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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ACROSS THE STREET, by IOANNA CARLSEN First Line: Watching that empty house / at night, its second story | |||
Watching that empty house at night, its second story left lit up by workers, you get a sense of what you might see in those windows, though at the moment, no one actually appears. In here the clock ticks, regular as breath, clicks like an idea inside a head, until you do see in those airy rooms feet, and hands, groping up the personal, and then whole bodies like planets drifting toward - just missing each other - ascending to meet what has already gone down a back stair. Life leaking into compartments, the universe expecting you, the one who will cross the street and trudge up there, carrying bags full of useful goods, nudging the door open with a toe: your arrival the perception that the furniture's already piled on the sidewalk and you will be leaving with only a body containing your life. Copyright © Ioanna Carlsen. http://www.unl.edu/schooner/psmain.htm Prairie Schooner is a literary quarterly published since 1927 which publishes original stories, poetry, essays, and reviews. Regularly cited in the prize journals, the magazine is considered one of the most prestigious of the campus-based literary journals. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WE WEAR THE MASK by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR LINES WRITTEN TO HIS WIFE [WHILE ON A VISIT TO UPPER INDIA] by REGINALD HEBER THE EAGLE THAT IS FORGOTTEN by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY AT HOME IN HEAVEN by JAMES MONTGOMERY RIDDLE: A STAR by MOTHER GOOSE WHOLE DUTY OF CHILDREN by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON CRADLE SONG (TO A TUNE OF BLAKE'S): 1 by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE |
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