Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AUGUST ZERO, by JANE MILLER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AUGUST ZERO, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Young trees the bright green of a moonless night
Last Line: Like conversation.


Young trees the bright green of a moonless night,
lawn the red of scorpion, --

the pleasure dome drops, a drill ceases and a mower resumes.
It hides the spectacle of the mountains
and jolts us, it's been a long time
since we've had a little space to ourselves.

All the same, in spite of everything,
we are made to live in the air, which involves a certain number
of mental operations
the full force of a bow, a revision of the notion
of history,
oddly imitating the movements of animals when I think about it,
doubling back, appearing to be shot or struck --

and celestial sounds, not sound itself
rock the bare earth, packed hard and nailed
to the tune of the unconscious,
which we regret to understand.

Don't get me wrong, there's still a knowledge of freedom,
a bath, a change of clothing,
possession of a child's heart,
a handshake, and the function of time
a detail -- even in air
language is a
cross between an appetite and a mouth --

I'm not hungry when I'm lonely.
Like all the lead and neon which is forgotten
I forget that people have died forever,

no one knows you
and the ideal place is a dome with horses' shadows
the shade of steel gin,
and what formerly acceded to a view constitutes love.

A pear --
remember now future became present --
in a kitchen and two rooms in orbit
pins the horizon with its pony body and elk head
and we enact where we first made love the camellia of our beloved --
we can't touch exactly
but attempt a profound correlation --
we grip the skeleton of a river and the sun kisses it
like one's own throat.

This is the earth, my love, all of us
have a chunk on our backs.
You are an angel
and I am an ancient
who're cast from two and a half billion cars a day

into one copter night,
and closure is that windmill
through a wall in the circle, drifting
like the once innocent

oil spills in the Pacific,
like conversation.





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