Mud Time

John Isles

The poem begins at the end of the road,
in mud. It wallows in a time before buds, 
slogs to a horizon where a place could be. 
Its sky resides in a puddle. In lascivious 
water, it frolics, privates going public.
Hooves flailing and frantic at the mouth,
it swims under a thousand-thousand
starling-dashes making of the sky
more sky. The poem says writing is un-
writing, ink to berry, berry to bird and flight.
Says: It falls in mud. Again and again.
You come with your jumble of pangs, plant 
them at the foot of a mountain you can’t see.
A green urge grows inside you, a green stem
grows apart from you. It enters the world.
It’s nothing to do with you, and everything,
the poem says. You are mud again. 
Again and again.

Genre: 
Author Bio: 

John Isles is the author of Ark and Inverse Sky (University of Iowa's Kuhl House Press). His poems have appeared in a wide variety of magazines, including American Letters & Commentary, American Literary Review, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Hotel Amerika, and Zyzzyva. He is the recipient of NEA Grant for Poetry and winner of a Los Angeles Review Poetry Prize.

Issue: 
62