THE CRITIC WRITES POEMS

By William Allegrezza


Twenty 14

through i block
the wind, shield
myself from
the rain, i
still listen
to the howl
and remember
you with sand
in your eyes
arriving
like water
spreading
through gray
over everything.


+++++

Twenty 15

i felt for you in me
for stillness and found
a voice speaking
numbers and words
past the long expanse
yet offering no
requite from confusion,
just remote forms
of our dance in
others’ feet and knew
we must work,
worlds apart,
gradually to learn
our own constellations


+++++

Twenty 18

the port bell sounds and resounds
just beyond where we would
stop, but we say, it’s morning,
the rain is coming slowly, and
we are, at last, vagrants searching
the sidewalks of the city for
stillness, though we have no plans
to take the usual soundings when
the passage narrows. across
the expanse, we are speaking to
old anchors thrown overboard,
to boats heading to no arrival,
but our answers with no moors
float on water randomly turning.


+++++

Twenty 19

to scorched noon i ache through;
the water turning slowly in the
pool, the haze of blue hills just
beyond on the horizon’s edge.

and i call for grain and seaweed,
for eyes and fruit, wanting to
believe that what has grown with sun
is knowable in this brief breath.

still, what arrives is the yearning to
remain luminous at night in the waves
crashing frenzied on the barren shore,
though, here in full light, all i
can do is wait and search for a
way out to be carried back.


*****

William Allegrezza edits the e-zine Moria and the press Cracked Slab Books. He has published five books, In the Weaver's Valley, Ladders in July, Fragile Replacements, Collective Instant, and Covering Over; one anthology, The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century; seven chapbooks, including Sonoluminescence (co-written with Simone Muench) and Filament Sense (Ypolita Press); and many poetry reviews, articles, and poems. He curates series A, a reading series in Chicago dedicated to experimental writing. In addition, he occasionally posts his thoughts at http://allegrezza.blogspot.com.