Karen Volkman

The Rosy Tones
October 9, 2014 Volkman Karen

The Rosy Tones

 

“the rosy tones

stroking the ozones”

 

such sights

ocular requitals

space entails

 

and oh but it’s gray

but the gray is neutral, soothing

to the thing that is wrong

 

in my syncope, body

out of song with its boundary

hey sleepy but it isn’t

 

a good wake, a dream sand

a drowning in

fantasms/forms

 

the kiss of space

sweet sequence

but weight

 

in the night

pressing the breath down —

Morpheus

 

in your procession

of darker voicing

voce tenebrae

 

beautiful room

empty

weight stains

 

the song

Karen Volkman is the author of Nomina (BOA Editions, 2008); Spar  (University of Iowa Press, 2002), winner of the James Laughlin Award and the Iowa Poetry Prize, and Crash’s Law, which was selected for the National Poetry Series by Heather McHugh.