"FROM MY OWN MARGINS"

 

"FROM MY OWN MARGINS"

                --for Geoffrey Hill


Ingenuity

Of unreconciled oppressed

Never dreaded truth


Jim Bodeen

28 February 2022

EPHIPHANY'S END

 












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

 













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

 




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

 

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

FEBRUARY LISTENING WALK

 

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

 
















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












 *

These are the Goat Rocks

Light changes as you break lines

present to the poem


Jim Bodeen

3 February 2022