Three Poems by Brenda Hillman
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buy Cascadia at Amazon.com
Buy Cascadia
at
Amazon.com


 

Sediments of Santa Monica

A left margin watches the sea floor approach

It takes 30 million years
It is the first lover

More saints       for Augustine's mother

A girl in red shorts shakes Kafka's
The Trial free of some sand

A left margin watches the watcher from Dover

After the twentieth century         these cliffs
Looked like ribbons on braids or dreads

A dream had come right over
With a sort of severe leakage

Ah love let us be true to one another

Went down to the ferris wheel
God's Rolodex

There were neon spikes around everyone
Like the Virgin's spikes

Old punk's mohawk        Evidence of inner fire

Rode throwing words off      Red current       Light swearing

Ah love       The century
Had become a little drippy at the end

We're still growing but the stitches hurt        Let us be

True to one another for the world

Easy on the myths now
Make it up        Sleep well

 

 

Sad Cookies


The Staff brings in the scrolly silver urn
Jefferson written all over it

Cookies arranged in a circle like the Irish Peace Accord
The kind with the weird red jam in the center

The First Lady talks about the arts

There is no president of cookies

They have the kind of steady thinking
That could accommodate theory

Pssst      eagle         Come down off that wall
There are choirs behind the next day

Blanchot: The poets destiny is to expose himself
To the force of the undetermined


Airline magazine from 1967:
Exaggerate your uniqueness
Expose yourself to things you might avoid


Can't walk in a circle because the corridors of power
Can't not look because of JFK

A third of the invisible can go through closed doors if you let it

The First Lady talks about the national cabin

Think of the Enquirer headline:
SWITCHED GIRLS WILL STAY PUT FAMILIES AGREE

Double Jeopardy category        Sweet Nothings for $200
Sweet nothing surrounded by anything

What is a poets destiny?

 

 

The Rise of the Napa Hills


The sea has receded a little. Mild layers stack up
without panic, like e-mail. Twin frenzied suns watch the ocean
sediments settle under Oakville Grocery. Flittery
strings tied to the tops of young vines shimmer two versions of
the actual: red, white. The curfew vintner walks below,
tapping smooth metal vats with a spoon. He asks them the twelve
questions: Did you love your life? How 'bout now? Can you recite
the table of sunsets? Did the weather wait for you? Did
you wait back? When he shook before the world did you shake too?
Did you fall in the milky sunshine? Do you hear their
gritty theories still? Would you like a drink? Can you live in
two directions with the border guards? You're not answering.
Why didn't you fight more? Didn't you love being bad?

 


BRENDA HILLMAN is the author of six collections of poetry and three chapbooks.  She received many awards, including a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award for Poetry.  She lives in Kensington, California and teaches at St. Mary's College in Moraga.

The above selections are from Brenda Hillman's new book, Cascadia (Wesleyan University Press 2001).

 

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