CEMETERY
http://www.maverickmagazine.com/articles/71/1/CEMETERY/Page1.html
Bill Knott
Bill Knott is the author of some of the America's finest, most original poetry. It is impossible to discuss post-modern American poetry without focusing on the singular vision of Bill Knott. A true maverick, a master revered by the finest poets of our time, Knott has been virtually ignored by both the American poetry establishment and the "avante garde." Among his many volumes of poetry are: The Quicken Tree, Outremer (Iowa Poetry Prize), Poems 1963-1988, Selected and Collected Poems, Rome in Rome, Love Poems to Myself, Nights of Naomi, Autonecrophilia, Aurealism, and The Naomi Poems. The selection below is from Knott's manuscript, Plaza de Loco.By Bill Knott
Published on 04/5/2000
Who whispers here is forgotten.
Saliva's emptiest fruit
adorns the stones,
words ripening your mouth
to a spoilation
of silence.
Saliva's emptiest fruit
adorns the stones,
words ripening your mouth
to a spoilation
of silence.
Who whispers here is forgotten.
Saliva's emptiest fruit
adorns the stones,
words ripening your mouth
to a spoilation
of silence.
Who speaks here
reads a text that downloads
the screen of his fingernail,
through which nothing's visible
as glass is.
For the memorial
we must kneel
to pick each flower
from amongst its modifiers:
but to do that
one needs a hand bared
of all uses, of all trades:
as ours is not.
Copyright © Bill Knott, 2000. All Rights Reserved.
Saliva's emptiest fruit
adorns the stones,
words ripening your mouth
to a spoilation
of silence.
Who speaks here
reads a text that downloads
the screen of his fingernail,
through which nothing's visible
as glass is.
For the memorial
we must kneel
to pick each flower
from amongst its modifiers:
but to do that
one needs a hand bared
of all uses, of all trades:
as ours is not.
Copyright © Bill Knott, 2000. All Rights Reserved.