Two
poems from Dennis Loney's Casualties of Conveyance
followed
by a note on the author
To
a Starling
O counterfeited song, how dare you rise
from darkling depths to sit among the creased,
refined
relics we brought
across the narrowed sea? Whose cobbled lies
transformed your words and fetched visions policed
by
the still twirling dead?
These bruised and crooked hands conceal their chalk-
white flesh with a dense bouquet of dazzling plumes.
And
yet these hands, store-bought,
practiced at burial and coercive talk,
would tease the grip of each shaft loose – the loons,
godwits
and Buffle-heads –
for you, displaced starling, to steady your walk
and nestle in my furrowed palms, while fumes
grift the mechanical sky until night descends like lead.
This
voice deceives. A stumble is a trick.
The boxwood-purfled garden has changed its shape.
The
koi cast shadows too.
In tethered air a howl peppers a brick
façade while quaking ashes promise escape.
I
see you've been abused,
a casualty of conveyance, strapped
with two mute wings that briefly flickered with bright
discord,
battering the blue
Atlantic coast, the reservoir walls clapped
by tricolor waves, the flexing dams.... The sight
of
you has truly fused
my sense of jaw. Like yours, my future was mapped
by rotting men in guarded graves, the light
skipping off their headstones, anonymous and used.
So
this is where we are, with little sense
of are, with little sense. The asphodels
that
line the walk are encased
in plastic shells, the twisted iron fence
stabs the marmoreal sky; the lethean wells.
I'll
lose my face in its chilled
reserves and drink until a mossy mud
lacquers my lips, and then what? I've raked the earth
with your
decay, debased
your very name and still the rivers flood
these diagrams with neither sorrow nor mirth.
So all
the seeds I've spilled
have rotted from within, and all the blood
I've lost has scattered somewhere else: a birth
and death are everything when neither are fulfilled.
Reflection
of a Woman in a Portrait of Herself
Half sick of shadows, mirrors tucked behind
polished bureaus, the double image found
in pale reflections of photographs her blind
redeemer took, she wanted to be bound
to something tangible, free of a mind
embowered by the past and the waiting ground.
And when the ocean strips it of its gleam,
the spiking waves will spark a violent dream.
Polished
bureaus: the double image found
an ornamental fit, though what she bought,
the redeemer took. She wanted to be bound.
She wanted a single forward-looking thought
embowered by the past. The waiting ground
still waited, knowing that is what she sought.
The spiking waves will spark a violent dream
and sudden ash will cap the sylvan stream.
An
ornamental fit though what she bought
unraveled by design for that is what
she wanted. A single forward-looking thought
escaped from withering leaves. The definitive cut
still waited. Knowing that is what she sought,
the arbiter released her from her rut.
And sudden ash will cap the sylvan streams
when angels turn the whispers into screams.
Unraveled
by design for that is what?
a construct? wind-blown meaning forced upon
the escape of withering leaves? The definitive cut
is nothing but an imaginative pawn.
The arbiter released her from her rut,
and then, we're told, set crosshairs on the dawn.
When angels turn the whispers into screams
a silence will clasp hands with snarled moonbeams.
A
construct: windblown meaning forced upon
a tired tradition, or are we being bold?
Is nothing but an imaginative pawn
distracting us from what the king might hold?
And when we're told, set crosshairs on the dawn.
Our thoughts are not our own. We won't grow old.
A silence will clasp hands with snarled moonbeams
and force upon the child head-spurning teams.
A
tired tradition or are we being bold?
What gross resemblance ushers in a world,
distracting us from what the king might hold?
Mirrors obscuring ... the graceless faces swirled
our thoughts. You're not your own. You won't grow old.
Betrayal of the pact is what unfurled
and forced upon the child a head-spurning
team,
which floated down and caught a doubling scheme.
What
gross resemblance ushers in a world
half sick of shadows? Mirrors tucked behind
mirrors obscuring the graceless faces swirled
in pale reflections of photographs. Her blind
betrayal of the pact is what unfurled
something tangible. Free of a mind,
she floated down and caught a doubling scheme,
and then the ocean stripped it of its gleam.
©
Dennis Loney was born in in Marshalltown, Iowa in 1973, and
was educated at Creighton
University and at Johns Hopkins University, where he obtained
his BA and MA, respectively. He lives in Washington DC and works
as a web professional for the American Chemical Society, a non-profit
membership organization for science professionals. His poems
have appeared in 32 Poems (2004), and in the Sewanee
Theological Review . He was Reader in the Library of Congress
"Poetry at Noon" Series, 2003, received an Outstanding
Graduate Award from Johns Hopkins University in 2003, and was
a semi-finalist in the "Discovery"/The Nation Contest,
92nd Street Y in 2003.mi
"Reflection
of a Woman in a Portrait of Herself" first appeared in
the Sewanee Theological Review.
