Shadow and Air as Objects by John L. Stanizzi

Art: Costumes from the Stratford Warehouse No. 4 by Chris Klein

SHADOW AND AIR AS OBJECTS

 

-shadow

 

The pen’s shadow

in angled demarcations

follows my hand across the page

rests on the tongue of my mind

dissolves like the expression of Christ

a wafer of ingenuity

I want to lift to my mouth

but it passes through my hand like incense

the only sound it knows

is the sound of the pen

 

-it does not smell like ashes

though it may emerge

as the idea of ashes

 

-air

 

the air moves aside for us —

dimity fabric frail

as the convictions

of Emily’s Gentlewomen

we take it into us —

a fine lining of inspiration

we breathe it out —

it parts for us

tasteless as thought

though it is there

and there

you do not see it

I know this

but it is everywhere and nowhere

like the past

with a scent like stone

only less dense

 

listen –

 

each sound we make

each touch

each movement

away from

or toward love

is the sound of it

moving aside to let us pass

---

About the author:

John L. Stanizzi is author of the full-length collections – Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, and Chants.  His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, American Life in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, The Cortland Review, Rattle, Tar River Poetry, Rust & Moth, Connecticut River Review, Hawk & Handsaw, and many others.  Stanizzi has been translated into Italian and appeared in El Ghibli, in the Journal of Italian Translations Bonafinni, and Poetarium Silva.  His translator is Angela D’Ambra.  He has read and venues all over New England, including the Mystic Arts Café, the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, Hartford Stage, and many others.  He Stanizzi is the coordinator of the Fresh Voices Poetry Competition for Young Poets at Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT, and a teaching artist for the national recitation contest, Poetry Out Loud.  A former New England Poet of the Year, named by the New England Association of Teachers of English, Stanizzi teaches literature at Manchester Community College in Manchester, CT and he lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry.

Art: Costumes from the Stratford Warehouse No. 4 by Chris Klein