Sample Poems by Jay Snodgrass
Plastic Psalm
Chromatically, sleep is clogged into
Every open space. The sky moves itself
Around me like a promise, and the truth,
That sufferer, is a statue held up
to the firelight in children’s faces.
And as the pedestal unfastens its dream,
Lets fall the urns of dead family members
From this dust sprouts blossoming in my eyes,
I’m coming down the road again holding my fork high
Like a mainsail, mouthing chalk circles and omens
Of gold. I’m looking for a bridge, the light between us,
The rings of water, my muscles drawn by wires
Not sinew, the toll of the bell, I’m looking
For a bridge to jump off of.
Signals
One if by sea. Twice if by handgun.
I lay down in the dewy grass
While insects ask me new tough ones.
I crumple the paper of your moon
In my heart.
Together I am broken bread, apart
I chew through the lord’s nails.
I’m sure I’ve said this before:
Eternal Highway. The vault
Opens outward to your just standing there.
I am sanctuary inside the improvised
Bomb of your heart.
I sweat tree sap and road tar.
While driving down the absolute
I hear the chorus of unstopperd
Insects drill their anthem into the landscape.
Representationals
Shapes, shapes, evacuate the singing, meaning
And word miss each other at the restaurant while
Arrangements and births inhabit the dark, the well
Of sight, the chromatic climb through dawn,
Following the pathless, already bloody foot steps
And the statues hand-standing propaganda
In daylight. I say the elegant forehead is the illusion
Of order and in the chorus of silver the king
Of shaped wood and clouds protects us from sunburn
Drawing down the bridge of lattice light over the canal.
Nothing comes of it. I make certain you are chiseled
From me with the hammer that splits all the ship’s hulls
Into vast inseparable meanings. The ship’s are canvass
To the critics, they hide a pulse through the throng.
Avian Argument
Temperance is love to the straightjacket. Construction
Cranes build up language. Words, flower into the sky,
Make their own clouds, replicating all other landscapes
Until even the water birds are charged a fee to view
The ocean from the sky. My bird’s heart falls out
Into your hands. You are the only thing I have to hold
On to. Everything else is changing into carrion.
I go after meaning, fighting through branches
Through swamps that cling like bread. I go after
Meaning through the conquistador’s closet, so full
Of ruin and rusting plate metal. I emerge without
What it was I pursued, but knowing how well I can
Cover my fear of emasculation with logbooks
And high towers spooling into the sun shine.