Posts Tagged ‘Simon Perchik’

Published by Poetry Editor on . This item is listed in Issue 28, Issue 28 Poetry, Poetry

*

This leaf shutting downleaves
drains as if its puddle
could speak for you

though the evenings too
have outgrown, no longer reds
or browns or face to face

the way all these trees
still gives birth in darkness
and the echo you listen for

has your forehead, scented
lulled by the gentle splash
coming by to nurse

–what you hear is the hand
hour after hour leaving your body
and this huge sea

that never blossomed
taking you back for rivers
that wanted to be water.

–Simon Perchik

 

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. His most recent collection is Almost Rain published by River Otter Press (2013). For more information, including free e-books and his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities,” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.

Published by Associate Editor on . This item is listed in Issue 24, Issue 24 Poetry, Poetry

“*” by Simon Perchik

narrated by John C. Mannone

* by Simon Perchik

Illustration by Sue Babcock

*
This spoon all night on tiptoe
listens for the careless splash
that will never make it back –the cup

half hazelnut, black, half-filled
so its prey can be tracked in the dark
the way one mouth finds another

feeds on the voice that can’t escape
–hour after hour being eaten
by the silence longing for the light

though even with the walls in place
even with her hands over your eyes
begging you from behind Guess who?

you circle the room, flying blind
spread-eagle, and hear the You
no longer moving between your teeth.




Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. His most recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press(2013). For more information, free e-books and his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.