Charles Wright Poems

Midmorning like a deserted room, apparition
Of armoire and table weights,
Oblongs of flat light,
...

Already one day has detached itself from all the rest up ahead.
It has my photograph in its soft pocket.
It wants to carry my breath into the past in its bag of wind.
...

Three years ago, in the afternoons,
I used to sit back here and try
To answer the simple arithmetic of my life,
...

The spider, juiced crystal and Milky Way, drifts on his web through the night sky
And looks down, waiting for us to ascend ...
...

Ancient of Days, old friend, no one believes you'll come back.
No one believes in his own life anymore.

The moon, like a dead heart, cold and unstartable, hangs by a thread
...

Bowls will receive us,
and sprinkle black scratch in our eyes.
Later, at the great fork on the untouchable road,
...

The brief secrets are still here,
and the light has come back.
The word remember touches my hand,
...

This is the bird hour, peony blossoms falling bigger than wren hearts
On the cutting border's railroad ties,
Sparrows and other feathery things
Homing from one hedge to the next,
...

Thanksgiving, dark of the moon.
Nothing down here in the underworld but vague shapes and black holes,
...

Sunday, September Sunday ... Outdoors,
Like an early page from The Appalachian Book of the Dead,
Sunlight lavishes brilliance on every surface,
...