Peter Yovu


Rhymes with Levy: an Impromptu for John     

Not heavy. 

Peavey: a kind of lever
for rolling logs. Felling trees
for firewood, I used to need one.
Sometimes I needed a lift,
having fallen under
my own weight.

John Levy, do you see how
often it comes back to me?
You do, because so little
is lost on you. You find the one
drop of rain that
remains on the Saguaro’s
spine, you see the world
in that, and when it falls

it’s world falling to world
there’s nowhere better to be. 



Dave Read’s Asemic Writing

Have your fingers found 
written on the skin-deep walls 
of their labyrinthine tips
alphabets only feelingly known?

Lacework left by waves dissolving 
where continents begin;
the scripted chatter 
of crabs who inter-
weave a macrame of tracks.



Grand Central

He’s running for his train and doesn’t pause to pick up the coin he dropped. It 
follows a short distance behind him like a tiny wheel that has
come off a toy car, then turns this way and that on the marble floor,
pivots, pirouettes,  and slowing further and further down falls at last
to the clatter of its own applause. 



The Rip

The two edges of a rip
in the cover of my
copy of Lorine Niedecker’s
complete writings do not quite 
come together. Under yellowing tape
they look like lightning. 



Just Beyond
				for Joseph Aversano

Just beyond
some grumbling
grackles on lawn

patrol
the viridescent 
twitter of 

vireos  unseen among
maple leaves 
in spring

and 
who is 


listening

Peter Yovu lives in North Central Vermont. Just recently he decided that unless some form of love is the basis for a poem, for a person, creature, place, memory or inner uncertainty to which attention is freely given, it is best to let it go.

 
 

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