Two Poems
Rodney Nelson
Biography
I can open the life of Mandelstam
at page three hundred eighty-two and be
in Vladivostok
THEY DID NOT TAKE ME
TO KOLYMA
and so
I MAY HAVE TO
WINTER HERE
where almond would not set root
or page thirty-one and seem to walk in
the May of a biography to which
I know the epilogue
I see my own
between covers already and am free
to open at an early page and be
in June and Seattle
LOOK WAY UP HIGH
where a hill went
in flower or even
the one about writing this poem and
start to turn it
whatever the number
***
Twice at Lake Pepin
she did solo pantomime walking in
the water
a redhead
white and freckly
and I was undetected up the bank
on impromptu watch
a dancer I thought
young woman with a fable to enact
I tracked her address and name and we wrote
each other
the next year
we sat at night
on her family porch and I draw some
COMPLIMENTS FOR MY
OPALESCENCE BUT
THE NAME PLEBIA WOULD HAVE SUITED ME
I AM NOT QUITE RIGHT IN THE HEAD EITHER
went the gist
I had no
dignity and
none to accord so I grabbed and kissed her
anyway but an
ill-wisher of mine
would call her up and talk an end to us
I am a dignitary now among
the trees if
only trees
I carry on
if only with my grizzling or a dream
of Patricia who
mimed out her fable
to the lake one July to me the next
Rodney Nelson has hidden behind "I" and "he" and "we" and "they"--and sometimes even "Ron Winkler." (No, that's the name of a real German poet living in Berlin. All Nelson has done is introduce his work in North American per translations here and there). Both friends and enemies know that he is a lifelong nonacademic. However, he's been around too long to want to overdefine himself.
mamelund@hotmail.com
In Posse: Potentially, might be . . .
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