Variations on a Pile of Bricks
by Carolyn Guinzio
1.
Winged and open mouths of char
marks on broken bricks.
That all of our ideas
are rooted in the wild.
2.
Mortar to break it down to powder,
a particle becoming a part.
That the tree, in the fire,
keeps saying tree.
3.
A black oak’s hand-
shaped shadow on a roof.
That the gone left the living
papers in the hollow of a wall.
4.
A chair near a wall
at the height of a fire.
That the dead fight for
their current, their form.
5.
We felt its heat
a half-mile away.
That the things we freeze go on
without us as we are going on.
6.
A name scratched
into brick with a rock.
That the house, in the fire,
keeps saying house.
7.
The glowing chair falling
at the base of a wall.
That bricks and bones
are left alone.
8.
Phantom windows
face red trees.
That chimneys stand
in the middle of ghost houses.
9.
Even dust
feeds something.
That madman in the back of the room
has raised his hand to speak.
10.
It is so hard to build
a sentence.
I have seen a blue
flame veining underground.
I have rubbed my hands together
in its warmth.
The ground is not cold.
The underground is heated.
That it’s only
a matter of time.
Carolyn Guinzio is the author of Spoke & Dark (Red Hen, 2012), winner of the To The Lighthouse/A Room of Her Own Poetry Prize, Quarry (Parlor, 2008), West Pullman (Bordighera, 2005), and the chapbooks a liss (Dancing Girl Press, 2012), and Untitled Wave (Cannibal, 2010). She is the poetry editor of YEW: A Journal of Innovative Writing & Images by Woman. Her film, The History of Stars & Ghosts, was recently selected for the Poetry International Cinépoetry feature. Carolyn Guinzio is online at CarolynGuinzio.tumblr.com.
