Poetry (please sample, but do not reproduce w/o my permission):
Throw Words on the Fire
for now I have had to lay down
my quiver of pencils
put aside my fat sable brushes
still flush with water—
there are too many images already
images that are endlessly repeated
wherever I turn
red images tinged with orange
that flash and are gone
gray images outlined in black
that swell and rise like the thermals
made visible
wind-swept particles
of yellow ochre that disable
the mighty fighting machines
and burrow under the loose folds of cloth
to worry the weary skin
of guileless soldiers who
they have learned
had not been adequately
informed of what lay ahead
as they stormed out of the bay
ready for action
onto the plains
of the country
they had been ordered
to save
we had been told to expect?
those of welcoming smiles
and hands raised in jubilation
eyes filled with glittering tears of relief
and thanksgiving—
to narrow channels desperate for water
the hands lowered
to snatch their neighbor’s share
of the limited food being
distributed
the eyes are dark and silent as
trees struck by lightning:
they rebuke me
yet all I can do
is throw words on the fire
—©Katherine
Fishburn,
Pain: The Curator’s Description
each morning
the sleepwalkers
disgorged from the depths
and the cells of their automobiles
cover the street in search of the day
their thoughts in advance
of the pace their bodies can keep
already seated before the machines
by which they will determine their worth
unseen at their feet
at the base of the buildings
the bundles of rags
that rise and collapse with the rasp
of walking pneumonia stayed for the night
not yet awake
nor deeply asleep
their hopes for the future
in the tightly bound plastic
held like a child in the curve of their belly
yesterday’s newspapers
folded neatly inside
lining the cast of their fortune
out
of exhaustion
a
chair is born
in
the shape of a body at rest
yet
the body at rest is but an illusion—
only
the bundles of striated muscles
pause
at their spirited game
for the rest
all else is motion
freed
from the need to maintain
a
stable relation to the world
the
body at rest
can whip out
a froth
of tangents
heated and fluid
as
plasma
that zip through
the indifference
of
space
at the speed of light
generating
winds that
split open
the column
of night
like a prism—
as
particles of thought
unfettered by gravity
charge through
the
bars of convention
and slip with the ease of neutrinos
through whatever inertial mass
would
resist them
the body at rest
contemplates action
—©Katherine
Fishburn, 2004
The
Man Who Murdered My Friend
—for Robert
who murdered my friend and then shot
himself
as the police closed in. From the news reports
it sounds as though he killed
the only person who believed
that he could turn his life around.
Every
unexpected death raises questions
but
even if some questions can be answered,
in the end
murder defies all logic.
We
surround ourselves with objects,
some
cherished because of the rich memories
they
evoke, some useful to our daily lives.
We
fill our calendars with appointments
to
meet business associates, to visit the doctor,
to
hang out with friends, to listen to music.
This
is what it means to be alive. This is life.
Each
day we survive merely delays our death
another
twenty-four hours. Yet every death
we encounter catches us off guard.
It
cannot be that the very same individual
whom we saw yesterday
or
were to have had lunch with today, is gone,
leaving
us bereft of tomorrows.
No more lunches—
no
meetings no hugs no
laughter no conversation.
Desperate
to give shape to what we have lost,
we piece together, as we would a quilt,
the colorful scraps of the past.
Although the activity
of
stitching a life back together in words brings
us comfort,
what we create
does not keep us warm.
For
warmth we must turn to each other, the survivors
who
mourn the death of our friend—and, to honor
what
he believed in, we must accept his judgment
that
there was also something worth mourning
in
the life of the man who murdered him.
—©Katherine
Fishburn
