Poetry by Matthew Woodman
Bedside Manner
(Clears throat.) Your February, terminal, the declination indisputable. Snows have smothered valley to skull, plains to a wind-worn clavicle. We’ve assembled the prosthetic ravens, we’ve gathered the inflatable wolves. We’ve salted the roads. We’ve filed the graven prescription with every potential self- appointed defender of home and hearth. (Turns to face the camera). We face a dearth of basal metabolic rates: the heart is a Famine Moon. One must face death as though the soul were a low pressure front brought to bear on the waiting room, the shunt. |
Solemn in the Moon Somewhere Tonight
--after John Berryman Brothers and sisters, we are gathered here at the foot of this gaze, to bear witness. (Closes book). To vanish, to disappear into the night is to close the distance between the luminiferous ether and the optic nerve. Friends, the inherent energy of the vacuum is greater than zero. The song is transparent yet weighs more than the tongue. How can this be? (Leaves the podium and begins pacing the platform). Is death the admission fee? Or are we just parolees exchanging the chains of one sea for another? What does it mean to sing, if not to wonder? |
Matthew Woodman teaches writing at California State University, Bakersfield and is an editor at Rabid Oak. His poems and stories appear or are forthcoming in Sonora Review, Tishman Review, Oxidant/Engine, S/WORD, Sierra Nevada Review, and Oblong. More of his writing can be found at www.matthewwoodman.com.
|