Niedecker cento - Ryan Killeen

Niedecker cento 303 words

Niedecker cento

 

Who was Mary Shelley?

In the great snowfall before the bomb

In Leonardo’s light

Sweet life, My Love

I catch a dozen, that burns him up

Worship sun; fear rain, their

Carpets, dishes

The death of my poor father

Before my own death is certified

You are the sudden violent storm

A robin stood by my porch

Grandfather

I carried my bundles of hog feeder price lists

Human bean

In moonlight lies

Popcorn-can cover

Of campus ditch

Was enough to carry me thru

Pawpaw in Bloom

Trickle

In this Eternal Category’s

Mr. Van Ess bought 14 washcloths?

Yet no totem-carvings distinguish the Niedecker tribe

But here he comes

On the pendulum

The tree I carry

Right down among em

Clean house, cook, raise children, bowl

Down in the grass

Tho’t I’d stop with you a little

Consciousness is illimitable

Jesse James and his brother Frank

May you have lumps in your mashed potatoes

with sheets so white it hurts the eyes. Nightgown,

clean-smelling house

two were taught and all were sought.

You too

You have faults

I learned

In the transcendence

Wades the muddy water fishing,

            Of spring

Created the monster nights

Considered then, becurtained

We are what the seas

Can’t take it cool

In a favorable wind

Thoughts on things

The take-for-granted bloom

The congress away from home

The country moves toward violets

To educate his daughter

An older friend

Takes down a book, wind pours in. Frozen –

Along the river

Said in the evening after 6:00

I'm pillowed and padded, pale and puffing

What horror to awake at night

What would they say if they knew

windows, the only glow for contemplation

stillness steps.

and many times

raise their hands from ground to sky

I face the east and the wind's in my mouth

put the spices in the wrong place