Thursday, March 28, 2013

John Harper - Two Poems

Joyous Range

now among a question
i can’t ask,
and in seeming more so than waiting,
there’s something larger
inside this being, getting nearer—

softly let it ask of me, then,
conflagration angel—whom i thought
as but a pausing desire from my lips—
what of which needs buried, and what of me needs burned
in opal air held high,

unlocking the rounds of peace and war
from tunnels of vast, darkened messages
i’ve scratched out, and cried into,
from the heart of a cold statue watching
space go by, in the moon’s silver light—

in feeling done, or tired, or blinded,
with waiting for an incandescent
answer to come,
what else can i do
but naturally fall within a joyous range—



Mr. Moment

i’m waiting for the true moment to happen,
but sometimes i do see how so very much
it doesn’t occur to me why i believe
it’s actually not already

happening right now, and only right now—
like when letting go a spot
i’ve been gazing at on a stream,
it feels as i’m itself sliding along clear rivulets,

without any focused particulars,
or boundary between—
i tend to heavily stick around, hovering
at either frustrating extreme of best and worst

self-fascinations; and i will do this
till i see what really counts; all of me
must come through the parting thought
that i’m any more than a moment—



John Harper is a graduate of the Writer’s Workshop at Iowa, and has published his poetry in literary journals like Diagram, Mid-American Poetry Review, Cutbank, Spinning Jenny and Zoland Poetry. He was a book finalist with Four Way Books, and has a chapbook called PEEK-A-BOO TERRAIN.

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