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