JOHN SIBLEY WILLIAMS
Nearness #1
Don’t make us go down
to the river for reflection
for water or the promise of movement
the same drowning as a mirror’s
Don’t make us wake the world
when we wake screaming alone
each branch clasped to its winter body
sheets a silent tangle of frost
Don’t make us think
of distant heartbeats
when our blood is so near
or how bones are buried or collected or burned
in other cultures
when we do the same with our own
Don’t make us remember
that nothing ends in the manner it began
except the gnawing expectation
that only in distance
our answers will be answered
Nearness #2
We beat our naked legs
with winter’s naked branches
There is a song
in the pain
that bleeds us back into living
In a field that is a house
an empty field
neglected arms
flakes that aren’t snow
line the walls
line our eyes
The stars are too close
leak free from our fists
We are all branches
and memory and body
those distances we refuse to abandon
The Book
We like to think the book of our lives is empty
or that every page has been written
and this task of living is simply to read.
We like to think the stone in our hand touches back
(the world is dialog)
or that stones mean nothing apart from how far we can skip them.
We like to think everything is related
or that nothing connects
(there is mystery in the songs of oaks
or there are saws and factories,
an assembly line of pages).
We like to think we end with our book’s last words
or that we continue writing epilogues of ourselves forever,
that our appearance in other stories is a kind of permanence.
John Sibley Williams is the author of Controlled Hallucinations (forthcoming from FutureCycle Press) and six poetry chapbooks. He is the winner of the Heart Poetry Award, and finalist for the Pushcart, Rumi, and The Pinch Poetry Prizes. John serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review, co-director of the Walt Whitman 150 Project and Book Marketing Manager at Inkwater Press. A few previous publishing credits include: Third Coast, Inkwell, Bryant Literary Review, Cream City Review, The Chaffin Journal, The Evansville Review, Rhino and various anthologies. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
