elizabeth austen

On Punctuation

not for me the dogma of the period

preaching order and a sure conclusion

and no not for me the prissy

formality or tight-lipped fence

of the colon and as for the semi-

colon call it what it is

a period slumming

with the commas

a poseur at the bar

feigning liberation with one hand

tightening the leash with the other

oh give me the headlong run-on

fragment dangling its feet

over the edge give me the sly

comma with its come-hither

wave teasing all the characters

on either side give me ellipses

not just a gang of periods

a trail of possibilities

or give me the sweet interrupting dash

the running leaping joining dash all the voices

gleeing out over one another

oh if I must

punctuate

give me the YIPPEE

of the exclamation point

give me give me the curling

cupping curve mounting the period

with voluptuous uncertainty

published in the Seattle Review, Vol. XXVI, No. 1

This Morning

                  “Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?”     

                                                                                - Roethke

It’s time. It’s almost too late.

Did you see the magnolia light its pink fires?

You could be your own, unknown self.

No one is keeping it from you.

The magnolia lights its pink fires

daffodils shed papery sheaths.

No one is keeping you from it—

your church of window, pen and morning.

Daffodils undress, shed papery sheaths—

gestures invisible to the eye.

In the church of window, pen and morning

what unfolds at frequencies we can’t see?

Gestures invisible to naked eye,

the garden opens, an untranslatable book

written at a frequency we can’t see.

Not a psalm, exactly, but a segue.

The garden opens, an untranslatable book.

You can be your own unknown self—

not a psalm, but a segue.

It’s time.

 published in Pontoon: an anthology of Washington State poets, No. 7 

The Permanent Fragility of Meaning

Why persist, scratching across the white field,

row after row?  Why repeat the ritual

every morning, emptying my hands,

asking for a new prayer to fold

and unfold?

                    Nothing changes, no one is saved.

I walk into the day, hands still

empty, and beg

to be of use to someone.  I lie down

in the dark and beg to believe

when the voice comes again with its commands,

with its promises—

                                unfold your hands.   Revelation

is not a fruit you pluck from trees.  This is the work,

cultivating the smallest shoot, readying your tongue

to shape the sacred names, your mouth already filling—

I lie down in the dark.

I rise up and begin again.

Title is quoted from Jacques Attali’s Noise.

published in Poets Against the War (Thunder's Mouth Press / Nation Books)