Welcome to The Rumpus’s National Poetry Month project. We’ll be running a new poem from a different poet each day for the month of April.
Mnemosyne to the Poet
For you, memory is but
an oil lamp to snuff, left to
smoke. Diademed by earth’s
velvet mantle. So easy
for you to ignore: hadal
press of sea, the open
vein’s tasseled plumes,
how they wheel
like a maelstrom up & down.
My sight spills through
waves of old, blown
glass. I am not permitted
to turn, pillow to cheek,
& wait for sleep to find me.
Am not permitted
to learn how not to look.
If you like what the Rumpus is doing for National Poetry Month, you’ll probably like this multimedia anthology of original poems we’ve run at The Rumpus over the last three years. Available only for iPad. Check it out!
