Florence Miller
(USA)
Writing Room
Come to my room
in the cellar
where I lie
under a bare bulb
and Paul Klee’s eye
Floating
Poems rise from the stove
then freeze like Steinberg conversation
I stand on the black kitchen chair
poems are floating across the ceiling
you say don’t force them
they’ll come down
play Bach for half an hour
run around the room
but the poems have gone
Invocation to the Muse
Sizzle
burn
flame the needle
suck the spindle
turn
the tables
soak the darning
egg in rum
come words come
How to Write a Poem
Meditate
chant
listen to water
let sky be your mirror
tell lies
Green Music
Bring pink cushions
elephants are playing violins
on fire escapes
Green music
like Chagall’s brides
floating
After Akhmatova
At night I await her arrival
And life hangs by a hair.
What are youth, honor, freedom
to the one who holds the flute
in her hand?
Now she flings down her veil
staring at me
I say to her « Did you dictate to Dante
those stories of Hell? »
She answers « I did »
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Short bio:
Florence Miller, born in Newark, New Jersey, taught English and creative writing in Oakland, California and advised the award-winning literary magazine, Flamingo. The Emmy award winning documentary, Can You Hear Me, by Allen Willis was based on her students’ poems. She is the author of Upriver: New and Selected Poems and, with Alexis Rotella, co-author of a renga trilogy. She is also co-author of My Dreaming Waking Life and co-editor of the peace anthologies, Dreaming of Wings and State of Peace: The Women Speak. Awards include Editor’s Choice, the Paterson Literary Review Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest, and Poets’ Dinner. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee.