Jeffrey Grunthaner’s poem In a Landscape appeared here in March 2010. His poetry is rich and textured, more suggestive than narrative, layered with imagery and the vague associations we make without thinking. Listen to him read this poem and see if that makes you think about the poem differently.
New Wave/New Vogue
By Jeffrey Grunthaner
Everything comes so easily
It’s not even a gift:
Two lovers & you’re back alive,
Cycling across a wilderness
Of snow, where the words
Allude to an insight
That captures everything–
& not just for feminists.
On the guest list, “thetic”
Was even a covert reference
To Michael Jackson,
Hero of waking life.
He loved being basted
In the mirror, but how much
Time did he have in words,
And how much was only
Breath? They both cling
To each other & split,
Like potholes in a patriarchal
Landscape, a mix of drum
& book in an interview
Conducted with women
Who have their “journey.”
And so it is? As Nana,
You might have thought
Of your apartment,
Voices floating through
L’Aire d’avril in dulcet
Summer tones, only they
Would have fallen upwards,
Like chairs smashing to
The floor, bubbles of light
Breaking in the humid cold.
And the child, the one who
Fell in love with the maps?
She has become a pure
Western sky, the unhinged
Representation of all children
Who walk with Walt Whitman
After the fashion current in NY,
Where the most beautiful girls
Take to the air in various ways,
Riding on crests of voices
Like birds of metallic sunrise
& orchidaceous chrome,
But to alight in the back lots
Of Manhattan, to be with
their boyfriends, for chance
Encounters or bad luck.
Nice Jeff, nice… And thanks for turning me on to Vox Poetica, good looking out man!