To The Reader by J. V. Cunningham

TO THE READER

                                 Time will assuage.

                                 Time’s verses bury

                                 Margin and page

                                 In commentary,

                                 For gloss demands

                                 A gloss annexed

                                 Till busy hands

                                 Blot out the text,

                                 And all’s coherent.

                                 Search in this gloss

                                 No text inherent:

                                 The text was loss.

                                 The gain is gloss.

Richard Kostelanetz, Possibilities of Poetry; An Anthology of American Contemporaries (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1970), 74.

The Green Buoy by John Barnie

The Green Buoy

I’ve nothing to say to the

green buoy out there in the waves

bouncing on its chainy knees

then up riding an incomer

down floating with a swagger I’d

never say gracefully the sun

shining on its wet struts

arms akimbo Cossack dancing

Whey-hey as a big one

streams over whispering in its

kellyman ear a secret (You’re

invincible) I’m not supposed to hear.

John Barnie, The Green Buoy (Kinnerton, Presteigne, Powys: The Rack Press, 2006), 12.