Song For My Father (1964)

posted Aug 4, 2015

 

catawba grapes,

   spit bugs-

 

put a name to an event

   and make of it a thing-

 

encode in word & vibration-

 

(reduction upon reduction)

 

a cord of firewood split, stacked

 

hungering clouds of articulation & industry

 

       worlds held by a clownstring

over an inmost bone

 

       voicebox within a box

 

blues & be gone

 

 sometimes a document obliges

a signature-

 

mine has

                        irked me

 

most of my life

Jonathan Railey's written work has appeared in Flagpole, Figdust, and The Owls. A psychotherapist and social justice advocate, he holds master's degrees from Naropa University and the Iowa Writers Workshop.

Jonathan currently resides in Asheville, North Carolina.

Railey’s poem “Use Good Sense” also appears in this issue.