Month: June 2016

Colin James: New Poems

          

MENTORS OF THE IMPERVIOUS

 

An old trail opposed
to change.
A gate with the top slat
for comments, “I was just here” etc.
I must have missed you
because the day hadn’t.
Consequently, there is misery in
your circle dotted I’s.
Who takes the time
to cauterize the wood
and burn the careless pistols?
Ah sure, it’s only testosterone
but it’s fading just the same.

 

RESISTING PROBABILITY

 

Squandered, fairly innocent
chimes hanging from a tree.
This place has suddenly become quietly profound.
Formally just the jingle of tact,
none of which was particularly happening.
Now an unthematic sound
abides inclusively.

Don DeLillo’s Zero K

Zero K, by Don Delillo. 2016

Don DeLillo, the author of White Noise and Underworld, has given us one of his best novels to date at the ripe old age of 79. The subject matter is fitting. It’s about mortality, life after death — or its absence — and is a poetic meditation on the potential of science to extend said life. It may also be about the potential for junk science to heighten and exploit our delusions regarding the hereafter, but DeLillo doesn’t tell us how we should take this. One way or the other. And its success, its strong, compact prose, its aphoristic beauty in parts, its solid craftsmanship, also go against one of my own (poorly supported) theories about artistic creation: That its quality tends to go down over time, and with novelists, especially, declines rapidly after one’s 30s or 40s.

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