FALLING
The poem’s father is a drunk.
The poem’s mother becomes cold-hearted.
The poem reads as translation.
It begins the first
of many affairs.
Snow is falling
off the roof.
The crows are beautiful,
serrate the dark,
which is beautiful,
with their flight,
just after dusk.
I’m empty,
too, you know,
I’m nothing
but a whore
of dusk.
—from Rattle #15, Summer 2001
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Leonard Gontarek: “‘If we are willing to make fools of ourselves, God will be willing to make us wise.’ So says the Dalai Lama. My poetry is driven by these words, when the models of Duchamp, Merwin, E.M. Coiran are not enough. I work in a music store in Philadelphia, where I am bringing up my five-year-old son on Wyclef Jean and Wallace Stevens.”
