, grieved  fear, frayed, love, nave, rain, drone, dirge, rage. The sounds kept leading me on -- to that last phrase, which I think packs a wallop. 

I have oared and grieved,

grieved and oared,

treading a religion of fear. 

A frayed nerve. 

A train wreck tied to the train

of an old idea.

Now, Lord, reeling in violent

times, I drag these tidal

griefs to this gate.

I am tired. Deliver

me, whatever you are.

Help me, you who are never

near, hold what I love

and grieve, reveal this green

evening, myself, rain,

drone, evil, greed,

as temporary. Granted

then gone. Let me rail,

revolt, edge out, glove

to the grate. I am done

waiting like some invalid

begging in the nave.

Help me divine

myself, beside me no Virgil

urging me to shift gear,

change lane, sing my dirge

for the rent, torn world, and love

your silence without veering

into rage.

From 4:40 Movie

W.W. Norton, 2018


Knock knock.

from "Dame," by Caroline Bergvall

Some exerpts. Alisoun was an unrepentant tart of sorts from The Canterbury Tales, and this is a retelling or expansion of her story and others'. I think these redos are really funny. 

There are some weird spellings here, and things are anachronistically askew. It's as if Carolyn Bergvall said, "Well, I'll just grab this spelling from this century, and that syntax from that century, and a little bit of lingo from right now." It has an off-kilter, hip feel. I mean, what's a bad tatt doing here?

Alisoun

Greetings

Hi you all, I'm Alisoun. Some people call me Al. Am many things to many a few thyinge to some & nothing but an irritant to socialites and othere glossing troglodytes. I dig a good chat banter aboute. Sbeen a long time, some & six hundred times have circled round the solar sun, everything were diffrent yet pretty much the same, sunsets were reddier, godabov ruled all & the franks the rest. Womenfolk were owned trafeckt regulated petted tightlye impossible to run ones own afferes let alone ones mynd nat publicly nat privatly, & so were most workfolk enserfed, owned never free, working working day 'n niht. Sunsets redder, legs a little shorter.

I've done well, sey so meselfe. Have traded textiles and vows fashioned millinery birdnestings as fine as Philip Treacy, halo creations brighte proude than Frangelico. Standing tall kept me upright saved me from oblivion, will get back to hats. Many a fine frockery have I cut & worn some even with buttons running all the way doun & upround again. Nodout for sure ma style wer too loud for sum, have been called any fin from scarecrow to fake cnight, what fakery? what knihtery? I play it large and bold, travel the distance forshure, nat grene as Gawain, the citys ma domayn, I'm Dame Alisoun Alys Ali Alyson. As for dress I take all ma Qs from Getalife, will get back to what.

Likeso have steered ma life a stourdy mount, life-partnered once, lit that match, and a few more. Eeasier sayd thane doon but ne will have lovemakes plow ma jarden wivout cheking out t instrumnts & the mental state of their flowering. In ma team I made ma bed reel bizzy a stretch a streowen for many leien in, yoohoo we did! bountyful booties ov all kinds & kins entwined revling ydizzied, in nightly prospectings we made liht of the derke.

Say-so maself sbeen good, spite a beating, or two.

Vita

Ther comes a time in everyones lief whan 'tis gode think on ones condition & look ahead by looking in. Make sure this last stretch ylived in the most fulleste bestest manner prior to the grand Datsit. Call in the cards ones delt, shake ones tree for unwelcome guests gustes ghosts, and if possible empart the few purls one has managed to pluck from ones great sea of expedience. Nodout turning thrittitwenti is good timing. A time to speech ma minding 'n let some wisdam yrise. Call on a friendly assembly for fair share & witnessing, and there let ones hair down! Open ones mutt & shower the worlde until hoarse with wonder & insult! The artist Marina screamed until no voice & screamed some mo until the earth joined in. Ah the wonder! ah the insults!

Copyist

Do allocate someone to copy exchanges in your partee or you'll find that ne can make heads nor tales of whatswhat after awhile can lead all kinds of misreadings & typos oons th' ink has dried. And what with inattention, coffee stains, drippings and the likes, unfortunates pellings get tuff to hiden or changen, like bad tatts covering bad tatts, as chaucer the aufeur famously bemoaned.

From Alisoun Sings
Carolyn Bergvall

Nightboat Books

Speech yoor minding heer:

Soleil & Sons, by Robert Cording

Addressed to God, this poem of thanks begins in awe of the ordinary: the strawberries, the tea, the toast, the baker. Then it goes on to bigger, possibly Biblical, things: loaves, sons, the good news.

The softer sounds -- strawberries, cinnamon, sun, Soleil -- create a quietly comfortable homage to the devotional poems of English priest George Herbert, in themselves little miracles.

Soleil & Sons

I have been reading your better servantGeorge Herbert again, and I’m trying to turnmy day into prayer, praying as the toast riseswith the toaster’s tinny bell and the tea leavesturn water into English Breakfast tea,and praying as I slice strawberries and addtheir redness to a bowl of granola.I’m grateful this morning for this cinnamon toastand for the local baker who made it, and forthe French word for sun and the punning nameof the bakery, and for the sun that arrivedthis morning without my asking.Soleil and Sons, Soleil and Sons, Soleil and Sons,why not add those words to my prayer,the glass of my watch making a small sunof the actual sun that forks and dartsalong the walls and across the ceiling, multiplyinglike those five loaves, like sun and sons.Maybe this is how Herbert’s prayer became an elixirthat carried the whole, given ordinary dayinside it, his entire body feelingas if it could break into applause for nothingmore than the floor he swept clean for thy sake,nothing explaining the way love took holdon its own. And maybe I’m beginningto get it, this keeping you nearwith my words, and maybe the good news isjust saying the words over and over,a prayer that somehow keeps gratitudein mind even when it doesn’t.
Published in SalamanderFall/Winter 2017-18

Respond. I'll be grateful.