Trace | Poems by Eric Pankey

7/23/2019 Trace | Poems by Eric Pankey

1/17


2/17

Erc Pankey

TraceiPoems

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3/17

2013, ext by Eri Pankey

All rights reserve. Exept or brie quotations in ritial artiles or

reviews, no part o this book may be reproue in any manner without

prior written permission rom the publisher: Milkwee Eitions, 1011

Washington Avenue South, Suite 300, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415.

(800) 520-6455

www.milkwee.org

Publishe 2013 by Milkwee Eitions

Printe in Canaa

Cover esign by Rebea Lown Design

Cover art 2012 by Susan Rothenberg / Artists Rights Soiety (ARS),

New York

Author photo by Rahel Eliza Griths

Interior esign by Hopkins/Baumann

Te text o this book is set in Aobe Caslon Pro.

13 14 15 16 17 5 4 3 2 1First Edition

Please turn to the bak o this book or a list o the sustaining uners o

Milkwee Eitions.

Library o Congress Cataloging-in-Publiation Data

Pankey, Eri, 1959-

rae : poems / Eri Pankey. -- 1st e.

p. m.

ISBN 978-1-57131-449-9 (ai-ree paper)

I. itle.

PS3566.A57573 2013

811.54--dc23

2012028097

Tis book is printe on ai-ree paper.


4/17

Tere aint no dark till something shines ownes Van Zant


5/17

5

Te Sarie

Graually, the bloo rains:A thousan wors never meant or sripture.

Still hunkere on the mountain rige,Te moon: a saline ghost, a mouth

Opene aroun a hollow syllable.When we move towar the sarie,

Go lits as a swarm a boy o fies As sate as Go ever is.


6/17

8

Prayer

When you let it was as i a glaier retreate,As i the ie tonnage, whih raspe, srape, an soure or ages,Diminishe in a moons single phase to a trikle o meltwater.

I live in its atermath till, eskers, erratis, irques, expose berok.

Moss arkens the ar sie o a granite bouler. Pines.Ten the valley lls with harwoo orest, whih burns an grows again,Whih burns an grows again, whih burns an grows again.


7/17

9

Edge o Tings

I wait at the twilit edge o things,A dry spell spilling over into drought,

Te slippages o shadow silting in,Te interchange o dusk to duskier,Te hal-dark turning hal-again as dark.

Tere: night enough to call it a good night.

I wait or the resurrection, but wake to morning:Mist liting of the river.Ladders in the orchard trees although the pickings done.


8/17

15

Works an Days

At the ray o memory

A rop o sweat own her breast veers an misses her nipple

Chaos, its sai, was born rst

Riversie willow lea turns, turns, aught in an ey

Instant yet everlasting

Iron oxie, smeare ohres, haroal gestures: fanks, tusks, hooves

Cukoo song among the oaks

Orion at the horizon; linens reeze on a line

By noon shae evaporates

At the ray, at the ray o memory


9/17

32

Cogitatio Mortis

Although I orage or wors to shape thought,I long to be voieless, outsie hours.

Har to remember when the gos last intervene.Te feeing lovers transorme into gazelles?Te levee built a oot higher than the rest?

Beyon a el blin in shaow,A row stanosh hukles.

: :

I oul go on like this: list ater list,A ompenium meant to o nothing

More than to plae me here:

Pointing north, bewithe like a ompass neele.

Har to make muh that resembles poetryOut o ones epression, whih is mute, lethargi,Leaen artiulate only as stalled-ness, as stilled-ness.

Ater the problems solve, theres still the proo to slog through.

: :


10/17

33In the unerworl, with a see plae uner my tongue,I make onversation solely rom questions

An answers in a oreign phrase book.

I speak an wath my wors warp veilAn unveil their objets.Is the post ofce open?

No, it is closed on Sundays. Is it always this cold?

No, it is usually quite balmy this time o year.

All o winter, like a suppresse yawn, wells up insie me.

: :

Dunes shit, iminish; shit an stay.

I set out as one sets a re, re being its own motive.I walk an a minute strays into an hour,

Te hours into algorithms o hane.

Te tial reek runs ast: a ut length o silkStill ry the moment beore it sinks.

Te shapeless water shapes the oast.A tanker, at the horizon, slips into an amalgam o murk.

: :


11/17

34 One, I hippe rom rok a ossilize ern,

A limestone relie rom where in shae reviesFerns still grew. How as a boy i I ax memoryBeore I ha wors to tether it?

