MOI FAVORITE 2013 POEM (to date...)

Just got back from a whirlwind-ish tour of Eastern Seaboard. Returned to a stack of review copies for Galatea Resurrects -- which you poetry lovers should CHECK OUT HERE! And among said stack is a book that I picked up for a coffee break and it contains what may end up being my favorite poem read for all of 2013! That would be the poem "prayer for dropouts" in John Colburn's magnificent collection, PSYCHEDELIC NORWAY (Coffee House Press). Superb poem -- it begins ominously:

may you not wander into the empty trailer behind the warehouse and may that boy’s face disappear from your memory; may that boy get old and balance branches on his head stupidly

may those four smeary mean in the clearing not notice you, may their faces distort as they turn to look and may they see nothing

then alchemizes itself into pure song without diluting the power of the dark, until the poem finally ends in magic:

and when you hatch, may you be carried across the earth by a woman, by a feather, by drumming

she is the woman who wove the old world, which she now balances casually on her head and you are free of it

and may you know how you got free

and may you receive this magic all the days of your life.

Inspirational to see such writing. Great to discover a poet new to me and whose poems I now shall stalk into the future: John Colburn!