Sarah Rosenthal: California Poets Part 8, Three Poems
January 8th, 2025
California Poets: Part VIII
Sarah Rosenthal
Three Poems
I Am Compelled to Create the Circle
(written in response to Sandra Murphy-Pak’s painting Atmosphere)
I am compelled
pull, sweep, avalanche
names and stories
the troposphere’s ash and dust
taxing and strenuous
branch, roar, stream
locate sky diagrams
silver-blue night glow
start mixing color
drag, swim, catapult
through layers of burn and freeze
above the stratosphere
I’ve always danced
bend, flex, wriggle
apply the paint
of shooting stars
I landed here
flicker, drift, ripple
awash in blue-green auroras
stretch through the thermosphere
on a black background
squirm, surge, deluge
what wants to be known
above the exopause
to create the circle
slither, burn, float
merge with matter
Sandra Murphy-Pak Atmosphere
Foot painting, mixed media & chalk paint on board
8 x 8 x 1 inches
Bloodflower
(written in response to Melissa Stephens’ painting Daily Remembrance)
There bottom center
of the canvas
the rest
of the painting
entices green
alphabet blue
worlds yellow
daffodil ducklings
but this burgeoning
blossom commands
Blood-hued
bloom signals
emergency a
man rushes into
hospital waiting
room clutches
bicep crimson
ooze “Anyone seen
a doctor?!” We sit
stunned, useless
he rushes on
Or an urgent
silence placid-
faced teen sits
on friend’s floor
others smoke
and chat she
meticulous scrapes
a razored valentine
into inner thigh
blots excess
Or emergence
redslicked
animal slides into
view emits first
howl cord cut or bit sheen
wiped or licked
bundle placed on
waiting chest to
meet, rest, breathe
Signals broken
container the poke
and draw wince
or peek as vial
fills blood
oranges beckon
from grocery bin
mosquito gorges
swat and scratch
bleach white shorts
worn on a moon
day wonder if
ruby beet juice
can be scrubbed
from a cutting
board
Bloodpeony
insists can we
look away from
this thumbprint
festival, flouncing
dance precious
vintage uncorked
for our occasion
Can we we
can but we will
stay right here
surrender return
the gaze
Melissa Stevens Daily Remembrance
Encaustic collage on panel
8 x 6 x 2 inches
Conserve
(written in response to Ruth Boerefyn’s 2018 ArtemisSF installation)
Like god got
orderly or
the wind did,
not belief but
faith, not faith
but service,
not service
but walk
and work
*
*
To walk, to
crunch leaves under
feet, to step,
stroll, stride, to
walk, to take
a walk where
one hasn’t been,
to study fungi,
feel breeze, see
patches of sky
through trees, to
saunter or stride,
encounter lichen
on fallen trunk
spot a nest,
another, another
nest and feel
flutter, where you
are, haven’t
been, where you’ve
arrived, this
place
To return, to a
room, an abode,
the place of one’s
abiding, to get
to work, sliver,
sweep, stitch,
diligent, without
cease, without
thought to increase,
to slice, fold and
smooth, gather,
to mold, to sand,
to cut, durable
infinitives of
the daily, to make,
to make do, to
conserve, to
use what’s given,
tuck, trim, clip,
rip, shape, the
mind plies
memories like
mending
*
To be a hole punched out and drifting to the floor to meet countless ones, to be stepped on and tracked, to be a heap of nothing gathered in a crevasse, in a row of crevasses,
To be a mistake rescued, reused, measured and cut, dampened and bent, rubber-banded, left to dry, stacked against dozens or hundreds of ones, a row of pastel questions, a vessel or lens, a hollow log to rest on or curl in,
To be a book in a row of books, waiting to be reached for, opened,
To be shaved, a shaving, to be gathered, swept into a heap with a thousand others, to rest here, amassed into a bird’s nest, blossom, mushroom,
To be dirt, detritus, leavings, to be nothing, join the commonwealth of nothings,
*
encode this
in her
future fingers
Photo credit: Sarah Rosenthal
Author Bio:
Sarah Rosenthal's books include Manhatten, Estelle Meaning Star, Lizard, A Community Writing Itself: Conversations with Vanguard Writers of the Bay Area, and two collaborations with Valerie Witte: The Grass Is Greener When the Sun Is Yellow and the forthcoming One Thing Follows Another: Experiments in Dance, Art, and Life Through the Lens of Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer. Her collaborative film We Agree on the Sun won Best Experimental Short at the 2021 Berlin Independent Film Festival. She and her collaborators recently completed a second film, Lizard Song. More at sarahrosenthal.net.
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