Two Poems, by Anthony Etherin

 

An Incantation

1
Drawn in me, lost,
some rite rises:
reverb, most
solemnised ode.... 

It is all as I tied.

Odes, in me,
lost sombre verses.       
I retire,
most solemn, inward. 

2

Raw, mid nests,
I'm mine.
Morose lord,
I bless ever a desire. 

Soon test! Lit tilt, set noose.

Rise....
Dare, vessel,
bid roles or omen.
I'm mist's end. I'm war. 

3

Red root,
time ill,
I memos stir....
We mass, send nil.... 

Bones reverse.

Do it — as, sat, I odes reverse.
No blindness, same writs.
Some mill, I emit,
to order.

 

AN INCANTATION features three palindrome that use the exact same set of letters (i.e. they are three perfectly anagrammed palindromes). The three poems, in turn, descend deeper into the obscurant language associated with both mystical incantations and heavily constrained writing.

 

City Scaffold

The neon is exact.
It holds variety:
A stony, old hotel.
Elite societies.
A unity, in stores
and city stimuli.
(A vacant tenancy,
in quiet tyranny.
A mighty stadium,
and other stadia....)
One tenement am I;
in time, a capital:
A tally of events —
to occupy cement.... 

T————————————T
—T——————————T—
——T————————T——
———T——————T———
————T————T————
—————T——T—————
——————T T——————
——————T T——————
—————T——T—————
————T————T————
———T——————T———
——T————————T——
—T——————————T—
T————————————T

 

 

CITY SCAFFOLD is blank verse sonnet in iambic trimeter. Its lines have exactly fourteen letters. Moreover, its Ts are positioned such that they form an X-shape through the sonnet (as represented below the poem).

 

 

Anthony Etherin is an experimental formalist poet, a publisher, and a musician. His most recent book is STRAY ARTS (and Other Inventions) (Penteract Press, 2019), and his next book will be SLATE PETALS (and Other Wordscapes) (Penteracct Press, 2021). Find him on Twitter, @Anthony_Etherin, and via anthonyetherin.wordpress.com