Three poems by OLIVIA CLARE
Crossing
We came to a prime, a vexing, a rhythm.
A figure in granite, remote,
unused. And who has
placed it here, between
the mainframes, towers,
towers? I said, I will
take this remoteness,
and fastened he/she to my back
and stepped into the river twice twice.
37 The Paris-American
We came to a prime, a vexing, a rhythm.
A figure in granite, remote,
unused. And who has
placed it here, between
the mainframes, towers,
towers? I said, I will
take this remoteness,
and fastened he/she to my back
and stepped into the river twice twice.
37 The Paris-American
"The sound is..."
Laying down
his head, he heard
himself half-stepping
into his ear.
A high A
arrived, but somewhere
else: the alluvial bed
of a Rhine so deep there
one could almost not hear.
38 The Paris-American
Laying down
his head, he heard
himself half-stepping
into his ear.
A high A
arrived, but somewhere
else: the alluvial bed
of a Rhine so deep there
one could almost not hear.
38 The Paris-American
"The sound is like distant brasses..."
Through from another life.
The harmonies beneath this life, like a floor holding him up (he
swayed there) that then falls inward. Just when he heard the trombones,
he believed, his brother died.
Any irreal sound, terrible, but the Silence after and before,
substantial, fertile. And then that Second Silence, shifting beneath the
First, threatening to give way.
39 The Paris-American
Through from another life.
The harmonies beneath this life, like a floor holding him up (he
swayed there) that then falls inward. Just when he heard the trombones,
he believed, his brother died.
Any irreal sound, terrible, but the Silence after and before,
substantial, fertile. And then that Second Silence, shifting beneath the
First, threatening to give way.
39 The Paris-American
Olivia Clare's poems appear in Poetry, The London Magazine, Southern Review, and other journals. Her short stories are forthcoming in Ecotone and The Hopkins Review. She was the 2008–2009 Olive B. O'Connor Fellow at Colgate University. In 2011, she was awarded the Ruth Lilly Fellowship. She's also received fellowships from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Djerassi Foundation. She co-edits The Winter Anthology.