16

EUGENE OSTASHEVSKY

I sang of hands and unhanding, feats and defeats.
I sang sanguinely, with blood. I sang singularly. I sang singly.
My language meant languishment. In a house.
It stings that I did not sing. Enough.
I contemplate that with the indifference of a plate.
No song came near what I needed to hear.
Now that I’m a middle-aged man, O song where is thy thong.
Poetry is for children. Poetry is a poor tree and the birds are poor.
What do we want from poetry.
We want it to tell us who we are and what we think.
We want it to serve for a station of certainty, even if it’s like a piece of ice in black water.
We want it to create a you. An ear.
Shouldn’t an ear be also a mouth.
Yes, we want words to create a mouth.

Eugene Ostashevsky is a Russian-American poet and translator living in Berlin. His books of "poetry" include The Pirate Who Does Not Know the Value of Pi. Sonnet 16 is from a new cycle, whose first 14 pieces were released as a chapbook called the Feeling Sonnets.