The Poetry Stash: 26Feb2024

scenes from the trip we didn't take to the antarctic by D.A. Powell

Today’s poem is “scenes from the trip we didn’t take to the antarctic” by D.A. Powell from the collection Chronic. The book is available for purchase here.

scenes from the trip we didn’t take to the antarctic by D.A. Powell

your inability to phone says it all: whitecaps frozen in a touchless curl
the space in the lungs where breath catches and falters

portage across the blank surface of the hills, bleached tendons
and the stark crevasse we could not cross:  we came to that impasse

laden with the starkest gear and most meager provisions
the landscape offered its monotonous signboard disproof



gentle soul, I can tell you now, there’s no real continent underneath
the bluffs thin their beards and the glaciers chuckle to pea gravel

static the air, conclamant stars sheen the black sky, fisheye stilled
and time comes grinding to rest against the freezing waste of us

caught in an icy mortality: we found its echo in eco tourism


you think ever can change the course of vanishing
conjugate the verb any way you wish, you still lack future tense

say it with me sunshine:  today, brainscan; today, x-ray
today, complete metabolic panel with platelet differential
today, urinalysis; today, liver biopsy; today, preparing the body

at the last station, the sepulcher was empty and you asked why
beyond this numbing terrain, frozen white cell: phantom laughter
didn’t you hear it all along?  or did you think it was just the wind

Prompts:

1.	Begin with “scenes from the trip…”
2.	Begin with “there’s no real…”
3.	Make a list of tasks or appointments. Draft a poem incorporating the list.
4.	Think about chronic and/or untreatable illness or injury. Reflect on climate change/pollution and how they affect the planet. Draft a poem combining the condition of the body with the condition of the natural world.
5.	Explore the line: “conjugate the verb any way you wish, you still lack future tense” Reflect on mortality. Is there an afterlife? Draft a poem written in future tense.

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