poems by rachel kellum
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Shy Gnosis
I gladly mine
The eye of your eyes,
Share the wordy burden
Of too much sight.
In my flesh world
Sight is every pore.
Let’s pipe the joyful load
Into our quarks
Where every move
Is a moving eye
Mistaken for a heart,
A heart for shy,
A priori.
2013
Homeless
I. Displaced, I space.
I Escalante raven crevice.
I Pawnee Butte and pistol Livermore.
I Sangamon River wood and Elkhart Hill.
I Platte and prairie desert bore.
I Shavano mountain break and race.
I black-stone sea and Shelter Cove.
I Whidbey Island and Hyde Park.
I Denver concrete dance and door.
I Paris alley piss and shit.
I sky high dry or wet and low.
I sprig of sage on hotel sill.
I Crestone rainbow thunderstorm.
I muddy grave in basement bottles.
I bloody torma Roaring Fork.
II. Underground
I can’t throw out
The poster I stole
From the London Underground—
Its rainbow routes
Laid out in squeezed oils
Where I was reborn
Epiphanic Tube
Before a beer advert where
All the metaphors
Of my Midwestern birth,
All the revelations
Of Palmyra’s prophet,
All my fatherless prayers
Lost their words.
III. Lost Tribes
I’ve looked for my people
In lichen foothills, found
Brothers lost in camo and conspiracy,
Lovers lost in polyamory’s woods,
Sisters lost in men, meth, mother-books.
I’ve looked for my people
Clapping for every poem
Ever under- or over-performed,
Cried out fine poets’ names
Driving off like dust
And windshield rain.
I’ve looked for my people
In the dark Morrigan
And triple Brighid—
Found them khandros
In red-robed men
Speaking Tibetan,
Wrestling English
In distant cities while I sit
Staring at a screen, giggling
At every mispronunciation
We will ever make, reading
Each other’s word-pained lips
Looking for our people.
2013
KDNK Carbondale Radio Features Poets of the Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival
A posse of poets—Eric Walter, accompanied on guitar by his gifted son, Jacob, Stewart Warren and I—joined Kim Nuzzo of the Aspen Poets Society on KDNK to promote the third annual Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival at the Thunder River Theatre. What a great time we had sharing our poems and putting out the good word!
To listen to the show, check out Poets March 29, 2013.
While I’m at it, here is a sweet review of the festival worth checking out by Art Goodtimes.
Two-Way Memory Effect
Remember
the shape of heat.
Measure presence—
the slightest
bend in lash
& quick-struck spine,
the pressure of caress,
the pupil gulping wide.
Time no longer
a period
but pleasure—
pleasure a handless
clock the cooling alloy
begs for sleep—
sleep a sweet
new shape.
2013
What London Gave Illinois
At 21, I toted my Mormonism with me to London
where I lived in a flat with gentle Mormon Brits.
They taught me blending in: speak softly, forget white socks,
smash peas with knife against the back of a left-hand fork,
stab meat palm down and calmly jab it up toward the lips.
They shared smart gospel testimonies in crisp accents,
long Häagen-Dazs walks in Leicester and Trafalgar Square.
But beyond their requests for Oreos and Jiffy Peanut Butter,
I’m not sure what I gave them. Still, the trade was fair.
To 30 Coleraine Road and a 31 year old
Northern Irish Mormon, I gave my hard cider chastity.
In exchange, he gave me black stirrup pumps
from British Home Stores for the feet of my new body.
I wore them shyly. I wore them to church—Britannia First.
Then I wore them home, clapping Decatur’s red brick streets.
I wore them in a blues bar and later slid them off like Illinois
in my childhood bedroom where I called that lisping boy
from Pana I’d always wanted and gave him the London in me.
2013
Celebrate National Poetry Month with NaPoWriMo
What better time to focus on your poetry practice? Join us in writing (um, attempting to write) a poem a day throughout the month of April! For details, writing prompts and support, visit NaPoWriMo.
Flame Language
How long do I have to talk with flame-language
about burning and being burned? How long?
~ Rumi, “The Oven’s Question”
I am trying to understand the way
Morning light absorbs your skin, that distant fire,
Turns your highlights blue. You lap me huge
With sky. At high noon the back of your neck
Speaks crackle sheen with no metaphors, strikes new
Language licking up tongues in me, quickening silence.
I can’t wipe these flames from you! Burning
My hands again and again in the same naked place,
I walk away with prism palms, sucking my fingers.
2013
Colorado Calixta
Outside the world
is every shade
of lazy
white.
My blinds are always
drawn
but not
this Christo
night.
I want
to wake in my
white bed
inside
white
walls
And revel
as a seam
of red where
warm
blood calls.
Outside the world
is every shade
of lazy
white.
My blinds are always
drawn
but not
this Christo
night.
I want
to wake in my
white bed
inside
white
walls
And revel
as a seam
of red where
warm
blood calls.
Outside the world
is every shade
of lazy
white.
My blinds are always drawn
but not
this Christo
night.
I want
to wake in my
white bed
inside white
walls
And revel
as a seam
of red where
warm
blood calls.
