Love is pulling her hairout your mouthforever or love isleaving it there toloathe on for youwho left this strung I’ve confusedbelongingwith whom I belong towhat length goes leftin my chestbrambles into stringsthat broadcasta former moon blown into a ringcircling round the thingthat destroyed it Oh the hope ofa hair that we should someday meetthe tails of thingswhen you touch your temple& feel a spot of cold airthen go looking for the one that lefta window open somewhere
Violin
Brian Foley
For James Tate
Feature Date
- June 18, 2022
Series
Selected By
Share This Poem
Print This Poem
“Violin” from THERE MUST BE A REASON PEOPLE COME HERE by Brian Foley.
Published by Black Ocean on July 12, 2022.
Copyright © 2022 by Brian Foley.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Brian Foley is a musician and poet living in Chicago. His newest book is There Must Be A Reason People Come Here (Black Ocean, 2022). He is author of The Constitution (Black Ocean, 2014) and recent poems have appeared in Hyperallergic, PEN America, Boston Review, Verse Daily, The Volta, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. He holds a doctorate from the University of Denver, an MFA from Mass Amherst, and composes his music under the name, Green Onions.
Boston, Massachusetts
A philosophical-minded and syntactically experimental book of poetry.
The philosopher Catherine Malabou once asked: "What should we do so that consciousness of the brain does not purely and simply coincide with the spirit of capitalism?" There Must Be A Reason People Come Here by Brian Foley is a collection of poems that attempts to answer this question by broadcasting the indirect effects of the lived condition of a subject squeezed under the structures of late capitalism.
Lines like, "Hope is a chemical, not a dream ignited in the eye / that can be heard sober." And "There is no sun here, / just habits of light" work through the contradictions of what it means to be negatively capable. It is a collection of poems that refuses to conform to the norms of what poetry is and how it must say things.
Poetry Daily Depends on You
With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.
