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Poems by Craig Arnold | Print |  E-mail
Written by Craig Arnold   
Friday, 21 November 2008

These are poems from Craig Arnold. Ausable Press recently published his second book, "Made Flesh."  He is currently a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence in Bogotá, Colombia. When not globetrotting, he teaches at the University of Wyoming .

Craig Arnold

Uncouplings

There is no I in teamwork
but there is a two maker

there is no I in together
but there is a got three
a get to her

the I in relationship
is the heart I slip on
a lithe prison

in all communication
we count on a mimic
(I am not uncomic)

our listening skills
are silent killings

there is no we in marriage
but a grim area

there is an I in family
also my fail

~ Originally published in Poetry magazine.
 

Lines for painting on grains of rice



You are the kind of person who buys exotic fruits
    leaves them out on the counter until they rot
You always mean to eat them     sometimes you rearrange them
    rousing over the bowl a cloud of tiny flies

        &


How do they balance    the parrot who chews a walnut
sideways     holding it up in his right foot
the owl perched on a just-lit lamppost
    scratching behind its ear     like a big dog

        &


Your pencil eraser wears down long before the point
    for every word you write     you rub out two

        &


Where the slice of toast rested     the plate is still warm
    a film of fog     little points of dew

        &


Love is like velocity     we feel the speeding up
    and the slowing down     otherwise not at all
the more steady     the more it feels like going nowhere
    my love I want to go nowhere with you

        &


I cannot bring myself to toss the cup of cold coffee
you set down by the door on your way to the taxi
all day I have sipped it     each time forgetting
your two tablets of fake sugar     too sweet

for Rebecca
 

Meditation on a Grapefruit


To wake when all is possible
before the agitations of the day
have gripped you
                   To come to the kitchen
and peel a little basketball
for breakfast
               To tear the husk
like cotton padding     a cloud of oil
misting out of its pinprick pores
clean and sharp as pepper
                            To ease
each pale pink section out of its case
so carefully     without breaking
a single pearly cell    
                    To slide each piece
into a cold blue china bowl
the juice pooling     until the whole
fruit is divided from its skin
and only then to eat
                     so sweet
                               a discipline
precisely pointless      a devout
involvement of the hands and senses
a pause     a little emptiness

each year harder to live within
each year harder to live without
 

Consider with Plato how


the mind might be a cage
of birds    would it be busy
a basket of caught starlings
jack-jacking away

or quiet     a canary
under a velvet cozy
a parrot     shabby gray
who has heard the same words
called out so many times
he is tired of answering

would it grow into its prison
as a half-pair of lovebirds
who headbutts his reflection
in the bell-jangled mirror
who after awhile alone
forgets how to sing

maybe a bird who needs
no cage        who is his own
cage     an owl in sunshine
a swan with a clipped wing

for Harvey

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