National Poetry Month 2015: Karen Massey,

Among His Orchards

Dense voices thud through the acacia leaves,

the perfumed heat mounts, wefts in faint strokes,

dropping on the motionless. The sun goes thin,

drops soft weights down, bright as ever

among the golden-rod. Already the half-drunken

in-crowd reiterate the plots of the high,

murmuring Stretch. Reach that peach.

I hear the full-fringed cry of the nuthatch

reach long and large among the dry oaks,

cling to dark sod. The mountain flings shadows

far out from where the rotting vineyards sleep-murmur,

and bees creep in the dew-wrapped trees, shrink

along the wind, press upon the tops of orchard apples,

or die in the hot grass, shaven short, and blue.

Source text:

Lampman, Archibald. Alcyone. “Among The Orchards.”

This remixed Lampman poem is from a recent series where I use all words in an existing poem to write a new poem.

Karen Massey lives in Ottawa, Canada, between the canal and the river. Her work has won prizes and appeared in print publications and anthologies including Decalogue: Ten Ottawa Poets (Chaudiere Books). Her erasure poetry has appeared in The Bukowski Erasure Poetry Anthology (Silver Birch Press) and online at such places as Inky Needles, Silver Birch Press, Bywords and ottawater. Her second chapbook, Strange Fits of Beauty & Light: Erasure Poems from Archibald Lampman’s Sonnets is from above ground press (2014).

During National Poetry Month, April 2015, she is one of the official participants in the PoMoSco project at the Found Poetry Review (www.pomosco.com).