{"id":396,"date":"2016-12-10T12:56:01","date_gmt":"2016-12-10T18:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thespectaclstg.wpengine.com\/?p=396"},"modified":"2017-11-13T11:29:24","modified_gmt":"2017-11-13T17:29:24","slug":"poetry-by-virginia-konchan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/?p=396","title":{"rendered":"Poetry by Virginia Konchan"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Odyssey<\/h4>\n<div class=\"poetry\">You are the last vowel<br \/>\nleft in the known world,<br \/>\nand I am the placard<br \/>\nsaying this table<br \/>\nhas been reserved.<br \/>\nA pity, the rain shower never came.<br \/>\nA pity, it lasted so long.<br \/>\nI had hoped to be wafer-thin:<br \/>\na mere idea, drifting down the hall.<br \/>\nAs it stands, I am stolid,<br \/>\nirrefutable but without value,<br \/>\nlike an animal. Aren\u2019t we all.<br \/>\nThe pastoral\u2019s end is nigh.<br \/>\nFree love is the con of cons.<br \/>\nThis is the hour<br \/>\nof the anonymous poet.<br \/>\nSail on, high ship, sail on.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Rapture<\/h4>\n<p>This is where you leave me.<br \/>\nPlastered to an oak tree<br \/>\nthat once bore our initials,<br \/>\nnow marked as diseased\u2014<br \/>\n<em>Armillaria Root Rot,<\/em><br \/>\n<em> Bacterial Wetwood,<\/em><br \/>\n<em> American Chestnut Blight<\/em>\u2014<br \/>\nwhile afterworld visions<br \/>\nfilter through the breeze.<br \/>\nThis is where you leave me.<br \/>\nWolf-eyed, arrhythmic,<br \/>\nwrapped head to toe<br \/>\nin flame-retardant clothes.<br \/>\nBeauty is as beauty does,<br \/>\nbut what does, save for Helen,<br \/>\nbeauty do except flee?<br \/>\nSee, letting go is all<br \/>\nin the wrist. The flexion,<br \/>\nthen release of world,<br \/>\na plastic Frisbee.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Water Lyric<\/h4>\n<p>Lapidary blue, you<br \/>\nfall from great heights<br \/>\nto land among<br \/>\nmonk fruit strewn<br \/>\non the forest floor.<br \/>\nYour currents tug<br \/>\nme through the<br \/>\nslough of midday;<br \/>\nyour moisture keeps<br \/>\nmy lipid barrier strong.<br \/>\nYou are still pools<br \/>\ncovered in scum,<br \/>\nwherein lies the disease<br \/>\nof lyme; and you are<br \/>\nthe rushing falls,<br \/>\nfalling on the rock<br \/>\nyou eventually smooth.<br \/>\nAfter centuries of<br \/>\nlidless sleep, I enter<br \/>\nthe canal, which leads<br \/>\nto the ocean. Beneath<br \/>\nit all, quiet pulsing<br \/>\nof canoe oars:<br \/>\nsilent worm sleeping<br \/>\nin a bottomless bottle<br \/>\nof el Jimador.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Earth Lyric<\/h4>\n<p>Milkweed, thistle.<br \/>\nA plant that grows<br \/>\nonly when shunned.<br \/>\nWhat I want to know is<br \/>\nwould a wild animal<br \/>\nforce another wild animal<br \/>\non a gang plank, or to strip<br \/>\nits defenses for show, for fun?<br \/>\nLook around. There\u2019s so few rules<br \/>\nto hang gliding; it\u2019s all about the feel.<br \/>\nThere is something droll about the<br \/>\nhuman endeavor, our damage<br \/>\nto freshwater habitats, then<br \/>\nbackpedaling attempts to heal.<br \/>\nFlowers heavy with theology.<br \/>\nErstwhile prophets of doom.<br \/>\nI know what my problem is:<br \/>\nglobal thinking, insufficient data.<br \/>\nLet\u2019s you and I be paramours.<br \/>\nLet\u2019s put a woman on the moon.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Author of <em>Vox Populi<\/em> (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and <em>Anatomical Gift<\/em> (Noctuary Press, 2017), Virginia Konchan&#8217;s poems have appeared in <em>The New Yorker<\/em>, <em>The New Republic<\/em>, <em>Best New Poets<\/em>, and elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Odyssey | Rapture | Water Lyric | Earth Lyric<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[33],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}