FALL/ WINTER 2008



Mario Petrucci

ONE SAILING

i am – this steady light of boat
ruddered upward through
dark by flame

as though sea
took to verticals so
one flicker might float &

as all creeps downward that
lone stub-mast draws
other sails to

steer by its light
or cast nets together &
strengthen prows on dark like

hands prayered towards water
or a light-drop hung by
cable to fill rooms

– light falling
upward yet anchored
to pupil-dark at the heart


thus do i light me
& watch me burn this
small measure of body to

choose what i do by its light
before my white sliver
adrift with dark

sputters behind
far headlands bearing
one head with it – one dark

head leant into the stroke
& on the shore that
statued face

vacating &
where the buddha
smile was buoyed this


slight curvature of space




Mario Petrucci "draws on the nature of raw experience and revives it in an incredibly accurate, poignant way" (Cambridge Student). Heavy Water: a poem for Chernobyl captured the Daily Telegraph/ Arvon Prize and became the subject of a major international film (winning the 2007 Cinequest award in the USA). Flowers of Sulphur (Enitharmon, 2007) and somewhere is January (Perdika, 2007) consolidate Petrucci's growing reputation for combining linguistic experimentation with emotional intensity and establish a rare case of British kinship with American writers from Levertov to Olson.

 


 

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