What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature that explores experiences and ideas that spark the writing of new poems. In our series, Object Lessons, poets meditate on the magical journey from object to poem via one of their own poems. Each Monday's delivery brings you the poem and an excerpt from the essay. 
Death Style 2.8.21

Mary Magdalene, Collectible Glasses
Joyelle McSweeney
like a fop I arrived
at dawn to the ward
my watch fob on my vest
chained like a bird at my breast
as if a bird could be a shield against Time's advance
a bullwark against Time's
consequence
a bullword drew closer
above the doctor's head
took the shape of a cloud
tried to omenize the future
tried to piss it out like rain
as the doctor dragged the bed between us
and launched bad news across it
I watched the soundcloud
flood the port and then arrive
all out of order
a swelling cloud, a swelling tide
a crowd a chord
some welling that could fill a room
then capsize
I was the room or in it
tho I comprehendeth it not


like when I arrived
to the dell at dawn
to find my lover gone
from his grave in the cave
my eye tongued the hole
in the roof of the mouth
of the thought blown back
from the blast of that thought
the rock aghast
glastnost at last
a collectible glass
for each unsurfeitable
fountain of coke
hung shattered in the air
in dropletted burden
one minute past
I went agape and agog
I imitated the rock
but comprehendeth not
I imitated the rock
but comprehendeth not
as soda flew without stopping
from the side of the rock
it grew a little bitter
and a little more bad
each day as two drains
flew like buttresses
down from the baby's gut
as devils flee heaven
or an eightpound goth
-ic cathedral where bad news rose
through a gothic rose
window then changed
to a cloud and rained
on every baby's breath in the glade
bent down all under the welter
weight of water each fox
-bell went under each petaled
human humhum lumen
-lantern thus snuffed out
a bad deal I drank down
with my hands in my mouth
I imitated the clown
who imitated the mouse
who lived in the clock
like it said in the song
I was right twice a day
marched out and struck
myself in the face
the rest of the time
I imitated the drain
I did the limited edition
imitation drain
from the book DEATH STYLES / Nightboat Books
READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM
Share Share
Tweet Tweet
Forward Forward
Cover of Joyelle McSweeney's book, Death Styles
What Sparks Poetry: Joyelle McSweeney on "Death Style 2.8.21 (Mary Magdalene, Collectible Glasses)"

I wrote all the poems of Death Styles on the shockwave of catastrophic grief, trying to understand the physics of my new, confounding planet, a planet clammy with calamity, with weed beds and reed beds, NICU wards, of cause decoupled from event. I think of irreparability, a loss that runs only one way, converting my skull to a locked vault, a cave. Can you witness absence? How does the individual body, immobilized by calamity, become a place to which sound and consequence flood?”

READ THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
Boston Looks for a New Voice to Inspire the City

Are you Boston's next poet laureate?  "Mayor Michelle Wu and the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture announced the City of Boston is seeking applications and nominations for its next Poet Laureate. Boston’s Poet Laureate creates a unique artistic legacy through public readings, civic events, and community engagement."

viaCITY OF BOSTON
READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES
donate
View in browser

You have received this email because you submitted your email address at www.poems.com
If you would like to unsubscribe please click here.

© 2024 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030

Design by the Binding Agency