poems by rachel kellum
to comment ✒️ click on a title
Water Speaks
I don’t know what I am
moving this way. I can’t
see myself. I know
myself by what contains
me. Shifting shores, stones
whose colors I have
no names for. If you
are not holding on
to anything, I can take
you with me. I know
myself this way, too,
by the shape I make
around you, woman
wishing you were more
like me, a bit more
free. This freedom is
too big for you. You
tremble to lose
your name, to spread
and sink so deep,
unseen, to lift
and blur so wide
you want to name yourself
a cloud, write vague
poems about rain
and floods, and living
mud. No, I’m sure
as rain and mud my way
is not for you. Accept
this human shape
of me, the only way
I know to speak.
2012
because I arrived in the dark
what I thought was rain was the river
moving over the mountain of sleep
I woke again and again in a room with three beds
and three poets, heads resting on the soft chests of words
not a sound, not even the sh of restless
sheets, only the breath of the river
threading through poems that might be
sewing this warm inside world to the cold
alpine spring, our almost stories blinking
holes in the high spaces of night
2011
for Laurie and Ellen, KCPF
Ravens
1
Look
2
He was already
Driving home from
Taos every few miles a bird
black and black over plunged
the highway ahead Each time she asked
him its name That is a raven
3
You always say
that she said (1)4
A week later hands
under hands under
a table she listens neck bent In the grand canyon
I saw two checking out
the landscape riding a thermal
playing People assume human beings5
are the only creatures capable of aesthetic
appreciation The male and female (2) I think
have the capability of caring for one
another mate for life
6
So many sugar pouches under the leg of our vague wanting to be ravens
7
In sleep he has never flown but fallen fallen fallen
8
from buildings into sand (3)
Now she on the other
hand remembers in her stomach how
to lift and dive without
9
fear Feathers mark pages in her
books prick her thighs through
thin pockets when she crouches
She stuffs them
10
ruffled into bottles shakes them out to check for black
______________________________________
1. So start asking about the other birds
2. fly touching wings
3. It doesn’t hurt
slow hold
the gentle
plains of your body lay
unconstrained by seams
beneath slow palms. slow
as they could go.
eyes I knew, even
in shadow: your mother’s
blue kindness. (was she
also a sharer of spinach
and rice?) silver
caravan, Cache La Poudre
could not contain the crash
of us, or our condensation,
clouds born of pulsing
breath and skin blushing
windows. finally, out in
the air, Hold raised her head.
Owl asked questions. we smiled
inches from the beds of
our lips, faces reflecting
suns of bare teeth
hiding tongues.
2008-20012
Rachel on Poets’ Co-op TV
Catch a clip of Rachel's April 2012 performance on Poets' Co-op TV
No metaphors for
Say hello to the great shining
embroidered with your fleshy personality.
(The shining may be a clear hole, but if that scares you
think instead a rimless, bowlless, friendly bowl.)
I pull at our tight threads with poems.
Unraveling, I talk too much.
I’m paid to tell you what I know, but there are holes
in knowing funneling toward the shining hole,
and you fall through. I can’t catch you.
You can’t catch me.
We think our words are handholds,
or that our hands are words, but they are only bumps
stalling speed so fast it’s empty, so vast
even the sky falls through.
2012
Where Words Wait
When I am nearly quiet
and perfect words appear,
silence is more perfect.
I tuck the precious phrase
behind my ear like windy hair,
or gum to save for later chewing.
I promise words a quick return.
My most important work requires
such wild undoing: an empty mouth.
2012
The Work of Dogs
Like my young pup
I can’t resist nosing dead starlings
in the back yard of my heart.
I snatch up every one
in my well-fed jaws and dart.
Yell for me all you want.
I’ll come back when I’m done.
2012
Clean Haiku
After deep cleaning
the same old house for ten years
it starts cleaning you.
2012