John Lee Clark

THE OFFSPRING

Listen to the audio version read by Sean Mahoney.

an erasure of William Wilfred Campbell's "An Autumn Reverie"

There is a humming
I scarcely touch.

Presaging breath stirred
in revolving glory.

Loves find easings
from sorrow.

Declining to end our lives,
a falling morning.

Streaming through mossy fields
the flowers hold me.

Heirs speak
of a common beauty.

Can my plant gather
the name of all children?

Obedience places being.

Love
is a happy click.

Elude me, heights.

In pausing,
half-filled, trembling,
thought 's thought soars.

Beyond pores flow senses.

 

THE VALEDICTION

Listen to the audio version read by Sean Mahoney.

an erasure of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Beauty 's Pageant," "Genius in Beauty," "Silent Noon," "Hoarded Joy," and "Barren Spring"

What culminating marvels, full of moods! Form within
Love 's movement stemmed joy again. Words

Like Homer 's hand compassed Spring 's gifts. Sovereign wall,
Are wires indomitable likewise? Shallower power

Hands blooms and skies round with parsley. Silence
In blue is our companioned silence.

Not sweet but in fulness the fruit eat
I. Floats the summer free like

Turning sails. Now it comes. Life. Dead today
Is this serpent 's face. Gaze Shrivels.

 

THE LAUNCH

Listen to the audio version read by Sean Mahoney.

an erasure of Sarah Anne Curzon's "To the Indian Summer"

Come, beautiful arrested hand!

Farewell, cheeks!

Advancing, can eyes tear
beauty from the lost sun?

Fingers enlacing,
choose a praise!

On tiptoe,
restore the tender nature!

And girded fruit,
measure air!

Wings rustling, welcome!

Lithe dependants,
how we smile!

 

American Poetry Review, The Nation, The Paris Review, and Poetry, which recently awarded him the Frederick Bock Prize. His collection of essays collection Where I Stand (Handtype Press, 2014). He makes his home in Hopkins, Minnesota.