Dana Ravyn Poetry

Announcements
(screoll down for poetry)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

Announcements (screoll down for poetry)

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

Announcements
(screoll down for poetry)

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.