Works in Progress, 3

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #8

air of purity,
household
fresh white wood

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #7

in cold weather,
the path
the blunt impact

Works in Progress, 2

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #6

dark
rustling
flew away

Works in Progress

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #5

his open-necked kimono
bitter regret

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #4

torii in front
stone steps,
in the dawn

"I placed one word beside another and finally with a great deal
of effort managed to create a whole sentence--naturally not one
that 'meant something' but one that was composed of word-
nuances. It was the hidden meaning that I was seeking--a kind
of Alchimie du Verbe. One word has its meaning and another
has its own, but when they are brought together something
strange happens to them: they have an in-between connotation
at the same time as they retain their original individual meanings . . . Poetry is this very tension-filled relationship between the words, between the lines, between meanings."

--Gunnar Ekelöf, tr. Auden & Sjöberg

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #3

broad clearing
gravel path
full force

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #2

clogs,
morning sun,
and green

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #1

the frost
when
wooden

Mourner

When the new book arrived, he threw
the old book away. He made common

cause with known saxophonists, shabby
worn-out things unworthy of our notice.

Remarks containing acid he poured on
each and every, circulating among the

assembled mourners, whispering,
"What a pity!" and "Such a shame

he had to die so young, before his song
had ended." He used to say one learned

from one's mistakes, but he really knew
better. It's his turn now, I hesitate to say.


--Halvard Johnson

Rockstrewn Hills Join In: A Brief Requiem for Charles Ives

Almost yesterday the mountain lake
the character of his friend
What is behind it all?
Streams that flow through the garden
of consciousness

An evening train
Through pine-swept atmosphere
even the fishes in the pond
no longer hear rumbles

We paint it all with any color
left at hand--the heart left alone chain
No wagon hitched to it
Certain vision truths translate
into afterglow

Monotone days
more introspective than others
Swan songs heard faintly
in the offing

Words echo up
over tongue-and-groove flooring
A thorax or two at high
tide

Seasons like corn
You don't know them
unless you love them

Yet the mind universal
if the arc of Nature be completed

Let chips fall wherever
When sun blows through I'll say
any damn thing I feel like

[after texts by Charles Ives]

--Halvard Johnson