Tuesday poem #263 : Andrew Wessels : from That Sunshiny Field

And here are two

salty gray myths:

her hair turning

to snakes and her hair

giving birth to the Centaur

with Neptune riding

in a chariot drawn

by four sea horses

(“Hippodames”)

a bunch of false

grapes form the union

violently harnessed.

   °

I.e. it would be easier

to number the stars

(“eyes”) than watch

the tragedies caused

by deadly arrows, easy

plunder, the masses

assaulted by a master

deceiving (“fayld”) those

looking on. Happiness,

blindfolded by tradition,

shoots at random (“randon”)

the peacock, the goddess

of the rainbow, or lovers

all animated so lifelike now

to be torn and splintered.

Andrew Wessels currently splits his time between Istanbul and Los Angeles. He has held fellowships from Poets & Writers and the Black Mountain Institute. Semi Circle, a chapbook of his translations of the Turkish poet Nurduran Duman, was published by Goodmorning Menagerie in 2016.  His poems and translations can be found in VOLT, Witness, Asymptote, Tammy Journal, Faultline, and Colorado Review, among others. His first book, published by 1913 Press, is A Turkish Dictionary.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan