for louise glück (26)

seeking a greater passion

for laureate louise glück

every sorceress is
a pragmatist at heart; nobody sees essence who can't
face limitation. if i wanted only to hold you…
i could hold you prisoner.
from “circe's power”

confessional but not suicidal yr verse was a response
to my cry for help. i needed a fresh way to wordsee;
my ears yearned for the light easy touch of common
tonality – the unadorned word/sound & reverse of
my poetic ambition. disdaining imagist conceits,
yr plainspoken lyric spun off moving points of light,
neither acute nor intense, like loose dull colored beads
in an object cell, reflecting off mundane mirrors in
the here & now. in yr gracelessly grim metric meadows,
a thick chorus of singing reeds sprang up, unable to
keep secret yr studied detachment or the ironic humor
that recorded private moments of rejection & loss –
like circe weaving, her head turning from right to left –
yr own quest for an end to suffering – neither changing
yr clothes nor washing yr hair – the liberation of self
from the savaging of the fates – from something given
to something made – the murder of yr golden-eyed,
protean & patriarchic god with small words on a page
that bled like abrasions on blemished white skin.

©Joseph McNair; 2009