the sound of their manifold munching

今天天气好凉快，真舒服　:D

mary ruefle has some brand spankin' NEW poetry in the latest volume of the kenyon review. yay! =) here are 2 of the poems:

A Custom of Mourning

I wore blood on my clothes for three days.
I used my initials, never my name.
I would not cut the grass
nor make repairs
no matter an outbuilding
or mechanical failure.
I did not eat eggs
as they are a sign of life
yet grew the border on my stationery
to three inches wide,
vastly restricting the space to write in.
I read not the news
nor old books
nor the backs of cans.
Everything was heated haphazardly.
As I had vowed,
the mirrors were covered with beautiful cloth.
My hair grew to fathoms
and the soles of my shoes
were made of leaves.
And when at last the thirty years did pass,
I too hated the end of summer,
and bitterly.

Metaphysical Blight

I think it was Saturday my mother was
pregnant with me she could not find
a place to eat the restaurants were crowded
it was the Saturday before Christmas
so she bought a meatpie some fries
a carton of milk from a kiosk
and I became a person.
What if all the cows ate all the grass
and there were no grass?
What if the women were ground
to a Turkish grind for some worthy cause
and there were no women? Without grass
and without women, what could be made?
What could be added to the world?
And the many cows munching in it,
the sound of their manifold munching,
would be as pervasive as a stream
in the not-too-distant.
I am nailed fast by little bolts like these.
A world of worried babies without grass,
without women, what would that mean?
You can guess the rest of the story,
how this dear foolish little bit of
Christmas shopping made me lonely,
so lonely even the carton of milk
failed to cause my cracked heart
to sprout a little wheat.


Hmm. I feel like I already should've had a Mary Ruefle tag/label. Apparently not!

P.S. I have a new links list in the sidebar! =]