Poems

Paradise

CAT PURRS to have tongue tucked in, burrs in gray hair.
Light through a curtain fills a room. At the bottom of a gray spoon old coffee
has hardened into a brown stain. I love baggy shirts. References provided upon
request. Turned upside down, the cups dry in a rack of dishes by the sink. The
refrigerator gives a shudder, then is silent. Even through the curtain one feels
the clouds passing in front of the sun. Congruence of images implies a place. We
close our consulate in Iowa City. The better galleries are near the larger banks.
Western Carloading. Some phrase might haunt you for a decade. The needle arm lifts
mechanically off the vinyl disk.
Something beyond ravioli is a cup of hot tea. Wooden squares compose the table.
The half shadows of indirect lighting. Another morning is extra. The cat's ear is
gouged. The azalea petals seem dry. The kettle rattles when the water boils. It has
a wooden handle. The work is "explained" through a description of the social
circumstances under which it could have been written. Lately there's been an argument,
but it feels like we've been bickering for weeks. Alcohol being merely a slow form of
oxidization. A man on the sidewalk clears his throat. I'm not sitting in the desert
reading Keats. Once begun, the day is soon over. In her world, OD means organizational
development. Like all the swoops and squiggles Pollock ever made.
Where the beer and the canteloupe play. Becuase the polling place is at the top
of the hill, the old widows at the bottom seldom vote. Blueberries in a white bowl.

(Ron Silliman. Paradise. Providence: Burning Deck, 1985. 27-29.)