With its mouth full
Rent from DeepDyve- With its mouth full
I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
edgar allan poe (1809–1849)
Everything has become birdsAnd I have nothing to say
A church of birdsInside my ear
And all I can dois listen
As if I'm the memoryOf a tree
On fire
In the middle of the forest
The last gasp of moonlightBefore dawn
Torches the eye
And when I wake
If I wake [End Page 93]
I ask with a voiceOf oceans
With a thousand mouths like wavesThat crash and fall and speak
Of the enduring loneliness
Of the human flowerInside the fruit
How do we hang onTo our one life
When each day we spillthe seeds
And that chirping chorusIn our heads
Eats the path home [End Page 94]
Peter Grandbois is the author of ten books, the most recent of which is half-burnt (Spuyten Duyvil). His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in more than one hundred journals. His plays have been performed in St. Louis, Columbus, Los Angeles, and New York. He is a senior editor at Boulevard magazine and teaches at Denison University in Ohio. Visit www.petergrandbois.com.
