In the new “Southern Review”: Poems by Terence Winch

Southern Review

Fallen World 

You never cry anymore. The trees don’t make

you weep. The baseball season has almost

gone missing, but you aren’t really concerned.

You can’t go anywhere. There is a world of free

love, grocery stores, off-track betting shops,

and farmers markets. But that world has

slipped into another dimension, like when

you hang a jacket you got as a kid in your

closet and it turns into an old man’s

three-piece suit a half century later.

I am an absentee voter. I am an absentee

drunk. I assault my senses on a daily basis,

but nothing can open up the sky

again for me and you, no one can tell

us we are free to go. We get carry-out.

We get lonely and scared. No one can

open up the past and let it flow right

into the present the way it’s always

done before. Instead, it’s stuck back there

in the good old days. I blow a kiss to

the priests and rabbis, I genuflect to

the babies and bathing beauties. We will

see you soon, I hope, when the trees

remember the names of every fallen leaf.

— Terence Winch

Hölderlin 1792Two other poems by Terence Winch appear in the journal’s Autumn 2022 issue (edited by Jessica Faust). The issue also includes a translation of Friedrich Hölderlin‘s magnifcent “Bread and Wine,”  which begins with this stanza:

The city’s asleep; on streets lit by lamplight,

      Carriages glide stealthily, with torches ablaze.

Men return from work, reflect on the day’s doings —

      Who’s in, who’s out, who’s leading, who’s losing —

Happy to be home; gone are the grapes and flowers

      Of the midday market; the craftsmen’s work is done;

But from distant gardens comes the sound of strings;

      Perhaps lovers are at play, or a man alone dreams

Of friends in distant places, or his own boyhood. Fresh

      Water flows freely and bathes the fragrant flower beds.

In the dimming light of evening, bells ring

      And the dutiful watchman calls out the hours.

Now wafts a breeze that touches the crest of the grove —

      And look! The shadow of our earth, the moon,

Rises without fanfare; the phantoms of the night come,

          The sky full of stars indifferent to human kind,

The astounding glow of night, a stranger among us,

          High over mountain peaks, with sad glamour.  

       

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Author: The Best American Poetry