Aaron McCollough
Devotional Poem
The darkling bottle. I remember more
excessive days how on the floor was pain
and I was naked as a port-wine stain
to God. Or am I really naked now?
The stretch. Today, a part of you may grow.
Then – a stay against growth – will always stay,
if not like marks, if not like stripes of rain.
The leaf is on the breeze – it rests – it floats.
Prescription. Go. Do this. This open, drink.
The water standing. The sun not up,
not down, my love is here in there in here.
I chase my love into a light that shrinks.
The bottle’s contents poured into a cup.
The leaf in the barrel by the river.
Tractatus
Or it was or as least is seems it was
in cap and face I am that tense to move
oh, touch is what you talk about I prove
with formula of shellfish sepia
my god will not be touched our god will hum
between the humming organs of the land
the mother/father muscle smooth ribbon
it never touches beating fast with sun
unsearchable the judgments are as do
the works declare this god of work and mouth
of work behold my stupor before it
shaking the day loose leaves (wind and window)
reflect against this moving on and out
and out move on to have-got in transit
Bio:
Aaron McCollough's third book of poems, Little Ease, is forthcoming from Ahsahta Press in 2006. His other books include Double Venus (Salt, 2003) and Welkin (Ahsahta, 2002). McCollough's poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Volt, Jacket, Denver Quarterly, Slope, Colorado Review, LIT, American Letters & Commentary, Verse, Typo, and other periodicals. He is a PhD student at the University of Michigan. He has at blog at
http://aaronmccollough.blogspot.com. Also, he edits GutCult.