Desolation : Souvenir

The new issue of Colorado Review (36.1, Spring 2009), edited by Stephanie G'Schwind, Donald Revell, Sasha Steensen, and Matthew Cooperman, just arrived in the mail. I have five poems in it from "Desolation : Souvenir," a fifty page work of three stanzas to the page. Here are two:

the window shakes like water

at the center of sensation
>>>>>which has no edge
the sand mechanic stands
>>>>>nothing windswept sleeps

you can't wear a hat
>>>>>too far inside your head
after the guillotine
>>>>>the impercipient feels
much larger than he is

man is born to die
>>>>>the fold holds him well
life is past time
>>>>>'words are not the word'
memory's a savant
>>>>>shining from its well


goodbye to all the bees

hands joined how?
>>>>>as if in thought dying
as if a song roared
>>>>>the rain forgot to pour
what point in space divides us
>>>>>which one holds us close?

sheerest of walls
>>>>>almost transparent
to feel is to fail
>>>>>venus envy, filial wail

water and bell
>>>>>ringing with each wave
a work of vastness
>>>>>too lucid for the mind
behind what wall
>>>>>is the private sacrifice?