Duane Niatum
Ode from the voice in the bent-box
I want one ancestor
to come back,
anchor the spine to its sweet and sour moods,
paint the path to dying.
I am the smells,
footprint to the compost.
My bones shrink to earth tones
and my breath loses
its cascade sheen and dance.
I want one ancestor
to show the smoothest, nose-dive flight
into the sea cave of spirit and blood.
Grandfather, I will
never ask for another story.
My pulse still races for the touch
of Shell woman in the light
of Cranberry moon, her voice
turning snowflakes into yellow buttercups.
Still, thunder, cloud, rain and lightning shout
I no longer have the backbone,
nor bent-box heart, canoe
of love-medicine and ermine tails.
So why carve myself
into the forest's Skunk-cabbage mask,
mock the departure, the creatures
of memory pressed into rust filaments?
I say I want only to desire
what fillets me from inside out,
be as happy as dust
in the vanishing basket,
love my drum's bile drying into seed
in the sun's cherry-red waves.
to come back,
anchor the spine to its sweet and sour moods,
paint the path to dying.
I am the smells,
footprint to the compost.
My bones shrink to earth tones
and my breath loses
its cascade sheen and dance.
I want one ancestor
to show the smoothest, nose-dive flight
into the sea cave of spirit and blood.
Grandfather, I will
never ask for another story.
My pulse still races for the touch
of Shell woman in the light
of Cranberry moon, her voice
turning snowflakes into yellow buttercups.
Still, thunder, cloud, rain and lightning shout
I no longer have the backbone,
nor bent-box heart, canoe
of love-medicine and ermine tails.
So why carve myself
into the forest's Skunk-cabbage mask,
mock the departure, the creatures
of memory pressed into rust filaments?
I say I want only to desire
what fillets me from inside out,
be as happy as dust
in the vanishing basket,
love my drum's bile drying into seed
in the sun's cherry-red waves.
Page(s) 10-11
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- Ambit
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- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
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- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
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- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
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- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The