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Best Poems From
JOANNE MONTE
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9.
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From a Photographer's War Journal
Its the work of the lens,
to focus its gaze and find the proper angle
for impact, clarity; to show from its own perspective
the body of a child wrapped in a garment
of pleated flesh, held gently in his mothers arms
as though she could lift him out of it and run
from the scourge of that landscape,
the lash of its tongue, its voice. To explain
that image, a split-second paralysis
that is forever fixed in the mind, forever mute,
itself a bystander hovering over the children
torn from the hand so tightly held,
maimed and killed in the presence of their mothers.
There is the sense of one moment,
immortal, held still in one shot, one frame;
a strobe of light that is visible, and yet invisible:
warlords, militant machinery, the blazing turrets
of an uprising when well-fed armies tear
into the city like hungry vagrants
tearing the gutters for meat. Theres an old wagon,
its wheels turned inward, rocking slowly
at each stop to pile a sackcloth of childrens bones
into a conveyance of silent darkness. And yet
its always the negative we hold to the light for clarity,
for meaning, as if weve missed some point of view,
as if in that frame transposing light and dark,
theres an image we hope to see more clearly.
Joanne Monte
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10.
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River
The river below us:
nitrogen, phosphorous, petrochemicals,
dioxin from the paper mills,
a rich buffet of metals digested
from the mines, and still we remain
oblivious to its symptoms
until a skull-and-crossbones sign warns
of the poisons that run the course
of its slim body, writhing like a patient
on a gurney, admitted for treatment;
warns too, of its offspring
in the waiting room: soft-shell crabs, oysters,
the striped bass, the silk fillet,
and the trout we want to bring home
to the sizzle of butter and garlic
and the fresh herbs in the kitchen.
And suddenly we are left alone
to recover mere memory: the river
we had swung across on ropes
in the dungarees of childhood,
splashing in its shallow gut; the river
over which we fought and killed
and for which we even died
the river we damned.
Joanne Monte
Read more: river poems, childhood poems, memory poems, home poems, alone poems, warning poems, running poems
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11.
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The Monument
To return to you
The earth, its flesh scarred for life,
cut open by one nation,
the land for which we fought,
and fought over; the land
for which we shed our blood, and now
itself, a gaping hole of absence,
given to its one and only use.
Remember, here lies your country,
a fragile bone,
a leg it thought it could stand on, broken;
a cast of names, a monument
dedicated on the library lawn
and elsewhere, on the Mall
that space we cannot trespass,
but for the death that outlives you.
Joanne Monte
Read more: remember poems, death poems, life poems
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