Two poems, by Stan Rogal

 

Au Naturel

 

I worry about the trees, their furry existence
the smell of rain, the heavy drag of wind
across the concrete, the creeping fog 

& what about the smell of light? what about
the moss, listening in the damp shadows?
wildlife clothed in fur, feathers & flowers? 

how romantic : unbothered by conventional
notions of good taste : in the subway, walls
display young girls in brassieres & panties 

seeking jazz or sex or soup or the yakkity-yak
buzz : those who blew or were blown : poetry
strange as money beneath this cloudy firmament 

posters that read “my son’s father is missing”
living in Chicago, homesick for London,
blinked too much & was afraid of snakes 

how naked am I? my thighs are amphibian
where rats go, go I, accustomed to the night
I am a pal of the earth : I come from wilderness 

piece by battered piece I appear to re-enter
the world (we all gain from alien phenomena)
creature absorbs creator in this bent light 

it is the sky, it is the ground, there is nothing
between, save, a thin line : tree names, flower
names, deliberate as hard squares of teeth

 

  

Knee Deck Her Daisies
          Lorine Niedecker

 

rainy day w/yellow warblers & wild canaries
in this place, geese make a wilderness in the ears
a text composed of locks of black & red hair
& horizontal strips of cut white paper 

the line flat as a lake is flat, as a corpse is flat
(I’m really in a vein if I can direct it better)
quite lavish w/their ripe expletives
news of the weave, mud of the bleep 

look — a bit of mottled blue
behind a skin of fog after days of grey
the way that big trees somehow seem
to just rush out of a landscape 

… because everything is connected …
(after all, we do have sex & other appetites)
I — if s/he did exist — wld know how to spell,
just by looking, at the “jonquils,” or whatever 

the handcuffs of words are on us for good
poetry is a dead loss; & this is true, Bataille argues
come up (then) to the dandelions & say goodbye
to April [which] wasn’t much favourable, anyway

 

Stan Rogal: I live and write in Toronto. Work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies in Canada, the US, Europe, and Asia. The author of 27 books, including 12 poetry and several chapbooks. A 13th poetry collection to be published in March 2025 with ecw press. A produced playwright and former coordinator of the popular Idler Pub Reading Series, now defunct. The series, not me.