DAVID RADAVICH

What Poems Do

 

Kill time.
Touch a nerve.
Dance the ghosts away.
Help the dam
overflow its walls.
Insult tyrants.
Pay off the dead.
Sing like the wind
after the tornado is gone.
Return the favor
of one’s enemies.
Cry for the war dead.
Defy all clocks.
Take up space that’s chic
and reclaim all sins.
Paint an unforgettable
common picture.
Bask in sun.
Come and live
in the bones
and walk
into the next
century.

 

 

Authorial Intent

You can't know
what I am thinking,

what world
I might be referring to,

what words
might mean,

what images evoke
or thought

that passes
anything beyond

whatever borders
might be

crossed
or signals lit

now or
in emergency—

you’re the reader
risking

who has bought
my book.

 

 

This Poem

for Alice

 

Let it be
a pot someone
can use.

Made by hand,
at home with
its visible flaws,

to put oats in,
or water.

Nothing that
would disturb
a house

or call its name
like a goat.

Just open,
still warm
from the oven,

ready to be
found

as a potter
palming the earth.

 

 

                                     

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