NOVEMBER POETRY

Two  Philip  Marley  Poems 


not titled

With the rich missed
for the last time, and
our eyes wiped of
grief, the gazing up, over,
done, and our homes now
facing Babylon; — it seems
time to let out the pink rabbits;
sing for what’s unbidden;
sight the silent hoof in dim
moonlight; brush; ask
the time of every home in
Bedlam; fling back the trollies;
wave our handkerchiefs as
hammers; and come back
through the same eye of
the needle.



An Ontology of Chairs

the image of the
child dancing on
a narrow chair,
stamped as the
seal of the universe.

wide chairs at
the tops of stairs
to protect us
from dreams-
within-dreams.

when you licked
my face
because our chairs
were
touching.

that raised chair
for those
who have the Latin:
sedes.

any fire you
set that
burns a chair
a potential
reader.

the child
dances until
Tereus eats
alone
at his ancestral chair.

though I tremble
with the thought
of being eaten, any
lone chair wrings out
my death.

all the hard
bones carved
into us; half-
blind from chair’s
truing.

too many
chairs
have been asked
to hold
a mind together.

a blue heron
on a chair— still,
calm, heedful —
my thin legs,
my wings.



Philip Marley | Toronto | Fall 2015