July 24, 2012

Joanne Lowery

BOLTING THE DOOR, LOCKING THE GATE

When I came home for lunch the back door
stood ajar. Whose jar? Who other than me
has failed to pull it to? An empty jamb.

I expected burglar’s bedlam and
but my ersatz valuables remained
inviolate, no electronics in absentia,
all calm as Christmas Eve
but bright with noon, tidy in its
My place: open and unbarred

from vandals and the soldiers of Nanking,
Huns and Crusaders, Cossacks and SS,
me in my carelessness passed over
as unworthy—my paste jewels,
faux luck, pawn shop poems.

from Rattle #36, Winter 2011

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May 24, 2009

Joanne Lowery

ESCAPEES FROM THE ZOO

How did they climb over the natural barricades
of woven branches, thorned with rebuke?
The emu’s legs were not long enough.
Not even the giraffe could step over and out.
He was yellow and brown, like most of us,
though recently a white one was caught on film.
Is it good to be rare? Is that what makes
men in jeeps follow you with tranquilizers
and stun guns? How stunned you were,
the small you who wiggled under a fence
to find yourself free of regular feedings
and the generous hose, the crowds gathering
in admiration, the little metal sign
with two Latin words you left behind
for the chance to be nameless.

from Rattle #27, Summer 2007

__________

Joanne Lowery: “Although some of my poems are ‘true,’ most of them are transformations of Real Life. I like writing in historical voices or as imaginary characters, or from the viewpoint of animals. For me, there’s a kind of psychological safety (and intellectual fun) in turning language over to the imagination to become something other than plain old me.” (web)

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May 23, 2009

Joanne Lowery

HOT NIGHT TOO LOUD FOR WORDS

If after a July dinner party
the noise outside the back door
drowns out your thank-you’s and good-bye’s
and your host doesn’t know what kind of bugs

fill the darkness with their rhythmic clacking,
fear not: though you know they are not crickets
hiding in the grass or cicadas clinging to trees,
nevertheless they are of an insect species

too small to devour you en route to your car
and too dumb to separate you from your keys.
You will run the gauntlet of their cacophony
and drive to your quiet house where only

familiar serenades can find you,
followed by silly dreams, then sunshine and coffee.
One calm tree, a maple, guards your house.
Who else it chooses to harbor as friends

is tree-business, is bug-business, has not yet
hatched into waves of galactic thrumming.
Your ears are only part of you: they will endure,
and what scares you stays too dark to name.

from Rattle #27, Summer 2007

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