John L. Stanizzi
2 POND Poems*
12.21.18
8.14 a.m.
59 degrees (incredible)
-after Wallace Stevens, “Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour”
(Married 28 years today. It has been as close to perfect as one can imagine.)
Pluvious morning, torrential and warm, thawed mole-tunnels caving in,
ordination of melting ice, the rain broadcasting itself over the remnants,
narrowed troops of downpour skitter across waning ice,
drenching rain, one thing, a single thing, In which being there together is enough.
12.23.18
8.16 a.m.
30 degrees
Pretense this bright sun; the hard wind tells the truth, and
obsessed with itself, this little pond, in concert with that wind,
navigates NW to SE, pulling its waves over itself,
drawing them up like a flannel blanket, though there is no warmth here.
*John writes: “These are from a one-year-long project simply called POND. The premise is ‘simple’— once every day for one year. I will venture to the pond on our property with journal and camera in hand. I will record the date, the time, the temperature, scribble a few notes, take a photo (only if one actually presents itself), mosey back to the house and write an acrostic four-line poems using the letters P, O, N, and D. And there is one final stipulation; I may never use any of the first words more than once; that is proving to be a daunting and delightful challenge.
John L. Stanizzi’s books are Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide/Ebb Tide, Four Bits; he’s been published in Right Hand Pointing, New York Quarterly, Cortland Review, and others.