Niedecker Cento

Kelly Bates
WC:304

Niedecker Cento

Our talk, our books (196)
She carried books (205)
This book of birds I loved (137)
A hummingbird
can’t haul (264)

Isn’t it funny (141)
The make-believe of prayer, (90)
Such things they plant around my head. (121)

Tell em to take my bare walls down (291)
At night collapse occurs (136)
They floodlight it— (207)
The leaves most brilliant
As do trees
When they’ve no need (253)

You with sea water running
In your veins sit down in water (268)
Soft still-water twilight (154)
O let’s glee glow as we go (85)
Continue after the mind is blown. (138)

Maples to swing from (265)
Not built by brute force (299)

My drinking man (230)
Whom I love? (201)
I’ve wasted my whole life in water. (107)

Heat is within (42)
Green, prickly humanity— (147)
Unlearned in all but soot, (126)
My friend tree (186)

One for home (266)
A long dream to unroll (292)
As I paint the street (198)

May you have lumps in your mashed potatoes (149)
And that’ll be the end of J.E. Thorp (115)

Troubles to win (85)
Because you’ve brought
Your violin (141)
For heaven’s sake, dear, Cory, (203)
How much less am I
In the dark than they? (267)

The chemist creates (224)
The very veery (240)
To understand
Humanity (276)
Reason explodes. Atomic split (125)
And now my stove’s too empty (96)

Moving thru a field (164)
Suddenly stops (203)
In every part of every living thing (232)

My daughters left home (165)
I’d sit on a quiet fence (131)
People should know (80)
Effort lay in us (267)

We’d have danced (220)
I lay down
With brilliance (204)
This is my mew (167)

July, waxwings (174)
Glow-apricot red-brown (234)
What cause have you (240)
I too live hot before the final flash (162)