"FROM MY OWN MARGINS"
--for Geoffrey Hill
Ingenuity
Of unreconciled oppressed
Never dreaded truth
Jim Bodeen
28 February 2022
Slow the looking and you slow the reading, like trusting the river slows the river--some description and some big logs seeing into the beautyway while sitting on big river stones
"FROM MY OWN MARGINS"
--for Geoffrey Hill
Ingenuity
Of unreconciled oppressed
Never dreaded truth
Jim Bodeen
28 February 2022
EPIPHANY’S END
Fall line beacon-fate
Takes us mountain dancing down
Sunlight shadow shunt
Jim Bodeen
27 February 2022
DOUBLED-UP HIGH CAMP TANKA
--for Katie
Layers of face mask
frozen flexibility
Katie down fall line
Skis find fall line on their own
Turn over sun apple cloud
*
Snow-dusted alpines
Almond-shaped black fingernails
Orange fresh nobility
Russian sastrugi sandwich
Honey Camp and high sugar
24 February 2022
TWICE PREPARED BEAUTY WORKOUT TALK
--for Vonnie Johnson
He will call you back
He might know what he’s doing
Time to tumble turn
Turn time around little book
His sister walks across hot coals
*
Snow melt leaves snow mold
She brings back some Chekhov tales
Flat thatch muscle rake
Get your hands lower on rake
Forsaking mountain breath prayers
Jim Bodeen
19 February 2022
anamnesis
You’re having a breakdown,
but never mind. We’ll go
to the doctor right now.
--the medic, Chekhov
While coffee brews,
I read headlines in the paper,
pour half a cup
interrupting the inner-action
of water and bean
turn towards my studio
carrying the paper
setting it on the floor
by the butterscotch
chair, opening stories
of Chekhov, where
for three days
I've been reading
The Breakdown, each
time, interrupted
by whom, if not
God? Resuming
still early
the only way
I'll ever know,
remembering,
remembering
and looking up words
Jim Bodeen
12 February 2022
AFTER WALKING WITH KAREN IN FEBRUARY
for Rex DeLoney
Not everyone
who sings Coltrane’s love supreme
hears Coltrane’s love march
Jim Bodeen
7 February 2022
SILVER BLUE SKY ON SKIS
Three times I returned
ducking under frozen ropes
Those three trees are gone
Jim Bodeen
3 February 2021
*
These are the Goat Rocks
Light changes as you break lines
present to the poem
Jim Bodeen
3 February 2022