[Realpoetik] JOANNA PENN COOPER

[RealPoetik Magazine]

SEIZE THE DAY





I wrote a poem to tell you expressly that I’ve always been alone

in here one vertebra cocked to the side to listen to the painful singing

especially when I’ve slept on my stomach, a pillow on my head, my

preferred posture.  How is this helpful?  How is this new?  How

is being trapped in my own ever-evolving mental healthfulness bound

to assist anyone else on their journey?  Well, a journey of a thousand

miles,  I always say.  Anyway, axis mundi, I always say.  This is how

it begins: I call goodbye to someone in the hallway who doesn’t know

what I’m saying because all my words before noon are plaintive music

and he says something normal that I can’t hear without my glasses on

and leaves.  I continue my day from in bed by bandying about some

regrets about an essay on *The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym*

I didn’t write.  When I’m finished doing that, I hear a door squeaking

so I put on pants to better fight.  I scrabble about under the bed with

my pointy fingers to find my glasses.  Suddenly I am vertical

in the hallway. I have quite literally put up my dukes.  I offer you

this advice free of charge.  You’re welcome.




*Joanna** Penn Cooper is the author of the chapbook Mesmer (dancing girl
press).  Her full-length poetry collection, How We Were Strangers, was a
finalist for the Kinereth Gensler Award from Alice James Books.
*Joanna*co-curates the Stain of Poetry reading series in Brooklyn,
where she lives,
and keeps a blog at joannapenncooper.blogspot.com. *

-- 
RealPoetik
www.realpoetik.org
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