Monday, April 2, 2012

THE BRANDED WOMAN & OTHER POEMS by Jefferson Hansen

AlteredScalePress is off and running with its first publication: my chapbook of poems The Branded Woman and Other Poems. (See me read "The Branded Woman" on this blog.) 


The future is promising for the press.


If you want a copy, send $7.50 (check made out to "Jefferson Hansen"), to Jefferson Hansen, PO Box 8303, Mpls, MN 55408-8303. 



I Want to Die 
sun behind branches 
shadows dapple fresh snow

and I want to die

not because of branches 
or shadows
but what lies in
between: spaciousness 
possibility

I choke on freedom

I wish all messages 
to fall flat
on the floor
before arrival

I wish clothing
had no skin
walls enclosed no space
the earth touched the sky everywhere 
the way it seems to
at the horizon

after death maybe tongue 
can taste no food
maybe substance drifts 
into shadow 
maybe people go hungry 
and skinny and elongate

after death there may be no beauty

after death the beauty 
might become unbearable 
the space between
the bowed strings of a cello 
and waiting silent ears 



and I am alone thank god

the birds stopped saying your name
thank god
this morning

I hear only their sharpness
in their call to each other
and I am alone
thank god
thank goodness

and leave me this way
because a bird calls
just this side of a delicious
nothingness

that contains all possibility
and percentages

leaving me to see and startle
at the size and meridian
of what could lie ahead:

my time is coming
my time is nigh

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