Late Summer-like, Stuttered

Silent water-striders skirted  
Brackish film, and silent
One
       thumbed the grain
Amid skins abandoned, splinters

And the hiving of August’s air 
Considering creation’s linkage
Was it    lymph, semen, blood

Aflow – with salt, water, and earth
   Figure trope of the forge
Oneself at the anvil forging oneself

And the world as it was in the beginning
The taste of sun
The taste of flint    silted within the mouth

 

Dyad

Boughs bare but
For two
      Gray breast
On black: morning
Pale behind the hill
Alexander Booth lives and works in Rome, Italy. Poems and translations have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Dear Sir, halfcircle poetry journal, Italian Poetry Review, Konundrum, and Poetry Salzburg Review. He intends to see his first book of poems accepted for publication in the next year and is currently seeking a publisher for his book-length manuscript of translations of the Italian poet, Sandro Penna. He also volunteers at the historic Non-Catholic Cemetery of Rome and keeps a (mostly) literary weblog on Rome in literature and Roman literature, Misera e stupenda città.

 
Copyright © 2012 by Alexander Booth, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. Copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that the editors are notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.