Two Poems and Three Ideograms
  Jill Pernicano

 

when ontology meets the rock

chapter 1

the sun past out
under a charred maple

prescription's in flames
you fill it anyway

your rotisserie of thirty explanations
lies undivided in sunlight

the heartwood leaves you sapped
once the tap screws in

I run the kabuki trail

deerflies rap
your nape

chapter 2

The sun's
a risen welt
The skin's
a flood creek
The blood's
a blown seed
The hand's
a curved beak

The weed
is marrow
The nerve's
a leaf
I am a thrush
feathers are grief

chapter 3

Things that
fall from a height
break in threes
aren't fixable
are forgotten
are fixable but unusable until fixed
are usable when broken
are never forgotten
are broken by children
shattered bones of animals
the thing that hit a window
a window hit by a thing

Things that
cause weeping
cause bleeding
cause death when broken
break from use
break from rage
are witnessed by Quakers
wings and antennas of butterflies
necks snapped by the noose
monster truck breakings
squirrel cracked nuts
soft-boiled eggs

chapter 4

carry the sea
washing grief's gifts
give every wave
waves cannot lift

 

 

The world as seen from the world

I want to lie down in violets
I want the sum of sorrel twinge on tongue tip
I want goldenseal and capsicum

Not pollination by deception

No

I want the wasp to mate at the wasp's pace
Let yellow dust cover the bat's face

What happens when black is subtracted?
What happens to the rodent's cache?

I want sand to fracture ever smaller
I want a cloudless sulphur
I want bitterbrush
I want the thrush

 

 

Three Ideograms

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