Every Poem is a Catastrophe
by George Moore
We write these on the invisible
and they nest between us like a mask
or a voice speaking through a screen
They are always silent screams
every one of them feathered
by the lightest hand
but somehow bold as a tagger’s spray
Some are like the church choirs
or an object we find in a museum
and the moths play havoc with them
for they are filled with dichotomies
Everything in them is
of the nature of a religion
but the size of a message found in a bottle
or written inside a bottle cap
They are the saints on gum wrappers
the scriptures written on a thread
every one of them a catastrophe
of human care
a line drawn through a word
like a spear through its prey
a smudge of someone’s blood
the tongue of a page
the chain to an anchor
we have dragged through a life
that we sail day to day
George Moore has published poetry in The Atlantic, Poetry, Colorado Review, North American Review, Valparaiso, and Orion. A finalist for The National Poetry Series and nominated for seven Pushcart Prizes, his collections include Children’s Drawings of the Universe (Salmon Poetry 2015) and Saint Agnes Outside the Walls (FutureCycle 2016). He presently lives on the south shore of Nova Scotia.
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This is a wonderful poem with so many beautiful images. It contains much more than the number of lines on which it spreads its wings. There is a lot to take home.