{"id":1892,"date":"2012-10-23T01:11:50","date_gmt":"2012-10-23T01:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/?page_id=1892"},"modified":"2012-10-24T00:53:11","modified_gmt":"2012-10-24T00:53:11","slug":"john-sibley-williams-1012","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/archives\/john-sibley-williams-1012\/","title":{"rendered":"John Sibley Williams, 10\/12"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beautiful and Unnamed<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m beginning to remember you a hummingbird\u2014
\nthe conversation between wings and air,<\/p>\n

a loaf of bread that rose too quickly\u2014 unnoticed,
\nan empty plate, an unfurnished room.<\/p>\n

In what remains of your face, I see
\na slice of daylight
\nthat used to be night,<\/p>\n

a box of beloved trinkets
\ndusted and raw,
\na thesaurus of silences
\nten years long.<\/p>\n

I’m beginning to believe you were always a street corner\u2014
\nan intersection between,
\na choice of movements,<\/p>\n

or the hollows of a bell mid-ring,
\nor a forest with too many trees.<\/p>\n

In the span of compass turn you have become
\na interminable wall of doors
\neach keyed to a precise memory
\nwith worn edges.<\/p>\n

..<\/span><\/p>\n

The Divide<\/strong><\/p>\n

To celebrate my death,
\nBoston will continue to snow relentlessly
\nwhile someone I’ve never met steps back
\nfrom the ledge of the Eiffel Tower.<\/p>\n

Two young lovers will roll each others’ bodies
\nlike wheelbarrows into maturity
\nwhile my mother’s eyes hurricane,
\nexactly as they did at my birth.<\/p>\n

The world will both end, yet again,
\nand create\u2014endlessly.
\nThe sunrise will colorize long-grayed dreams
\nand at the same time strangle their scope.<\/p>\n

And my blood will begin to dry on my son’s cheek
\nthe moment he learns the art of shaving
\nthings away.<\/p>\n

That my hands will remain impotent,
\nlike everything else,
\nwhatever they raze or shape,
\nyet somehow permanent,
\nis what carries me over
\nthe day’s long divide.<\/p>\n

…<\/span><\/p>\n

This Common Death<\/strong><\/p>\n

Content to just be a body again,
\nstripped by silence,
\nentombed in white linen,
\nlimbs twined together
\ninto some poorly crocheted child-thing.<\/p>\n

The weight of purpose, future,
\neverything I’ve touched
\nand left denatured,
\nall slow-bled by a single
\nincision of moonlight.<\/p>\n

The pillow is damp
\nin unthink and forgiveness.<\/p>\n

This habit of existing
\nin words, in the eyes
\nof skyscrapers and family\u2015 gone.<\/p>\n

Gone the compulsion to be somebody,
\nto believe each breath
\nshould contain the world.<\/p>\n

Just to be a cold, anonymous gathering of particles,
\nempty of logic and the impossible,
\nwashed again by sleep
\nlike any other temporary thing.<\/p>\n

As with the gods.<\/p>\n

…<\/span><\/p>\n

Unsteepled Horizon<\/strong><\/p>\n

Buildings collapsed together
\npointing down toward the earth
\nfrom my rooftop
\nlook like morning.<\/p>\n

I select the cloud
\nthat seems more a dishrag,
\nwring it out,
\nand prepare for cleaner rain.<\/p>\n

The sand in the folds of years
\nembeds deeper,
\nsomewhere near the lungs,
\nwhen I cease conversing
\nwith silent things.<\/p>\n

Your hand still searches for mine
\nacross the empty linen field
\nthen steeples up, away,
\nin the morning
\nwhen nothing is speaking,
\nwhen from our rooftop
\nI can be the horizon
\nand the buildings that break it,
\nwhen my hands are full
\nof sand, are made of years
\nand my own attempts
\nat creation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

John Sibley Williams is the author of six chapbooks, winner of the HEART Poetry Award, and finalist for the Pushcart, Rumi, and The Pinch Poetry Prizes. He has served as Acquisitions Manager of Ooligan Press and publicist for various presses and authors, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing and MA in Book Publishing. A few previous publishing credits include:\u00a0Inkwell, Bryant Literary Review, Cream City Review, The Chaffin Journal, The Evansville Review, RHINO, Rosebud,\u00a0and various anthologies. He lives in Portland, Oregon.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beautiful and Unnamed I’m beginning to remember you a hummingbird\u2014 the conversation between wings and air, a loaf of bread that rose too quickly\u2014 unnoticed, an empty plate, an unfurnished room. In what remains of your face, I see a slice of daylight that used to be night, a box of beloved trinkets dusted and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":934,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1892","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nJohn Sibley Williams, 10\/12 - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/archives\/john-sibley-williams-1012\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"John Sibley Williams, 10\/12 - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Beautiful and Unnamed I’m beginning to remember you a hummingbird\u2014 the conversation between wings and air, a loaf of bread that rose too quickly\u2014 unnoticed, an empty plate, an unfurnished room. 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