Jamie Parsely

Poetry

 

 

Only Then

 

“When I am dead, even then,

I will still love you, I will

wait in these poems. . . "

 

—Muriel Rukeyser

 

Only then will it come upon you—

then, when I no longer know or feel. Whatever organ it was

that produced emotions, to love will char and turn to grit, to the ash

I have been journey to in this long, dark pilgrimage for years.

 

It will all go—

the ear you spoke to, the eyes that gazed after you

from that sometimes too distant place—

made, in no time, ignorant and cold

in that cremated after-existence

we cannot now comprehend

nor will, no doubt, find familiar.

My love too will be that pulverized self

so easy to dispose of

and wipe from the palms and fingers tips

and bury in the deep, damp earth.

 

Only then, the fiery prophet in me knows,

will it happen to you.

Only then will love loosen like blood inside you.

Only then will it spill through our whole, long body,

from the incessant burning in your ears to your crooked left toe.

Only then---

my prophecy come true—

will you search for some proof that I loved you.

 

Only then will you finally find me—

here in the curves and slashes of these words—

in the commas and apostrophes and dashes.

In these words, sliding into words, broken

and cut and pounded into running jagged edges down the page

will you—

we both know now—

find me.

 

Only then.

 

 

 

Embrace

 

Do I hate this silence

you inflict on me

or do I embrace it

much as we embrace

the splintered wood

we shoulder on our

journey toward

our own Calvaries?

 

I do embrace it

but will not kiss it

or rejoice in it.

I simply hug it to me

and bear it—stumbling,

bloody-kneed,

bruise-shinned,

under its weight

as I have always done.

 

On it, I lay myself

neither quietly

nor without complaint.

But on it I lie

and on it I am lifted up

and exposed for who I am.

On it

splayed

I embrace everything

laid out—

silently—

before me

as I would embrace you

if would only allow me.

 

 

 

Sigh

 

The moon—

eclipsing--

turned milky. Its dark

shadow shimmered for

the better part of an hour.

And then the bony fracture

slid out from beneath the veil.

 

Just this and not one thing more

this endless night.

You too can see it

if you only look. Up

where the O of the window gapes,

revealing, in these long nights,

the stars, distant pastel-colored planets

and this moon.

There where you are

you go on, unaware of this breathy moment

that happens above us

like a sigh—

like the most familiar sigh.

The sigh I imagine

you sighing before

you slip into a sleep

is so much less troubled

than the one I

take with me into this night

which hums ad breathes

with sighs

until the yawn of the dawn

breaks it all to pieces.

 

 

 

Sehnsucht

 

after Rilke

 

So, this is the longing. This is what

it is to live in absolute chaos.

 

This is what it is to have

no home together,

 

no hopes and long-range plans together,

to talk with one another the way we talk to ourselves

 

when we’re alone—

discussing what eternity together

 

would’ve been like.

The hours rise from yesterday

 

and fill the life we should’ve lived together.

These are the loneliest hours—

 

hours without you,

hours which rise up

 

and smirk in the face of eternity.

 

 

 

Jamie Parsley is the author of twelve books of poems, including, most recently,  That Word (North Star Press, 2014)  as well as a collection of short stories, The Downstairs Tenant (2014, NDSU Press). His poems have been published in journals, magazines and anthologies in the US, Britain, Canada and Japan. He received my MFA from Vermont College. In 2004, Jamie was named Associate Poet Laureate of North Dakota by current Poet Laureate Larry Woiwode.