Noelle Kocot
After the Purity
Boredom is anger? So you say. Paramount
Music with its struck pitch, I never meant
You to be a mere guest in my petunia pot!
The dimmed philosophy gunning thick in
My blood, my boring purity & its gory shadow,
How can anyone take the figurative nib
With its occasional bristling and put it away
Somewhere warm? The last few seconds
Of a dream pass once, pass twice, now, there,
You can hold onto them. Sweetness of an
Itch, the rise of chaos through the leaves,
An imaginary river running through my
Numbed toes. It is the greenness of love,
What I'm telling you shamefully, a bird perched
On a cone in the middle of nowhere—where I
Eat and drink beyond compromise, con vigor.
Boredom is anger? So you say. Paramount
Music with its struck pitch, I never meant
You to be a mere guest in my petunia pot!
The dimmed philosophy gunning thick in
My blood, my boring purity & its gory shadow,
How can anyone take the figurative nib
With its occasional bristling and put it away
Somewhere warm? The last few seconds
Of a dream pass once, pass twice, now, there,
You can hold onto them. Sweetness of an
Itch, the rise of chaos through the leaves,
An imaginary river running through my
Numbed toes. It is the greenness of love,
What I'm telling you shamefully, a bird perched
On a cone in the middle of nowhere—where I
Eat and drink beyond compromise, con vigor.
The Age of Anxiety
I won't edit this storm. The mirrored sidewalks
Can be imagined by these shadows, the face
Leaping from lamplight. If you abhor doors,
How will you then sleep the temperature of
The golden day? Scavengers—you go elsewhere.
Surrender first the smoke that comes from
Thinking with its mad colors of pilgrims and
Jump. I have a sure sign of periphery
And distance. The bright numerals do their
Dance, and the windows hang open like a threat.
I won't edit this storm. The mirrored sidewalks
Can be imagined by these shadows, the face
Leaping from lamplight. If you abhor doors,
How will you then sleep the temperature of
The golden day? Scavengers—you go elsewhere.
Surrender first the smoke that comes from
Thinking with its mad colors of pilgrims and
Jump. I have a sure sign of periphery
And distance. The bright numerals do their
Dance, and the windows hang open like a threat.
11.3.14
Stigma of stigmas—since when have I cared?
The paramount sky, our pleasures, our thoughts
Are only yawns. A fugue, a blossom. The life
Brims. Content to be a lake—oh, who would
Offer me that much? A glass of wine, a dream
At a river. My trusted ones, who will take you
For a glass of lemonade, clasp your legs with
Inevitability? We are carrying on to the sun we know,
And we will meet again. Site brimming with
Natural law, the moony extinction of our blood,
Charm without sleep, shamefaced, we start out.
Stigma of stigmas—since when have I cared?
The paramount sky, our pleasures, our thoughts
Are only yawns. A fugue, a blossom. The life
Brims. Content to be a lake—oh, who would
Offer me that much? A glass of wine, a dream
At a river. My trusted ones, who will take you
For a glass of lemonade, clasp your legs with
Inevitability? We are carrying on to the sun we know,
And we will meet again. Site brimming with
Natural law, the moony extinction of our blood,
Charm without sleep, shamefaced, we start out.
Noelle Kocot is the author of six books of poems, most recently, Soul in Space (Wave Books, 2013). She has also translated some of the poems of Tristan Corbiere from French, and they appear in a book called Poet by Default (Wave, 2011). Noelle has won numerous awards for her work, including those from The Academy of American Poets, The American Poetry Review, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Lannan Literary Foundation and The Fund for Poetry. Her work has been widely anthologized, including in Best American Poetry 2001, 2012 and 2013 and in Postmodern American Poems, a Norton Anthology. Her work has been translated and read in at least 15 different countries. She was born and raised in Brooklyn and now lives in New Jersey and teaches writing in New York City.
