Jeff Harrison


Beneath The Ray

A star, Virginia, glacial as its swaddling of farthest night, spoke — oh, but they were songs fairer than any rose — to me of a crown brighter and higher. Will Virginia share her lyrist — but, oh!, is forgetful that ray, fleeting as doubt of surest crown? — when I conclude rose was in her mentions the cipher for a star? O, the constancy of the rose, and how like imaginings! Virginia, had I the crown that charms the star, no discrepancy of breast from lyre could be found, though beneath the ray of the brightest crown.

from Postmortem Series

82*        16
-16**     8*
53

10**

7**     / Forfend
91        / Misplace

65**
12
47*

(One asterisk represents a circle or box; two asterisks, crossed out with a diagonal line.)


Proteus

I was one whom every red heart termed frightfully clever, yet I could feign no forgetfulness of incorruptible Proteus, his feigns plenteous as the phlogiston in Phlegethon, Proteus scripted for eternal praise, the eternal praise I feign here with O to be a nymph, perorated the nymphs, chose for his model and promptly divine!

Jeff Harrison has poems in all the issues of Otoliths except the second issue. He has publications from MAG Press, Writers Forum, Persistencia Press, and Furniture Press. He has two e-books at xPress(ed), and one at Blazevox. His poetry has appeared in The Hay(na)ku Anthology Vol. II, Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics, Nerve Lantern: Axon of Performance Literature, Xerography, Moria, NOON: journal of the short poem, Big Bridge, and elsewhere. He has an interview blog with Allen Bramhall called Antic View.

 
 
 
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