May 6, 2008

Today's poem is from AERODROME ORION, to be published by Kelsey Street Press. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

Read more about this book.

Also on Poets.org

Poems about Celestial Bodies
• Flying at Night
by Ted Kooser
• A group of girls from Minnesota or black mascara
by Maureen Owen

Poems about Aliens
• The White Fires of Venus
by Denis Johnson
• The Abduction
by Stanley Kunitz

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Orion
by Susan Gevirtz

        What you make on Orion

              I leave to you



       What you take from Orion

               I take to you









                                                    Far far away where the swans fly to when we
 are having winter, lived a King who had eleven sons and one daughter

                             Hans Christian Andersen







                        





                      in the greening time



there was once



           there was a 



      because we didn’t





                           Turn on the light





There was trespass





            We didn’t











Unadorned             Side is his wife





         Bellatrix are the shoulder stars





                    Drape the mantle of the remarkable nebula

Take first











cause 











is effect



       



              once  mishap misshape





But let us not talk in the language of evidence









sleep deprivation           vigilance         the screen and the Styrofoam king



             of airspace  

                   





                                         renames the sky



documentary to which all words refer



          escapes us          near or newer air