Matías Serra Bradford

from criticism (brief lives of poets)

 

R.W.

thick ice and tall windows we are told
metropolitan railway
expert paperhangers, house painters
trumpeting like elephants
when they meet each other
beau monde
as though the parcel postman
absentminded lion-tamer
on a bench
huge blue inkstain
on the skyblue shirt's outside pocket
heart bleeds
semi-detached look of rain
closely spaced shots
back burning field on fire
blood circulation
replenished at every curve
the typing trade at some point
a language we don't speak
serifs distrusted
overcoat in the know
of a pen's mileage
duelling scars
the bear's brain:
impartiality plus dispensation
"spareness of style"
tracking a storm
look high and low
balloon journey
slow-and-steady to the Baltic
a cloud chamber
a child-tested book
reworkings in the fairytale washrooms
frogs dragged into the courts
dark matter collapsing on itself
Plumian Professor of Astronomy
silvery and aloof
bitten fingernails diminishing
a person's stature in his eyes
a flat universe
is one that will expand forever
early winter woodlet
snowflake up the coatsleeve
a legion of spiders
an astonishing hop
for a bird so small

 

Copyright © 2008, Matías Serra Bradford.

Matías Serra Bradford is a poet and translator from Buenos Aires. He has edited an anthology of English poetry for the Spanish publisher, Lumen, and his own work has recently appeared in PN Review, as well as several Spanish and Argentine journals. The poems in this issue were written in English.