Mantis 18 (Spring 2020)
New Poetry
Sharon Dolin
3 poems from Oblique Strategies after Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt
Do nothing for as long as possible
until static becomes mantic
resonates into hectic music
until it is not the absence of movement
but the movement of your absence.
As God withdrew and contracted
to make room for the world
contract and withdraw to make
a womb for the word
which is not silent as Cage
well knew: the mind dances best
in the shadow of sound
which is never the absence of light:
who said darkness
is the right hand of light—
how else read letters without
the black fire on white?
Only a part, not a whole
is what you do best:
feather » petal » fingernail » take five
lines now make a portrait
five words make a line
as dog’s belly to cool
wood floor » droplet not downpour
pulse not throb » one bead
not the necklace » one person
not the tribe » not every
crow murders not every hen
broods nor every raven conspires
nor every hummingbird charms » you:
no minyan same of fingers
toes » stylus of woe » pluck
a smile of quaver » each
partial thing glows as solo
one jay on the fence
makes a party of blue.
Turn it upside down
As in your life: in what you hold
what you push away
the feet have their own kind
of mind
like a child’s painting—
red stabs on blue look
devil one way spikes
of abstract fire when flipped
everyone says race and you
start to run
everyone says immigrant sundown
and forgets to write home
everyone says stranger
and checks their surname at the door
everyone says wall and forgets
their own great- great- who
scaled them all.
SHARON DOLIN is the award-winning author of six poetry collections, most recently Manual for Living (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016). Her translation from Catalan of Gemma Gorga’s Book of Minutes appeared in the Field Translation Series (Oberlin College Press, 2019). Her memoir Hitchcock Blonde is forthcoming from Terra Nova Press in 2020. She lives in New York City where she is Associate Editor of Barrow Street Press and directs Writing About Art in Barcelona.