The Best American Poetry 2014 by David Lehman Read Free Book Online Page B

accordions.
    In times of the most extreme minnows
    The windows are very dark,
    Almost intransigent.
    Water is harmonica-perforated;
    The fish, of course, go back and forth.
    But also, the little boats turn around
    And around in the sink, like accordions.
    In times of the most extreme unction
    My name is very thin,
    Almost zipper-like.
    Space is very thin also;
    And distance is that way too.
    But also, the stars become very accordion-like
    So we eat them.
    In times of the most extremely long, emotional, blue lines
    The rest of the lines
    Get very thin,
    Almost meaningless.
    Vegetables arise out of nowhere and change.
    But also, the letter V becomes invisible
    And unpronounceable.
    from Pleiades

BOB HICOK
----
Blue prints

    Up and up the mountain, but suddenly a flat spot
    exactly the size of the house they would build,
    and when they went to dig for the foundation, the foundation
    appeared, just as the beams for the floor, as they started
    to set them in place, revealed they had always been there,
    it was like coming into the room to find your diary
    writing itself, she told the interviewer, who wanted to talk
    about her paintings but she kept coming back to the house,
    including the sky above the house, how it resembled
    her childhood, forgetting how to rain
    when it wasn’t raining, remembering blue
    just when she needed to be startled most, don’t you think
    it odd that my life has always had just enough space
    for my life, she asked the man’s recorder
    as much as the man, hoping the recorder
    would consider the question and get back to her, then you moved
    to Madrid, the interviewer was saying, and started painting
    your invisible landscapes, I remember the first window
    we lifted into place, she replied, that the view of the valley
    it would hold was already in the glass when we cut the cardboard box
    away, we just lined them up, the premonition
    with the day, he had twenty more questions
    but crossed them off, I have always wanted to build a room
    around a painting, he said, yes, she replied, a painting
    hanging in space, he added, a painting of a woman
    adjusting a wall to suit a painting, she said, like how the universe
    began, he suggested, did it begin, she wondered, is that
    what this is?
    from The Believer

LE HINTON
----
No Doubt About It (I Gotta Get Another Hat)

    after Chris Toll
    in my head it was Vincent (not Boris)
    who narrated the Who family fun
    during Grinch-time in December
    but then he clocked in for Sears
    selling Rembrandts (not Lady Kenmores)
    (clarity at 14)
    why is he
    in crèche
    I met Santa
    (who fingered a pocketful of poems)
    on the corner of Saint Paul + No(wH)ere
    four times maybe three
    he passed out couplets to the crowd
    a smile full of antlers
    (Bullwinkle not Rudolph)
    I know why Chris
    is in Christmas
    some gods play with clouds
    like Play-Doh
    (who forgot to wind the clock)
    some poets cloud with play
    like heart tracings
    why is toll
    in atoll
    how does a poet
    fall back into the sky
    (what time is it)
    I’m sure certain only twice each day
    this is once
    I know why he
    is in ache
    from Little Patuxent Review

TONY HOAGLAND
----
Write Whiter

    Obviously, it’s a category I’ve been made aware of
    from time to time.
    It’s been pointed out that my characters eat a lot of lightly-braised asparagus
    and get FedEx packages almost daily.
    Yet I dislike being thought of as a white writer.
    I never wanted to be limited like that.
    When I find my books in the “White Literature” section of the bookstore,
    dismay is what I feel—
    I thought I was writing about other, larger things.
    Tax refunds, Spanish lessons, premature ejaculation;
    meatloaf and sitcoms; the fear of perishing.
    I know some readers need to see their lives reflected from the page—
    It lets them know they aren’t alone.
    The art it takes to make that kind of comfort
    is not something I look upon with scorn.
    But after a while, you start to feel like, to the world, white
    is