Geof Huth

Reading the Charm

Within
eleven
pages
greyness
changed
to
gray

leaving
me
to wonder
if the poet
changed
his spelling
or

his mind
deciding
maybe
that grey
was too
gray for
this poem

or gray
was
inadequately
grey for
the mood
of the first
poem

or he
didn’t
care
didn’t
notice
couldn’t
be bothered

with the
vagaries
of English
spelling
which
couldn’t
expect

faithfulness
since it
never
remained
faithful itself
to any pattern
for long

A Poen

As I read
the poems
slowly
turning
pages
page by
page

my dog
walks
click-click-click-click-click
across the
hardwood
floor
creating

a
separate
rhythm
for the
poem
a new
cadence

and I
read
a poem
about a
song or
woods or
even words

and I
hear
a poem
about a
dog
click-click-clicking
across

the floor
of a poem
in search
of a word
so sweet
his nose
cannot resist

Question

Is Thénard’s
blue
the proper
color of
the ball
of the
thumb

and does
it only
reveal
itself so
in the most
delicate
porcelain

hands
of a young
lady
her fingers
held up
to the
sunlight?

Repetitions

It is only
the rep-
etitions
that
interest
me
because

it is
the rep-
etitions
that
make
possible
the music

dancing
the cock-
ing of
the head
against
a beat
the snap

of finger
against
the ball
of the
thumb
the mons
pubis

of the
hand
a fat
fleshy
muscle
sturdy
in place

it anchors
the hand
allows it
to clap
over and
over
until

we hear
not a clap
but a roar
a roaring
a repetition
that is
simply one

Geof Huth is an American who has lived on most continents on earth (but not Australia). Over the years, he has created visual and other poems in a wide variety of formats: lineated verse, prose, paintings, drawings, and films. He has been published in venues as diverse as The American Poetry Review, Dreams and Nightmares, Kalligram, Lost and Found Times, Modern Haiku, La Poire D'Angoisse, Prakalpana Literature, ZYX, and atop bandaids. His chapbook of visual poems, Out of Character, was recently published by Paper Kite Press. He writes almost daily on visual poetry at his blog dbqp: visualizing poetics. Geof is one of the two Geof Huths in the world; the other lives in Australia.

 
 
 
previous page     contents     next page