Philip Kobylarz, Drum Circle, Lake Marritt, Oakland, Photograph
Rat – tat tat tat
I don’t know – rhythm
seems silly for poems.
as if life came out witty
and rat – tat tat
tat. life comes
instead like a drip
from a gutter; things build
for a while, then a splash
and then sometimes
a trickle – and sometimes
a blockage, and seepage
through plaster – have you ever
seen a gutter with a plant growing
over the side? I’ve seen six foot lilacs
ride fascias like horses, a blue
rising spire pushing back
against flow as a finger
will dog-ear a bookmark. I don’t
know – rhythm seems
silly sometimes. though
sometimes at traffic lights
you’ll see every indicator
come on all together
like trumpets as a triumph goes off.
_____________
DS Maolalai
Review by Jared Pearce
I love the simile of the finger dog-earing a page for the lilac stopping the rain gutter. I also like the idea of all the traffic lights changing simultaneously like a blast of trumpets.
Review by Massimo Fantuzzi
A momentary lapse of derealisation, depersonalization, when the patterns we are by nature programmed to spot like trails of crumbs disintegrate, the models of interpretation do not hold up, the rhythms appear ridiculous, the constants turn variable, collapse. That is precisely the space in which the poets operate. Their sensibility allows them to see, hear things, draw new parallels under new rules of engagement towards unexpected multiplying conclusions, the swirl of a pinwheel, all systems are go.