Jerome Rothenberg Poems

I like to cross
these borders. They take place
between the dead & dead.
I make my mind up
...

I was amok & fearless
twice deceived
for which I sought out
satisfactions
...

the bridges of Chicago
are not the bridges of Paris
or the bridges of Amsterdam
...

Beginning with olive trees.
Shadows.
Beginning with roosters.
Crystal.
Beginning with castanets & almonds.
...

the zig zag mothers of the gods
of science the lunatic fixed stars
& pharmacies
fathers who left the tents of anarchism
...

1
infant encoil'd
inside a worm

2
The Throne of Mary
...

My name is smaller
than it sounds.
I work & polish it
until a light
...

3:00 P.M.

The green man, more a man
than most, took a scissors,
cut the sky with it,
...

He takes a book down from his shelf & scribbles across a
page of text: I am the final one. This means the world will
end when he does.
...

I am the Giant Goliath,
I digest goat cheese.
I am a mammoth's calf.
...