Derek JG Williams
—
Marginalia
as though time accelerates
even as the days slow
another layer beneath this layer
of action
*
flecks of green paint
fall to the rough pine floor
Saskia on the balcony smoking
annotating something
her dark pen scours
sheets of paper
for something true
she wants me to scrape away
civility too
*
I might bray
bite at the air
that heaves
& harries me
I breathe
anger—intransitive
a verb
to stutter
insubstantiative
man
who angers easily
first example
in the dictionary
which tells you plenty
about men
*
of substance—
twice
in twenty years
I’ve thrown a chair
through an empty room
at nothing at no one
& found the breakage
satisfying
who doesn’t want to see
an image
from the mind
let fly
*
the mother tells her son
to breathe
when he cries out
for now
she is the director
of his anger
which is loss or fear
he stops crying
& wraps his arms
around her waist
*
from the edges of the wall
I paint toward its center
the frame vanishes
there’s no time to rush
paint drying
each brushstroke
before I apply the next coat
over an inscription
our names & the date
temporary truths
*
the chimes turn
in the wind
never still
there’s never peace
*
after sweeping
the fallen paint chips
I replace
a burned out lightbulb
*
I light a cigarette & sit
outside
the breeze in my ear
the chimes like a clock
tell the hour
folding it
into the next
*
my beloved cuts lemongrass
onions garlic & ginger
earlier she handed me
a single hair from her head
I draped it
across my shoulders
it was gone
by the time I remembered
the gesture
*
we change what we see
& are changed
when I flip the switch
the hall
where I work
is almost too bright
*
we eat a simple soup
& I pray
to our better gods
whatever voice
is there
subsists on bread
& water
insists on little more
Derek JG Williams is an American poet and essayist. He is the author of Poetry Is a Disease, forthcoming from Greying Ghost Press. He holds a doctorate in English and Creative Writing from Ohio University, and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. His poems and prose are published or forthcoming in Pleiades, DIAGRAM, Best New Poets, Plume Poetry 9, and on Boston's MBTA trains as a part of the city's Poetry on the T program. He lives in Germany with his wife and dog.
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