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



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