Mark Fleury
Looking to the Edge by Mark Fleury
Looking to the Edge
by
Mark Fleury
Looking to the edge
Of the dawn-tinged mountain
Tops’ cliffed flaming skyscape,
The ladder to the brow of the morning
Star leans against the wall between
The night and day of a new year.
I peak over the sky, blue as the part
Of a candle flame that entrances
A child in Easter Sunday’s Grace
Before what’s thanked for is consumed
For weight toward Earth’s center.
And I see it’s the same primordial pool
Of fire and flame and lust that does
Dervish whirls from a screen door
To a backyard. April is draining
Its pain of birth, thaw and rust
As though the hinges
Of soil opened to houses
In the enclosed bark of trees.
Poetics Statement: My writing invariably goes back to the basement apartment where I lived when I had a nervous breakdown over twenty years ago. The different parts of the apartment symbolize various parts of my psyche; for example, the door leading into the apartment is the location of the pineal gland in the center of my brain. And the window across the room, which is the title of one of my books: The 4D Window, is the sensorium screen where my worldly experiences, including poetry, take place. I consider myself to be a student of Charles Olson’s Projective Verse essay.