Cyrus Console
Jig
A tea called white
That tastes like snow
A force named weight
Casting no shadow
A one-winged seed
Caught in the comb
Of rooted blade
And knotted limb
Once I climb in
My bed again
A word or two
For how I feel
A symptom or
A song called reel
Across the fires
The landmass blows
And all the creatures’
Names we know
In stereo
The evening through
A part of life
Such as the lungs
Fear and relief
And other things
For the purpose
Of this song
All the children
Form a ring
The wolf a fang
The moth a wing
The line on hold
The runner come
The cavern hailed
The first long home
First dignity
First trodden fruits
Drunk willingly
Through undrilled flutes
In darkened booths
More tales than truths
My friend has said
Song began when
Voice decayed
In cave or canyon
Or whelmed in hell
A panic troop
Enlarged itself
With shout and whoop
Locked noise of boots
And allez-oops
A favorite novel
Of Defoe’s
Consists of several
Numerals
The quaint tabular
Evidence
Of which the dead are
Exponents
Awake with a start
Sit up in the cart
Behind the hedge
Men go golfing
Under the bridge
Someone is coughing
Into my elbow
Uncontrollably
Into my window
Old lullaby
A butterfly
A homeless guy
Now they call it
Twenty-five
Who said six feet
To save a life
A breathing room
A window well
Homely fathom
In the soil
A study hall
A parasol
With dropped chisel
Noise of chains
And sugared diesel
With fragrance
Of witch hazel
White ambulance
Whose personnel
By time and chance
And find the veins
And wash the hands
Where they piled up
I could not think
A freezer truck
A skating rink
Then from the lake
Block ice was hewn
Hauled in to stack
The bodies on
Or was that in
Some other song
Back of the bough
Forking the clear
Air lifts me though
No tune is there
Where I am is
That what you meant
Where I spend most
And am most spent
A long past tense
An elements
Not thou with me
The crescent moon
Nor you with thee
The perfect sun
The century
Of the chief good
In poetry
Rhyming with blood
A word salad
A murder ballad
Terse but fluent
Enterprise
Without enjambment
Or surprise
No day content
To memorize
Just rapid movement
Of the eyes
And you were there
Dad was alive
Interview with Cyrus Console on The Odicy — April 20, 2012
Cyrus Console lives in Kansas City. His third book of poems, The Wayfarer, is forthcoming from Omnidawn.
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