[Realpoetik] NOAH ELI GORDON

[RealPoetik Magazine]

A NEW KIND OF POEM

                                                     for (and after) Arda
Collins

There is no ocean in your ear to it.
What there is is this muffin,
left a long time on the granite countertop.
It is a kind of decision. You decide
to write a new poem. Invent a better equipped kitchen.
Stainless steel appliances, a refrigerator
whose refusal to hum
is both frightening and reconciliatory.
It gets quieter.
It gets sort of orange. You think
of the word lavender. You have no choice but to.
There it is, just floating direly in front of your face.
How many types of ambiguity can a muffin conjure up?
Did you really ask yourself this? Between the questions,
as between two towering beachfront hotels, there are waves
upon waves upon waves passing through a tiny sliver of ocean.
What, exactly, do you think of the word lavender?
Do you think you can put your ear to it?
I’m trying to be completely unambiguous.
If I were to say, “The only thing inside
a muffin is muffin,” I would certainly mean it.



*Noah** Eli Gordon* is the author of several collections, including *Novel
Pictorial Noise*, which was selected by John Ashbery for the 2006 National
Poetry Series, and subsequently chosen for the 2007 San Francisco State
University Poetry Center Book Award. His essays, reviews, poetry, creative
nonfiction and other itinerant writings can be found in recent and
forthcoming issues of  *Bookforum, **Boston** Review*, *Denver**Quarterly,
Fence, The **Massachusetts** Review, Review of Contemporary Fiction*, and
elsewhere. He pens a quarterly column on chapbook culture for *Rain Taxi:
Review of Books*, and is an Assistant Professor at the University of
Colorado-Boulder.

-- 
RealPoetik
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