Michael Rothenberg

Cold and summer rains

Sound exists only as its going out of existence

I hear it go away
Cars on the road, deterioration of a wave
Rushing to write it down
I cant say it so youll remember
Rushing to spell it out

Sweep

Sweep

Pine needles

Sweep

Away

I never heard the spring or winter command
shedding leaf clutter
but under this heap a better design

a brick formalism, a mosaic

So when I read what I write out loud
Even I will know the evaporation of silence
from words I couldnt figure out
even if I planned to figure them out

The silk hydrangea
The wild yellow-petalled bell
tilt against the peeling house
in a dash of sun through a muffle of fog cloud

I remember what I saw before I heard it fall

Michael Rothenberg is editor of Big Bridge, www.bigbridge.org, and co-editor of JACK Magazine, www.jackmagazine.com and most recently editor of Overtime, Selected Poems by Philip Whalen (Penguin Putnam, Inc.). He has published several books of poems including Favorite Songs, Nightmare of the Violins, and What The Fish Saw. The Paris Journals is out now from Fish Drum, Inc. http://www.fishdrum.com/news.html. He is also the author of the novel Punk Rockwell (Tropical Press).

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