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By JS Venit

There is no hidden meaning. Surface is what they are. Sometimes they may seem straightforward, and sometimes they may surprise you like children who have taken unexpected paths, drowned in fog, and pulled down the stars at night. Sometimes they hang in the air or disappear without a shadow, like sand or gravel or the startled red fluorescence exploding into spring. But they are always there, erasing their tracks on the verge of disappearing or becoming something else, always changing horses in the middle of the stream.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543457544

JS Venit

JS Venit was born in New York and emigrated to Belgium in 1980 where he lives and works. His poems have been published in the Partisan review, the American Poetry review, Literary Imagination and the Little Magazine. This is Mr. Venits eleventh collection of poems.

Book preview

I

ABOUT THESE POEMS

There is no hidden meaning

surface is what they are some

times they may seem straight

forward and sometimes they

may surprise you like children

who have taken unexpected paths

drowned in fog pulled down the

stars at night sometimes they

hang in the air or disappear with

out a shadow like sand or gravel

or the startled red fluorescence

exploding into spring but they are

always there erasing their tracks

on the verge of disappearing or

becoming something else always

changing horses in the middle of

the stream.

ALL THE FUTURES IN THE WORLD

This is one of those special afternoons

when time is slowly installing itself like

a nervous teacher. Clouds drift off as if

they were asleep melt into another non

existent horizon decipher the informal

reminder attending to you there. At the

border little helps September is closing

you speak Russian to your fluent samovar

bearing in mind that it may be behind you

or inside the bristling summer hay. Why

do you despise their similes it’s only an as

if as if something unlike itself were parting

from the herd. The clouds move north the

sky loves us like an easel but now it is

almost gone. Where did these lines come

from with their half-torn wings. Every day

matters including this one as it slips quietly

through your hands. You can fold me up inside

the exploding stars. Would they care or even

notice?

THEORIES OF MOTION

To be moving somewhere along

the way to be simply in Bewegung

this month I am return your message

from the plane we sell insurance

fictitious ballrooms out of the blue

to housewives horse thieves lobbyists

and forget to write things down wrapped

in disturbing wings this self-portrait

like a left hand imposed on his sleeve

undetected by the clouds. Stranger things

have ideas walking off the line into mind

less intervals. No these are not just like

mountains cowering beneath us as

momentum is to no one whose language

is not so likely to be judged. You loved

sharpshooters or villages on a hill and

whatever else might have been if it

hadn’t turned into something else.

ANOTHER DREAM

Have you unsung your song

untwined the ivy delivered

poison to the village well.

I look into the parcel of your

golden mouth and ask only

that you say that what I have

said and thought has not been

said and thought before or

at least not so often.

It has been many years

since the clouds behind

the embankment moved

and tilted north. Fruit falls

furtively to the ground the

deer wander by shyly on their

way to a stream you drive

home in the green canoe

that must kneel once more

on the floor of the house.

You dream again of dreaming.

ALLAH’S TEARS

At dawn the new apartments

rise the distance melts beside

the tents and makes up stories

for the storytellers but they don’t

believe everything they’re told.

Paint the sky with its rosy honey

feeling slowly on the way to you

like journalism set to music. We

can learn a lot sometimes by simply

disappearing. Allah’s tears trans

form the field of sleep and shine

beside you in another random

dream another random evening.

THE FEDERALISTS

Dates differ not just in matters

of field and time or texture but

like an inference from one oasis

to another. In some strange birds

appear like friends at night the air

leaves us tones that insist on being

burned like capital letters with their

implied powers religious wars hurricanes

misleading biographies sex workers.

History has happily unraveled over

the years but does it really need them

or would you too have been a Federalist

In the 18th century content to draw

iron in the snow to have Molière for

distraction cycling between the various

circles of heaven their pastels withering

like indigo or quinoa in the polar light.

And what is the likelihood of the many

who come after us being more or less

precise than the very many more who

came before stretching back toward

a distant conversation wherever they

may find themselves later.

SONNET CORDIALE

How did we manage to forget

the heart whatever comes along

the road hums securely in its idle

way the occasional peep being

always welcome. And now the

only traces that remain are invisible.

At the end of the day perhaps a better

question to ask one’s friends than

the encircling powers the ones that

cling with what powder being bitter

powder and so nearer to fair than

most imagine clattering down the

path where the uneven houses know

us. Snowballs started out that way

building slowly until momentum

was attained. Conundrums