Two Poems
by John Sibley Williams
Brevity
The fall of man is not this crumbling tower,
our intimate sins left unforgiven
or the sins we offer freely.
We will not end with the world held at arm’s length
or with the world suffocated in embrace
or with the world warring in itself
or with the living repurposing their dead.
It is the tipping point of language over body,
eye over mouth—that cold moment
when the object of affection
becomes the affection,
when that first object vanishes
into its beautiful music.
Directional
Unstable imitations of Christ
establish our horizontal plane.
A statue broken by birds points skyward
and defines the vertical.
Dreams inch forward
despite their infinite wingspan.
What is loosely called “the body”?—
a figure by the roadside
collapsed beneath its own weight.
John Sibley Williams is the author Controlled Hallucinations (forthcoming, FutureCycle Press) and six poetry chapbooks. He is the winner of the HEART Poetry Award, and finalist for the Pushcart, Rumi, and The Pinch Poetry Prizes. John serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review, co-director of the Walt Whitman 150 project, and Book Marketing Manager at Inkwater Press. A few previous publishing credits include Third Coast, Inkwell, Bryant Literary Review, Cream City Review, The Chaffin Journal, The Evansville Review, RHINO and various anthologies. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
