Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


COUNTRYSIDE by JANE MILLER

First Line: MY DARLING WORKS UNTIL SHE FINISHES -- I RESIST STARTING
Last Line: SMALL JAR OF ANCHOVIES OLIVE OIL & SALT
Subject(s): ART & ARTISTS; LOVE;

My darling works until she finishes I resist starting -
craning out the upper window over the tiled roofs
we each imagine the moon sets in night mist
she says she sees it I pretend I don't

over our heads someone who makes a lot of money
does something arty the public likes like pouring color
over red cherries -
not delicious wrong language

when she finally finishes I am in the kitchen again
counting supplies wondering if we can return
neither thinks we've woken from a strange dream
I'd gotten to the bottom of a sensation

tied up with doing nothing until I felt
one way or the other in other words nothing
and then being blown away by relationship never helps
- did you do that? No you made me -

it's all I can do to clean up from the night before
light streaming off the ancient stones
small windows for defensive purposes the whole village set on a slope
the quest was for a form that wouldn't sacrifice presence

the answer Picasso is said to have given the German officer
who asked pointing to @3Guernica@1 did you do that? No you did that
it amounts to some ulcerated nights some tangled hair
beautiful old bottles nets

songs before the sun is up
not proscriptive but love all the same
such that I find I would never talk to anyone
whose day doesn't last a month or a year

in town shopping we stop for soup
the canopy's shoved back there are stars for everyone
& get home drunk
hoping the bread soaks the burn

mornings I read my tourist book
ape the population rather than look American
when will I wise up?
very warm & pleasant birds despite the heat

we make love waiting to stop the spin by hand
or the wash charges up again
someone drops by to see the kitchen made from the ruin
this regular stuff emerges as an image

something scary something to hurt us
to make us dead
& art -
she never wakens me so when I'm awake I'm unguarded

could it be relationship & not matter with whom?
as easily as this sky be a diagram & not an embrace
same sky different death's head behind it
small jar of anchovies olive oil & salt



Home: PoetryExplorer.net