Robert Guzikowski
- portlandbove
- Apr 23, 2023
- 1 min read
Aphasia Poem 31
have you been in a field
with the grass as tall as
a child finally free
during the august
new moon night
when first crickets pulsate
stridulations
whelming yelling
fainting shouting
from every side?
vast groundless fields of words
entangle me in syntax
ensnare me in dry
timothy grass gone to seed.
their reaching up
brittle heads scrape
against my ribs
articulate vibrations
call out to the swooning night
as bug lightning
ionizes
the humid frantic air.
without me without words
remember these nights
so starry so loud so dark so bright.
Aphasia Poem 33
understand now
difficult how
I speak imagine
momentarily can you panic with me
share words lost in magnetic syntax with me
stare into the sun’s fierce stare with me
to find morphemes each
completely sufficient
completely contained
in a thunderclap so close
it never rolls across the sky
so close it measures
the other’s tongue’s clamor for night
even as sunlight with moonlight with sunlight
balances the crepuscular lightning.
Robert Guzikowski published work in the1970s and 80s in several magazines, including Grub Street (Bronx, NY), Letters and Tightrope. He co-edited The Parlor City Review. In the 1990s, he had encephalitis which caused brain damage and various disabling conditions. He has resumed writing and some of his work has been published or is upcoming in Kissing Dynamite, The Raw Art Review, Rogue Agent, Wild Roof Journal and Concision Poetry Journal.