Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE FIGUREHEAD, by MARIA LUISA SPAZIANI


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE FIGUREHEAD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Long night of linden trees, your honey hands


Long night of linden trees, your honey hands
were scraping like wind trying to unstick the stars.
Love's beautiful ark was turning its sails
among forgetful swells toward dark seas.

I excavated those sublunar kingdoms in the dark,
I offered thin spiderwebs to my fate.
My dear, placated ghosts, you pirates' wrecks,
let not your breath graze these evenings.

Once (already in the past?), his bluest vein
was a secret book-stand for a page that was too white.
This other youthfulness has the gaze of a figurehead
that overturns and sweeps away a weary helmsman.


Used by permission of Story Line Press.




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