3 Mystical Poems: January Gill O'Neil, Kathleen McGookey, Philip Metres [by Nin Andrews]

Sometimes, when I'm reading a new collection of poetry, I think: For this poem alone, everyone should own this book. But this week, while reading January Gil O'Neil's collection, Glitter Road, Kathleen McGookey's Cloud Reports, and Philip Metres' Fugitive/Refuge, I couldn't find a favorite. Instead, I found many favorites.  What I loved about all of these books, as different as they are, were the mystical moments they offer their readers. 

Woman Swallowed by a Python in Her Cornfield
by January Gil O'Neil

Inside every woman is a snake. Some think I’m a hoax or an oddity,
rarer than winning Powerball or being struck by lightning. Everything
has a form, even doubt. Think of me as someone you’ve met in a dream.
Green stalks shade the sun, keep me hidden from the villagers,
the nonbelievers. To find me you must enter me. Oh,
that your body fits into my body makes us unholy. Let me press
my mouth to your scar, run my tongue along your flesh so I can taste
how you wound. The wild boars patrolling the edges won’t save you.
Footprints. Flashlight. Machete. Slippers. All that I’ve left behind.
Inside every snake is a woman. That’s the part of me I love the most—
reticulated constrictor, word made flesh, time unfolding, lore or legend,
I am done telling the kinder story. I am a myth of my own making.
Part my snake flesh and you will find me intact, clothed as I was
when I visited the corn. Think of me as the gift you’re unsure how to open.

Cloud Report, 1/18/23
by Kathleen McGookey 

Now the angels are in my kitchen, whipping cream in big silver bowls. I am tired of being afraid.  When they look at the sky, an airplane slowly disappears into sweet white chiffon, bare wet trees stark against it.  I didn’t invite them, but like clouds, a few arrived anyway. They gaze over my shoulder toward the horizon when I ask, What happens now?  They offer me a soft chair with the best view and a cup of hot chocolate, but the clouds form a wall as far as I can see.  So the angels curl on the couch, then tuck their robes around their knees.  Clearly, they have time.

The Trees in My Chest
by Philip Metres

Again, the dream: I need to leave,
yet each door I open opens

another room, another door.
The pen in open. Is this made

possible by someone whose traces
hover in the absence? The seen

in absence. I’m aching for you,
dear architect. The further back

through history we look, the more
faces fade—a room in a house

we cannot see, nor imagine ourselves
out of. December’s advancing dark.

The ember in December. I can’t
breathe in this room I guest,

you ghost. The inverted asthmatic  
trees in my chest burn to bloom,

& must relearn each time to rise
from the ground, & to return.

The urn in return. & the rue.

Comments

[Terence Winch]

Intriguing poems. Thanks for bringing the books to our attention.

[Betsy Retallack]

So proud that my friend January is noticed here. Her work is brilliant. And kudos to the many poets on the north shore of Boston who are a community of great poets supporting each other to make space for this kind of creativity!