Party Ship

Kay Ryan (2013)

You are a
land I can't
stand leaving
and can't not.
My party ship
is pulling out.
We all have
hats. I try to
toot some notes
you'll understand
but this was not
our instrument
or plan.

Home To Roost

Kay Ryan (2005)

The chickens
are circling and
blotting out the
day. The sun is
bright, but the
chickens are in
the way. Yes,
the sky is dark
with chickens,
dense with them.
They turn and
then they turn
again. These
are the chickens
you let loose
one at a time
and small—
various breeds.
Now they have
come home
to roost—all
the same kind
at the same speed.

Apogee

Kay Ryan (1996)

At high speeds
we know
when an orbit
starts to go
backwards:
on fair rides
like the Hammer
or in airplane disasters,
our brains are
plastered to
one wall of the skull
or another;
we comprehend reverse
through the sudden compression
of matter.
In a way its worse
when the turn's wider—
say a boat on a soft tide
in mild water*#8212;
we hardly knew
that we were floating out.
The sense of turning back
seems like our fault.

Agreement

Kay Ryan (2000)

The satisfactions
of agreement are
immediate as sugar—
a melting of the
granular, a syrup
that lingers, shared
not singular.
Many prefer it.

The Job

Kay Ryan (2000)

Imagine that
the job were
so delicate
that you could
seldom—almost
never—remember
it. Impossible
work, really.
Like placing
pebbles exactly
where they were
already. The
steadiness it
takes ... and
to what end?
It's so easy
to forget again.

2007: A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts by Wallace Stevens

Don't Look Back

Kay Ryan

This is not
a problem
for the neckless.
Fish cannot
recklessly
swivel their heads
to check
on their fry;
no one expects
this. They are
torpedos of
disinterest,
compact capsules
that rely
on the odds
for survival,
unfollowed by
the exact and modest
number of goslings
the S-necked
goose is—


who if she
looks back
acknowledges losses
and if she does not
also loses.

2007: Ulysses by Alfred Tennyson

Failure

Kay Ryan

Like slime
inside a
stagnant tank

its green
deepening
from lime
to emerald

a dank
but less
ephemeral
efflorescence

than success
is in general.



2007: The World Is Everything That Is the Case by Daryl Hine

Test

Kay Ryan (2000)

Imagine a surface
so still and vast
that it could test
exactly what
is set in motion
when a single stone
is cast into its ocean.
Possessed of a calm
so far superior
to people's, it alone
could be assessed
ideally irascible.
In such a case,
if ripples yawed
or circles wobbled
in their orbits
like spun plates,
it would be the law
and not so personal
that what drops warps
and what warps dissipates.

Nothing Ventured

Kay Ryan (2000)

Nothing exists as a block
and cannot be parceled up.
So if nothing's ventured
it's not just talk;
it's the big wager.
Don't you wonder
how people think
the banks of space
and time don't matter?
How they'll drain
the big tanks down to
slime and salamanders
and want thanks?

Silence

Kay Ryan

Silence is not snow.
It cannot grow
deeper. A thousand years
of it are thinner
than paper. So
we must have it
all wrong
when we feel trapped
like mastodons.

Say Uncle

Kay Ryan (2000)

Every day
you say,
Just one
more try.
Then another
irrecoverable
day slips by.
You will
say ankle,
you will
say knuckle;
why won't
you why
won't you
say uncle?

Green Hills

Kay Ryan (2000)

Their green flanks
and swells are not
flesh in any sense
matching ours,
we tell ourselves.
Nor their green
breast nor their
green shoulder nor
the langour of their
rolling over.

Things Shouldn't Be So Hard

Kay Ryan (2001)

A life should leave
deep tracks:
ruts where she
went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn out place;
beneath her hand,
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks.
The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space
—however small—
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn't
be so hard.

Outsider Art

Kay Ryan (1995)

Most of it's too dreary
or too cherry red.
If it's a chair, it's
covered with things
the savior said
or should have said—
dense admonishments
in nail polish
too small to be read.
If it's a picture,
the frame is either
burnt matches glued together
or a regular frame painted over
to extend the picture. There never
seems to be a surface equal
to the needs of these people.
Their purpose wraps
around the backs of things
and under arms;
they gouge and hatch
and glue on charms
till likable materials—
apple crates and canning funnels—
lose their rural ease. We are not
pleased the way we thought
we would be pleased.

2008: Chalk-Circle Compass by Sandra McPherson