Two Poems by Robert Philbin

old jazz

In a book store not far
from the river you write
a letter to a publisher
explaining why your

poems are all about you
and not about anything
else. The rafters reveal
a history, the sky light

reveals another history,
an overcast fall day.
The radio blares old jazz
older even than the skylight.

A Star of David in stained glass
across the street. Sometimes
a poem is all about everything,
and nothing, at the same time.

natchez

Imagine some perfect state where the mind
invents its own artifacts and time resists
every temptation to bend the willow branch
above the river. We have become what we

feared most — slow, lethargic champions
of the river bend below Natchez in late
summer. The water rising takes it all away.
They sing on the radio, my car speeds beneath

a relentless Mississippi sun that surrenders
nothing we haven’t read about before.
Mourning becomes another highway off
the river bank, in the shade of memory.

And deeper, you must go deeper into
the core of meaning itself, taking words
away from every opening in the mind,
like a bird, capturing the up current, climbs
altitudes never flown above water before.

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