Announcements
(screoll down for poetry)
A Supplication For Crows has received a 2024 award from the Delaware Press Association for a poetry book.
I've been awarded an Individual Artist Opportunity grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Division promotes Delaware arts events on www.DelawareScene.com.
I'm honored to be the:
Poet of the Week
at Poetry Superhighway
March 6-12, 2023
https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com
Recent and upcoming publications.
Your Skin, Wings, The Death of Pretense
--Varied Spirits Anthology, Red Haircrow, ed.
Berlin, April 2023.
Stalker (In the Garden of the Dahlias)
and 4 other poems
just released in Voices
anthology from Cold River Press.
Poetry
They Only Name Things On Earth
I do not ask if there is a god,
where malevolence comes from
why there are stars.
In scrutiny, subject
becomes object,
experience consumption.
Naming turns mysteries to
commodities, the ethereal
bundled in a blister pack.
I could call war menstrual envy,
or count the tears in a
lifetime of loneliness, but
I like to leave things
as they are—nameless,
embryonic, enigmatic.
Inquiry stains like rust,
identity a cannibal with
boundless thirst for souls.
Leave me without speaking,
lover, before your angelic
face has an earthly name.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "They Only Name Things On Earth" A Supplication for Crows. 2023.
Ellos sólo nombran cosas
en la tierra
No pregunto si existe un dios,
de donde viene la malevolencia,
por qué hay estrellas.
En el escrutinio, el sujeto
se convierte en objeto,
la experiencia el consume.
Nombrar convierte los misterios
en mercancías, lo etéreo
envuelto en un blíster.
Podría llamar a la guerra envidia
menstrual o contar las lágrimas
de una vida de soledad, pero
me gusta dejar las cosas
como son—sin nombre,
embrionarias, enigmáticas.
La investigación mancha como
el óxido la identidad un caníbal con
sed ilimitada de almas.
Déjame sin hablar
amante, antes de que tu angelical
rostro tenga un nombre terrenal.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "Ellos sólo nombran cosas
en la tierra"ed próximo en" Una Súplica para los Cuervos. 2023..
I Do Not Want To Think About Familiar Things
Insomnia binds me to
waking life, I shuffle in
shackles to a cell of day that
has no window on dreams,
to inmates with identical,
inscrutable faces.
On the F train, a girl
with a Hello Kitty pack
looks at me furtively.
She’s about her age.
When she looks again
I catch her eyes, we smile.
I wonder, what talisman
is safe in her bag?
A cheese sandwich,
like I used to make?
A book that warns not to
give a muffin to a moose?
I do not want to think
about things out of sequence.
Gone to Goodwill, her pink
size 3 sneakers, green dinosaur
socks. A dad, fleeing
somewhere nowhere South.
All that remains is
her Princess toothbrush,
alone in a red plastic cup
pointing to heaven,
waiting for pixie hands
that never come.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "They Only Name Things On Earth" A Supplication for Crows. 2023.
The Missing
The missing aren’t missing.
They are there, with themselves.
We are the missing.
Empty chair
at the dinner table
missing.
Unused outfield
glove for her birthday
missing.
The disappeared
in shallow graves
missing.
Monochrome faces on
my milk carton
missing.
I imagine them in endless
catacombs deep below the
cobblestones on my street,
Each crouched in their corner of
the labyrinths, guardians of
vacant stares from hollow skulls.
Once I wanted to be missing,
to walk naked from everything
and hitchhike to Kamloops.
I would sleep in a treehouse,
content to live on pine needles
and kukicha twig tea.
I realize I don’t need a lean-to
or catacombs to disappear,
I can do that right here,
In small increments,
barely noticeable enough
to be missed.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "They Only Name Things On Earth" A Supplication for Crows. 2023.
An Inventory of Crows
I collect the calls of crows.
In my basement they
hang from mildewed
shelves like bundles
of thyme, others
like dusty jugs of wine
glinting in shards of light
from a casement window.
I’ve kept them all,
the ones that called me
back when I nearly
fell off the edge
of the burning earth,
the chorus of a murder
that swaddled me and
raised me to heaven.
