RIP, Franz Wright. Another link in my personal poetry safety net undone. One that connected James Wright (obviously), John Berryman and Bill Knott. One that suspends me, sometimes barely, above the ground. One I know is ever-fraying. We’ll return to our regular form, and self, on Monday.
Wright wrote in a variety of styles. Following are two pieces from his 2011 collection of prose poems Kindertotenwold that are less about being representative of his work than illustrative of my sadness.
“BLADE”
If I stare into it long enough, the point comes when I don’t know what it’s called, a condition in which lacerations are liable to occur, like a slip of the tongue; when a single drop of blood might billow in a glass of water, blooming in velvet detonation and imparting to it the colorless, tasteless, and sourceless fear in which I wake.
“SONG”
Wisteria rain, where is your child-mother? This must be the last bee on earth. So, you find no more grandeur or mystery here? Perhaps you neglected to bring any. Heckling sparrows, vast electron cloud of gnats on windless water. Night blue volume in a language no one reads … Are we tired yet? Are you finished debating the blind who insist that light doesn’t exist, and have proof of it? Nobody’s alone, God is alone. If you liked being born, you’ll love dying.
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