new sinai                                                                                                           —G.C. Waldrep


the ear’s depth-
folly
harvests
its winter crop

sutures
a chill flock

*

there is no
“mother lode,”

in the par-
turient sense

*

memory’s flange
catches,

eldest-function

*

& we “get it”

*

raveling
cloth of the real

on which

the body prints

*

develop
the ear’s long
grain

by shive-light

*

come down to
the water,
native tongue

I have set
a fire for you

*

swarmingly
the light wishes
it could speak,

it shears us

from flame’s
androgynous gun

*

this hymning
ga(s)p

*

sessile/subtend

*

glean this manna

otherwise—

*

(Let the animals
commote
in their

~wingèd sexes)
 


oriflamme


(bright hollows kern)

*

“gymnosperm”
implies
something fantastic

I mean, myth
suffers
us, depleting aquifer

*

rides the wound-
canon:
septic to your

tympanic interval

*

braved, as flight
—sycamores

the body’s vagile lie

*

mime the badlands’
dulled schist,

mercy won’t say

(what/when/how)

*

occurs in time,
duration
’s gift-drawing

glaciates
(—reprovingly)

*

a clerical elegance
unmans
that-which-is-made

(in the mouth)

(feel it in
your night-body)

*

distance happens,

a small scar
gravity keeps fighting

*

accrue
in moth-light,
                 —spare
a green wound

to “tell” the time
(which myth
have we succored)

*

mend or gift

*

pellucid, the mind
keeps closing

in on
what’s not possible
 

GC Waldrep.jpg

G.C. Waldrep’s most recent books are a long poem, Testament (BOA Editions, 2015), and a chapbook, Susquehanna (Omnidawn, 2013).  With Joshua Corey he edited The Arcadia Project:  North American Postmodern Pastoral (Ahsahta, 2012).  His new collection, feast gently, is due out from Tupelo Press in 2018.  He lives in Lewisburg, Pa., where he teaches at Bucknell University, edits the journal West Branch, and serves as Editor-at-Large for The Kenyon Review.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2017