In Print, 14 Nov. 06

5:43 PM Posted by James Owens


Two poems in The Clinch Mountain Review

Full text of the poems here


Swarm

Near the end, she spoke as if waking from a dream
to common light,
her fingers on the bedclothes
untying words to loose like petals of fog....


Pond

Self-ironist on the mirrored bank,
I trick the pond to life with a pebble
and speak, haloed by the water's trouble....

2 comments:

sam of the ten thousand things said...

Thanks for posting. I left comment with poems.

James Owens said...

Sam,

Thanks for reading and commenting.

"Swarm" is a poem I've been trying to write for years. It has been through more drafts than I can count and has, at times, been much longer. But I think this version, stripped down and simple as it is, works better than something more expansive. It is pretty much a direct report of my gandmother talking just a little while before she died.