Glasnost
This time of year
it all shifts, slips,
scuttles ahead—
perhaps un-
appreciative
of the subtle
nature of sensory
perception,
bursts of radiation
cascade across
the mountains,
down into the valleys
where deer and ibex
graze the pastures
and rocky outcrops—
Everything is trans-
parent, the grasses
whisper softly;
meanwhile, the man
with the nightstick
prods you gently
in the chest,
asking politely
for your trans-
it papers.
A Starling’s Defense
Ambience and verse
on the surface of the clouds.
A mouthful of moist élan
in a pocketful of wind.
A talon of fuzzy-
green caterpillars.
Tall moonflowers
with immobile heads,
eye above as eye below,
following the draft of the shadow,
or the slim slow spiral
of the carrion wasp
gorging on
yesterday’s dead.
Ambrosia
How does this species
go about its business?
They still have to outgrow
their own prohibitions.
Shall we imagine them
as roses giving off grace,
or perhaps, by nature,
in their simplicity, under
a stairway somewhere,
never quite on their own,
all those tarnished mirrors
that grow from their beloved—
for are not young lovers
satiated by nature?
Yet, in their simplicity,
under each season,
in duress, deep in the snow,
whose eyes would ever see?
❂
MARC VINCENZ is a poet, fiction writer, translator, editor, publisher, musician and artist. He has published over 40 books of poetry, fiction and translation. His latest poetry collections are A Splash of Cave Paint, and The King of Prussia is Drunk on Stars. His latest translation is An Audible Blue: Selected Poems (1963 - 2016) by Swiss poet and novelist, Klaus Merz, which won the 2023 Massachusetts Book Award for Translated Literature. His forthcoming poetry collection is No More Animal Poems with White Pine Press in 2026.