Cousin to thuner, the row oretol a hange in weather.

When I rew a pitograph with limestone onto shale,It possesse no ritual meaning: the image osnakeRea as snake until a thunerstorm washe it away.

: :

I may as well be a ghost, burene by gravity,A sleet-heavy rag-heap on the roas shouler.

In eah objet, a narrative hibernates:Sharks tooth, sharks eye, mermais purse,Glut o guts the seagulls ee on.

I wake entangle in the threabare riggings

An imagine the lutter an messBeore the reation o the maggot an the mirobe.

: :


12/17

35Above: the orgotten vignettes o onstellations.On the river, the ahe-song o a slow thaw;Eah stone, anhore, measures the same hour.

I hithe home, whih means I walke most o the way.

Ater awhile, the journey is threa spun rom istane an sleet.Moon on the pon like an open oor.

Ater awhile, eah room is a waiting room.

: :

Te row allies on a waist-high stump.Not a thought but the things beore me.

Where water fooe three ays ago

A loose sript o ebris, gully besGravelly, lay-ank. An as eveningCommenes: a refy. Here. No, there:

Te ar bank hae with slow water.Unhurrie, yet healong, night alls

With its ontinuums an fuxes,

Shaows reee an billow, suspeneNot solvent, in the enompassing, isernable ark.


13/17

40

rae

Flushe an sattere quailResolve as a genus o ranomness.

Antlers hol open the sky.

Groun porphyry, slake lime,

An mineral spirits set ownMimi the un-haze hills.

o epit, one issets, istorts,Preserves, or aumbrates.

One mars suraes, makes o grounA gure, o a gure a groun.

Where to plae the horizon lineOn the piture plane,

or howo enuniate the heat-warpe air,o suggest the lakes analog,Or twilights paltry allotment?

o oupy a spae is to shape it.

Snow, slantwise, is not whiteBut a murk o winter-blak basalt.

In the gullie, alluvial istanes,On the swallow-sore air,

Eah erasure is a new trae.


14/17

58

Waking Hungover in a Fiel, 1979

Beneath a thunerhea that arkens noonA single white lou

angles like a wasps nest.

A tree stump blunt mouth o smoke Smolers untene miel.

What win there istightens like skin beneath a touh.

Te white lou, as rain begins to all,

urns as smooth an ark as a washing stone.

I one ha not move,

I woul not have seenBeyon the tree line the other ve eer.


15/17

59

Diptyh with Fox an Hawk

A ox gleans mulberries;

Rain-usk blees rom the eges inwar,Te rain, at last,

a wash o lamp-wik har.

I the worl hates a thing too pure,Ive got no troubles.

Years ago, I walke

Te ol battleel: oun no bones, no ghosts,Just the horizons heat-bruise air,

a mirage

With the substane o,as substaneless as, a mirage.

: :

Hawk-all, eho:autumn eases into ie.

Solvent, hours loosen, issolve.

How unlikely tomorrow:a brige

Oandan andan and

Hel up by shallow-riven pilings.

Eah wor is belate. A thingFalls into ruin by its own weight.

Te eho o eho harly a hawk.


16/17

66

Distanes

Desponent, I poner the larkspurBut hear only rhyme: ark, err, lurk, spar.

Far o: sluie-latter on roks,A slipstith o rapis an fash

Beore the shallows.

I hear the win speaking its riles Eah wor snue beore I an write it own.

Te ark repose o istanes,

Te ark repose o istanes

nike by healights:

Dark matter lls in the spaes.

Another ay. Another hapterIn whih the plot is postpone.I mae a wrong turn

an ene here.

My ather sai I ome to nothing.I o believe I have arrive.

wo horses, heas own,onsult the sweet grass.

Ten one looks up as i to point the way.


17/17

Trace by Eric Pankey

Order NowMilkweed Editions

PowellsBarnes & Noble

IndieBound
http://www.milkweed.org/shop/product/311/trace/http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9781571314499-0http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/trace-eric-pankey/1112130853%3Fean%3D9781571314499http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781571314499http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781571314499http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/trace-eric-pankey/1112130853%3Fean%3D9781571314499http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9781571314499-0http://www.amazon.com/Trace-Poems-Eric-Pankey/dp/1571314490http://www.milkweed.org/shop/product/311/trace/

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Trace | Poems by Eric Pankey