3 Poems, for 3 Days

Alas, the experiment was doomed to failure, of course. Missed the last two days. So, here we have 3 poems for 3 days. Three imposing women poets, presented in reverse alphabetical order.

OMENS by Louise Glück

I rode to meet you: dreams
like living beings swarmed around me
and the moon on my right side
followed me, burning.

I rode back: everything changed.
My soul in love was sad
and the moon on my left side
trailed me without hope.

To such endless impressions
we poets give ourselves absolutely,
making, in silence, omen of mere event,
until the world reflects the deepest needs of the soul.

after Alexander Pushkin

* * * * * * * * * * 

SOME AFTERNOONS SHE DOES NOT PICK UP THE PHONE by Anne Carson

It is February. Ice is general. One notices different degrees of ice.

Its colours -- blue white brown greyblack silver -- vary.

Some ice has core bits of gravel or shadows inside. 

Some is smooth as a flank, you cannot stand on it.

Standing on it the wind goes thin, to shreds.

All we wished for, shreds.

The little ones cannot stand on it.

Not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, can stand.

Blindingly -- what came through the world there -- burns.

It is February. Ice is general. One notices different degrees of ice.

* * * * * * * * * *

SCUMBLE by Rae Armantrout 

What if I were turned on by seemingly innocent words

such as "scumble," "pinky," or "extrapolate?"

What if I maneuvered conversation in the hope that 

others would pronounce these words? 

Perhaps the excitement would come from the way the 

other person touched them lightly and carelessly with 

his tongue.

What if "of" were such a hot button?

"Scumble of bushes."

What if there were a hidden pleasure

in calling one thing

by another's name?