Jessica Grim


Waiting for the Cedar Waxwings

Waiting
for the cedar waxwings
or the other
shoe      where text
meets loss

as a way of making note
of a thousand
former thoughts

community of 
flat notes

misconstrued terminus
my poor tram, bashed up
martyrdom scold    now
how come the violent
can’t deplane

orderly pins
going into
our skin
a whole foot closer
to mayhem



My Famous Friend

My famous friend
the atmosphere

which cannot 
have been of interest
to the “explorers”
urging the tide
to turn

only    the shrinkage
accompanying lethargy

but an ordered world
was not or
not fully or not
in a fashion easily recognized
by the inhabitants

despite their trying
on any day on earth

paltry half-mast squib
an error of beauty 
interrupts

looking out of
these same eyes
“catching us up”
the small tests
of living



Terror Fluctuates

Terror fluctuates on the horizon
like compressed CO2 which
materially    misses
our demise
by a minute

the future  the dark    takes 
is a familiar turn
silence remembered
from hours ago
after the dogs
finally went quiet

human contrails the web
we lift ourselves by

the angel of doubt
lives a double life



Erie Seiche

Erie seiche
   in late summer 
           an erasure
     threatening      to envelop
or to rest more heavily
in any case
than its weight 
would suggest

lattice
upon which     we imagine
a fantastical     thriving
while the world
politely
positions itself
for extinction

the mollifying presence
of the clock

some still
or swallowed air
out the windows

each day’s in
each day’s way



Consider It

Consider it
subtext, the meme
home alone
with the hard liquor

where will our
deliverables      stay

an average game-time
spend

figurative ennui of
middle age      driven by
hollowed out ideation skid,
practical littering 
of epithets

critical trace of having
dreamed a house a
fluttering off
of intention

tail end of the logic
preparing to configure
itself

all the westerlies &
easterlies        combined

habit infringement

Jessica Grim is author of multiple books of poetry; recent work has appeared in Brooklyn Rail. With Melanie Neilson she co-founded/edited Big Allis (1989-2000). Excerpts of a long-form collaboration with Neilson, The Autobiography of Jean Foos, have appeared in various magazines, and a recent collaboration with Melanie and Jean Foos, Alsop's Tables, was published as a chapbook by Ragged Sky. She lives in NE Ohio.

 
 

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