A fostering mother calls
to ask me not to forget
the way she dragged me
into city streets
to become a vehicle self-propelled.
Poetry
Tweening
Often scratched
with a sharp object, the head
is represented. Many lack
noses. Do not require
necks. Absent
or ambivalent emotional
expression has proven effective.
The symbol for drinking does thicken
for a ragdoll type.
There has been much debate
about graffiti. Iconic
and crudely embellished
morphemes do not require
general consensus. It all started
by simplifying people
to their earliest roots.
Minnesota Takes January
It was so cold story
season again. No one visits us
up here. We have this moon
scabbed land to ourselves. You
and your friends
are crazy to perform
here at the end of this month.
If you dare, better bring
more layers than those
streaming from your guitars.
Farewell Aughts
What began east
of the Mississippi
(a mile or two) ends
west of it (a mile
or two). The living
between has crossed
bridges, barely
without jumping, has crossed
a god (or two). Frozen
but for the falls,
it doesn’t care
where I reside, what
I do when I’m in
overlook position. Whenever
they gather 8 floors up
by the riverside glass
façade, you know
the news isn’t good. Nothing’s
locking through this time
of year. Someone has locked down
temptation once
and for all again. Me,
I’m off that pedway—believing
in movement because
of the falls and everything they touch.
Was It the Best She Would Do? (Day 2,600: Take 2)
A stanza added
to three quiet ones—
it could become a record
of the commotion caused
by one silent train
rolling in, another one
about to depart.
Ode to Silence
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Church Bells of an Agnostic
Church Bells of an Atheist Agnostic
There’s a soaring chime
that can’t be recorded. A murder
of them takes over
the northern sky
as another day crumbles
into itself. Come again
night. More than six
of them, six beats
to a measure. A rest
is noted but not taken
till each bird has evaporated
into another winter roost.
Rotate 180 Degrees
Silver Lake on the way
to work. Is the Actor Happy
on the way home.
A black charm knocks
the train off its rails
onto a parallel ride
through some serious winter air.
En route, I
lose all ability to distinguish
between those two masks.
Vic
Deceptively simple, deceptively
broken, some collision
of Southern Gothic
with Stevie Smith’s “not waving
but drowning”—I know so little.
All I can do is keep
listening to the music. That’s what’s left
to do.
Black and White Sky Over Loring Park
A winter’s civil twilight breaks
open a black bird swarm.
That caw commotion over church bells
reveals how little she knows.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 