Each caw cataloged
with manilla tags and
jute twine, a library
of the music in my
creaking blood,
a harmony of flight
into the inky night.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "An Inventory of Crows" is forthcoming in A Supplication for Crows poetry collection, winter 2023.
Un inventario de cuervos
Colecciono las canciones de los cuervos.
En mi sótano cuelgan
de estanterías mohosas
como manojos de tomillo, otros
como polvorientas jarras de vino
brillando en fragmentos de luz
de una ventana.
Los he guardado todos,
las que me llamaban
cuando casi
caí desde el borde
de la tierra ardiente,
el coro de un asesinato
que me envolvió y
me elevó al cielo.
Cada graznido catalogado
con etiquetas de manila e
hilo de yute, una biblioteca
de música en mi
sangre crujiente,
la armonía del vuelo
hacia la noche de tinta.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "Un inventorio de cuervos" ed próximo en" Una Súplica para los Cuervos. colección de poesía, invierno, 2023
I Moved Here So Audre Lorde
Would Be My Neighbor
I built my home
in a taciturn chestnut tree
so close to the end of earth
that its mahogany eyeballs
sometimes roll over
the edge, toppling to extinction.
It is held up by stanchions
that get their strength
from the grace of weakness,
like the pneumatized bones
of chickadee wings.
At dawn, I wake to green
sounds that erase dreams.
I watch chestnuts plummet
to their death, their spiny
anger skin splits, revealing
glimmering spheres of adulation.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "I Moved Here So Audre Lorde Would Be My Neighbor" first appeared in Argotist. March 21, 2023.
supplication
when i burned your photo
it was not in effigy.
there was no more room
for your image
in my heart,
occupied now with
navigating white-knuckle
rapids of rivers
flowing backward.
Only the ashes fit.
they float
like orphan eyelashes
into retreating crevices
of memory.
as i held the glossy
corner to the flame,
a supplication to time:
erode this anguish
as slowly, as deliberately
as egyptian granite.
deep, to reveal
veins of gold.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "Supplication" first appeared in Argotist. March 21, 2023.
Crows
call me back from reverie,
entreaties echoing from
dangling drops of rain
to reach me.
if I awaken, I can dream
of black barbs of feathers,
follow each to a bony quill,
then deeper yet,
into inky thews. Entwined in
sinew, my heart canters as
wings thrash into cawing
freedom of oblivion.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "Crows" first appeared in Argotist. March 21, 2023.
What Remains
The ocean returned
to claim the sleeping
in plain day,
foretold to me
in dreams of
prescient dragon flies.
Bargello veins pulsed
in cellophane wings,
droning in and out of
shafts of light,
framed by private
nebulas of dust.
There are still remnants
of magic free from
weighted words,
and cell towers poke
from a new sea, a landing place
for blue dragon flies.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "What Remains" first appeared in Argotist. March 21, 2023.
The Isle of Grand Manan
For Stina
We arrive by sea, like the Passamaquoddy,
where tides flood and fall a fathom a day.
In the harbor, porpoises stitch mirrors
into the dark sea while albatross float
like marionettes tangled in the wind.
It’s early, and dew covers the blackberries
we collect for breakfast. In her cabin,
Willa Cather’s ghost joins us at the table,
as tapping branches echo the tentative
clacking of her Oliver typewriter.
Together, we smell the sea through
windows dulled by salt, pausing to watch
the rocky islands, white with scat. Puffins
linger there, minnows dangling from their rainbow
beaks like odd socks on a clothesline.
The air is heavy with the odor of smokehouses
where herring hang from poles, prisoners in green
uniforms, sentenced to a slow kippering. They are
the hapless quarry of generations who heave
their nets, a thousand amber eyes staring back.
Along the cliffs, we watch right whales
lumber below, sentinels of a hundred unnamed
wrecks and the bones of the forgotten,
entombed in coral. Our path follows the footsteps
of Cather, Audubon, and stranded privateers.
We board the ferry in the rain.
On the Bay of Fundy, the tiny ship glides
up and down the waves like a steel toboggan.
Alone on the deck, I watch the last cliffs sink away.
The waves breaking on the bow seem to say:
Don’t change.
