In this collection of found poetry, writers gleaned phrases and words from existing publications and transformed them into something wholly new. These poems are crafted through the art of selection, arrangement, and reinterpretation, giving a fresh voice to borrowed words.
Après Poe
The exact character of the studies, or of the occupations,
involved me,
or led me the way.
Sulphureous lustre improvised forever in my ears.
I hold painfully in mind
a certain singular amplification of
the wild air.
The last paintings fancy brooded,
touch by touch, into vagueness.
I shuddered the more thrillingly,
because I shuddered knowing not why.
A small portion should lie
within the compass of written words.
Nakedness of designs, arrested and overawed attention.
If ever mortal painted an idea, for me at least—there arose
pure abstractions which contrived to throw
an intensity of intolerable awe.
By ShoS (Susan Schneider), Annapolis, MD
Source: “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe
Glimmerings
A tiny splash in infinity . . .
A new particle of light . . .
A clock, a map, a piece of the ribbon:
Our own cosmos of meaning.
The direction of time
makes an ancient pattern.
Eternity versus animal brevity—
a cruel and comic mismatch.
Billions of neurons,
chandeliers of imagination:
We have been but ghosts chattering
through twisting corridors of time.
When all the stars in space burn out
the picture will grow dimmer.
All matter disintegrates.
Universe spins away into nothingness.
Eternity was a gargantuan negative.
But we have seen—felt—lived!
The atoms in our bodies
were made in stars.
By Natalie Canavor, Annapolis, MD
Source: Probable Impossibilities by Alan Lightman
On Slumbering Water
The dreaminess of the setting sun
over transparent depths,
ceaselessly changing in the passing hours—
I let myself be borne
upon that current of gentle night
toward the vast structure of recollection.
Encircled by the chain of hours, the sequence of years,
an impalpable iridescence suffuses
the vast structure of my memories.
Until, illumined by the light of dawn,
I awake to an abyss of uncertainty
and the sound of shutting doors.
Yet, still echoing in my ears—
the silence of the night,
the note of a bird in a distant forest.
By Janice F. Booth, Annapolis, MD
Source: In Search of Lost Time: Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
The Sea House
Seven sets of eyes
have gazed out
upon the sea
through storms and gales,
in blustery air and bold sun.
Skin has festered,
crawling away from bone
receding into furrows of grey,
mounding around the sockets,
framing them in,
crusty eye shadow
piped around those dark holes
by time,
weather,
and the work of looking outward,
glazed to opacity now
by salt, wind
rain, heat, and age.
The curlew calls,
missing reflection . . .
a living presence among
the marshes,
wondering if
once those cataracts
are re-glazed
with clear young lenses,
will the house see again
the reaches of oceans deep,
new eyes marveling
at the long view.
By Maggie Pratt, Frostburg, MD
Source: The Orphan of Salt Winds by Elizabeth Brooks
The Understory
It is a healthy sign to reach out—and touch.
Compare the roughness
with the softness, broad bud
with the needle-sharp.
Once you have held
and stared at the crimson red,
you will never again feel indifferent.
Most people don’t know these
little trees of shadows,
hidden in the camouflage of the understory;
they usually bend and run out
toward the nearest space with the most light.
Exploring, formless art—
extraordinary fruits
start off with a bang.
By Caitlin Wilson
Source: A Pocket Guide to the Trees (p. 63) by Rutherford Platt
When the Plants Are Sobbing
The world sounds—
bustling and throbbing noise in a city, hums and thrums in the suburbs,
but especially in a quiet forest.
Carefully try to hear a rock as it talks to the dirt that holds it in place,
or—
while balancing on the steep bank of a river sense a tiny voice that speaks aloud underwater,
or—
while looking at a small gray bird with a blue breast that sings to call her spirit,
or—
while responding to a woodpecker as it strikes a drum in a tree with his beating beak,
or —
so sadly, while watching a tree that under an axe trembles,
wailing
as
it
falls.
By Carole Falk, Annapolis, MD
Source: Animism and Shamanism in Twentieth-Century Art by Evan Firestone