Paul Ilechko: Grid as Poetic Object
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
Grid as Poetic Object
The color of understanding transmutes into an account of
love as senses merging into grid form (overlaid)
Water left the desert decades ago water trickled silent into
crystal
The solitude of book filled with charm filled with dreams
and marginalia of the charms of season
The grid is marked an X in every box the grid as calendar
(or the form of) flat yet dimensional
Drinking the crystal water of solitude
Philosophy verses itself into the becoming of poetry
Dreams of childhood as floating sensations as genesis of
introspected reality (leading into)
* * * * * * * * *
The architects of San Francisco laid down a grid upon the
most inappropriate terrain what should have been a
poem of curves and bends instead remained beholden to
the square as streets were forced to winch themselves
up and over the tops of hills
* * * * * * * * *
Poet dreams of a river that winds through landscape she
dreams of flocks of birds becoming energy as she fades
back into the entropy of desert
A duplicate despondency of flight toward barren fields of
silence
The ascent from dreaming is a steepness is a hard climb
(to a false religion)
Each square a chevron each chevron a memory each memory
an accident (in utero)
The gauntlet thrown the ascent exposed as summit
subdued
Steepness exposing the grid
As birds flock as water searches
The glass now empty
Paul Ilechko is the author of the chapbooks “Bartok in Winter” (Flutter Press, 2018) and “Graph of Life” (Finishing Line Press, 2018). His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including Manhattanville Review, formercactus, Sheila-Na-Gig, Marsh Hawk Review and Rockvale Review. He lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ.