Don’t change.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "The Isle of Grand Manan" first appeared in Delaware Bards Poetry Review. March 1, 2023.
Ovation
Your hands lure damask notes
from the ebony of your violin,
nuzzle a tiger sealed in shellac.
Hands that ignite skin,
exsanguinate lemons.
Wide to swaddle a child’s tears,
insect-like lacemakers.
You fold them, a chalice.
to cup moonlight blood.
It sifts through,
confetti settles,
consecrates
my belly.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "Ovation" first appeared in The Poetry Superhighway. March, 2023.
Pa Moop
Tonight, I sleep in a Lahu hut,
outside a thousand sounds
for every listener. The moon
is beautiful but it has no self-nature.
I have no place to go in this universe,
but I will stay a while.
Time neither passes nor endures,
tomorrow will come without my help.
The rooster crackles at dawn
but no sound comes forth.
After all have spoken,
only silence remains.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "Pa Moop" first appeared in Anak Sastra Literary Journal. February 1, 2023.
Way Home
I wander aimlessly,
a child scuffling
through the streets
of Chiang Rai.
Sounds and aromas
move through me
like woven bamboo
passing this way and that.
A stray dog appears
I trade my lunch
for a smile,
wagging hairless tail.
Even the sun must yield;
the restless heat
begins to fade
as if saying ‘enough done.’
Luckily,
my sandals
know the way home.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "Way Home" first appeared in Anak Sastra Literary Journal. February 1, 2023.
Progenitor
Bones sleep deep
beneath my driveway.
Their minerals leach into the
water I drink.
But the memories are gone.
Before horses they held a child.
Her bones are there too.
Please, stop it all and
let me off.
No wind skims,
no photons penetrate.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "Progenitor" first appeared in The Edge of Humanity Magazine. February 5, 2023.
pink
that succulent
you gave me
on my birthday
the one with the
pink flowers
that dropped
mid-bloom
on that ruinous day
in may
just surprised me
with a single
ruby blossom
that makes me
think you’re
okay?
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "pink" first appeared in The Edge of Humanity Magazine. January 30, 2023.
The Seduction of Winter
Autumn leave affably,
make room for the majesty
of bare trees, their slender
fingers will prick the gray sky.
Welcome the hesitant
snow that blows in threads
across the sidewalk, patterns
a lacemaker would envy.
I’ve pined for you, Winter.
You comfort me as a lover,
your silver robes silently trailing
as you exit the bedroom, sweeping
the moonlight from the dusty floor.
Can you stay forever?
We’ll watch chickadees crouching
inside my footprints in the snow,
splatters of cardinals, and robins
that didn’t go, seduced by holly
berries swollen with ruby amrita.
At night I’ll share tea and firewood,
a threadbare Icelandic blanket,
a loft freshly smudged with sweetgrass.
And in the morning, omelets
with blanched nettles from the riverbank.
No, you will leave me for another year.
I will count each day, through
the clamor of yellow crocuses
and the acid burn of summer.
I will pace the widow’s walk
of autumn with my spyglass,
waiting for your white sails
to float from the horizon.
Together again, we will whirl,
dervishes in a vortex of silk
and alabaster, snow drifts
that meld in the wind, united
effortlessly for a brief season
until we melt under a brilliant sky.
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "The Seduction of
Winter" first appeared in the The Weekly Avocet.
January 1, 2023. Vol. 526.
Conjure
For those who I have loved, I cannot know
if time has been so fair or cruel to me.
Have thoughts of me just faded long ago,
or held me tenderly in memory?
At night I peel back the waning layers
and coax their voices sweetly to their tongues,
to resurrect the songs of muted players,
the notes unplucked and chords we could have strummed.
The faded faces where their eyes once glowed
stare back from every shadow on my wall.
I’d give up all I’ve hoped and all I’ve known,
if their sighs whispered now and let me fall.
Outside the chains of time their love is free,
but do they ever yearn to conjure me?
©2023 Dana Ravyn. "Conjure" first appeared in the Sparks of Calliope. January 1, 2023.
Haiku #137
startled by a loon,
an empty mind
suddenly has room for wood smoke
2023 Dana Ravyn. First appeared in the Haiku Journal. 2021. Vol. 68.