"Countermeasures"

I came across this poem in the January 2013 issue of Poetry. It has ducks in it, so I was, of course, an immediate fan.

 

"Countermeasures"

Sara Miller 

 

I wish I could keep my thoughts in order

and my ducks in a row.

I wish I could keep my ducks in a thought

or my thoughts in a duck.

My point is that we all exist, wetly, in the hunt.

The ducks are aware of this

in their own way, which is floating.

The way of the mind is brevity.

There may be other thoughts on other days

in the minds of other and better men

and their constant companions, the women,

but these same tidy capsules — never.

This is just one of the things

I noticed about my thoughts

as they passed easefully by.

"The Lie"

I first encountered this poem in the September 2009 issue of Poetry Magazine and thought it was pretty darn creepy and haunting. Now I'm thinking about using it in "Creepy Lit" this fall. Thoughts? Bonus: there's audio of the poet reading it at this site.

"The Lie" 

Don Paterson

As was my custom, I’d risen a full hour

before the house had woken to make sure

that everything was in order with The Lie,

his drip changed and his shackles all secure.

I was by then so practiced in this chore

I’d counted maybe thirteen years or more

since last I’d felt the urge to meet his eye.

Such, I liked to think, was our rapport.

I was at full stretch to test some ligature

when I must have caught a ragged thread, and tore

his gag away; though as he made no cry,

I kept on with my checking as before.

Why do you call me The Lie? he said. I swore:

it was a child’s voice. I looked up from the floor.

The dark had turned his eyes to milk and sky

and his arms and legs were all one scarlet sore.

He was a boy of maybe three or four.

His straps and chains were all the things he wore.

Knowing I could make him no reply

I took the gag before he could say more

and put it back as tight as it would tie

and locked the door and locked the door and locked the door

Maybe it's too creepy? Too disturbing? Too weird? I don't know. And man...that last stanza, which inverts the rhyme scheme and then chillingly repeats "locked the door," is just so good.

"Psalm to Be Read with Closed Eyes"

I came across this rather haunting and meditative little poem a couple of weeks ago while catching up on issues of Poetry. That last image--of the child carried up to bed by his father--is just perfect, especially as a metaphor for getting through "the last days." I also love the contradiction inherent in a Psalm being "read" with "closed eyes," echoed in the idea of maybe being awakened but not knowing it. Terrific stuff.

"Psalm to Be Read with Closed Eyes"

 By D. Nurkse

 

Ignorance will carry me through the last days,

the blistering cities, over briny rivers

swarming with jellyfish, as once my father

carried me from the car up the tacked carpet

to the white bed, and if I woke, I never knew it.