Noah Falck

@noahfalck.bsky.social

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poems inside grain silos / on sidewalks / in the books that change our lives

THE POEM by David Ignatow I want something dancing and screaming in front of me, calling itself a poem.
A Study of Three Crows by Larry Levis Three crows in a high tree In April Possess heaven. It is in their black feathers Shining like mud, Or it is nowhere. At the town's edge, Where the fumes are eternal, They feed on garbage, Or fly up slowly, Having fed, to overlook toys In yards with no grass — Their voices the sound of tools Being sharpened In some garage in the suburbs. Crows are the color of soil After long rain ... They strut back and forth, Owning it all. And their gold eyes, When looked at closely, shine Without any character. They have been here a long time, Rolling their r's, and waiting. Behind them, it is night. The stars are All in their places.
from Madness, Rack, and Honey by Mary Ruefle I get so very tired of having to talk about literature. I didn’t begin writing because I wanted to sit in a room and talk about the construction of subjectivity in Wordsworth and Ashbery; I began writing because I had made friends with the dead: they had written to me, in their books, about life on earth and I wanted to write back and say yes, house, bridge, river, hair, no maybe, never, forever.
Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem by Matthew Olzmann So here’s what I’ve got, the reasons why our marriage might work: Because you wear pink but write poems about bullets and gravestones. Because you yell at your keys when you lose them, and laugh, loudly, at your own jokes. Because you can hold a pistol, gut a pig. Because you memorize songs, even commercials from thirty years back and sing them when vacuuming. You have soft hands. Because when we moved, the contents of what you packed were written inside the boxes. Because you think swans are overrated and kind of stupid. Because you drove me to the train station. You drove me to Minneapolis. You drove me to Providence. Because you underline everything you read, and circle the things you think are important, and put stars next to the things you think I should think are important, and write notes in the margins about all the people you’re mad at and my name almost never appears there.
Weather Forecast by Linda Pastan Somewhere it is about to snow, if not in the northern suburbs, then in the west, if not there, then here. And the wind which is camouflaged now by the perfect stillness of trees will make some weathercock dizzy with its fickle breath. In the blood's failing heat we wait for the verdict of snow. You bite into an apple with the sound boots make crunching through the first icy layers. The whites of your eyes are cold. The moons of your nails are frozen mounds. A single match striking against the bottom of a shoe is our only prayer.
Dear Reader by James Tate I am trying to pry open your casket with this burning snowflake. I'll give up my sleep for you. This freezing sleet keeps coming down and I can barely see. If this trick works we can rub our hands together, maybe start a little fire with our idenification papers. I don't know but I keep working, working half hating you, half eaten by the moon.
River by John Ashbery It thinks itself too good for These generalizations and is Moved on by them. The opposite side Is plunged in shade, this one In self-esteem. But the center Keeps collapsing and re-forming The couple at a picnic table (but It's too early in the season for picnics) Are traipsed across by the river's Unknowing knowledge of its workings To avoid possible boredom and the stain Of too much intuition the whole scene Is walled behind glass. "Too early," She says, "in the season." A hawk drifts by. "Send everyone back to the city."
Nature Is Art by Sara Nicholson Despair desires despair; desire Despairs of desiring. Despair despairs Of ever again desiring to desire Despair, while desire desires A form: a garden in the orthodox Narrative, flowering ex nihilo From April to October in the Roman De la Rose, the Belle Epoque. But what would happen if desire Abandoned desire, desiring In lieu of desire despair, an elegy That would suffice to burn The garden down? It was desire Despair desired until desire Fell into despair, built a replica Of the garden it had only just Yesterday burned: a copy of a copy Now lost, complete with fake Flowers. Not a fire, but gold leaf.
BELOW FREEZING by Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Robert Bly We are at a party which doesn’t love us. Finally the party lets the mask fall and shows what it is: a shunting station for freight cars. In the fog cold giants stand on their tracks. A scribble of chalk on the car doors. One can’t say it aloud, but there is a lot of repressed violence here. That is why the furnishings seem so heavy. And why it is difficult to see the other thing present: a spot of sun that moves over the house walls and over the unaware forest of flickering faces, a biblical saying never let down: “Come unto me, for I am as full of contradictions as you” I work the next morning in a different town. I drive there in a hum through the dawning hour which resembles a dark blue cylinder. Orion hangs over the frost. Children stand in a silent clump, waiting for the school bus, the children no one prays for. The light grows as gradually as our hair.
Poem Excluding Shower Scene The entire world is room temperature. Sunlight bleeds over the city, and the mallwalkers gather to form a sort of nervous system or fatigue performance, we say. Consumers storm the sale racks. It sounds more and more like like music through pregnant skin. And today every child is born into whatever space is available. We wait for snowfall — maybe learn another language. A language built around the idea of far, far away.