1040. David - Ishion Hutchinson

.

You marveled at the vein in the marble.

The moment’s slight pulse when you approached.

His blood murmured when you neared, so I

believed, and still do. When I returned to

it, you were gone in the other country

of my head that will never, like him, age.

Long was I able to stare at the vein.

The giant must’ve just laughed and mocked him.

Then he imagined the giant’s fall, and heard

a restless quiet as far as Sokho.

He thought of the river near the vineyard,

its broad dreaming-stone. He knew it no more.

The animals looked inconsolable.

They knew their boy was lost to become king.

I was supposed to photograph you both;

but the stone sank in me and I didn’t;

my eyes going between David’s and your eyes

as the army, scattered, pushed us apart,

the tumult blotted out what I shouted

to you, which he heard, turned, nodded gently

with a killer’s uncommon sympathy.

1039. A Parenthesis - James Laughlin

.

(This poet defaces his couplets with parentheses)

[a word from the Greek coming from para (beside)

+ en (in) + tithenai (to put) whence to put in be-

side] this is a practice très mal vu (deplored)

by egoistical critics who point out that his

lines would be grammatically more correct with

commas or colons    the poet responds quite true

but would they still be mine    for him the paren-

theses ate small fortresses in which he can take

refuge from logic and conventional behavior    his

psychiatrist has a more sinister reading on the

(s) [are their shapes not bivulvar] but he holds

his peace since they content his bizarre patient.