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Destructive Rudder

It’s pretty empty now in the atoms
there are things now
that are not even books
the doors to which were kept open

except for one that was banging like a rudder
we heard it even up in the meadows
which were really packed with light and flower
you said it would destroy the town

your breakfasts were still in my body
the sun was a bangle in the wood
we passed a green cannon in the pine barrens
all that is old now

Gabriel Gudding is the author of four poetry collections, including Rhode Island Notebook (Dalkey Archive Press, 2007) and A Defense of Poetry (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002).

About Gabriel Gudding

Themes

Body

Nature

Space

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More by this poet

To That One Figure In Bruegel Ridden By the Fetus of Glory

We are much improved by small bruises
though nothing’s changed you so much
as the fact that you can’t be helped
the tongues arrive above you each as rich
and plump as a gland each tongue returning
its lips unused each tongue a zeppelin

Gabriel Gudding

2023

One Petition Lofted into the Ginkos

For the train-wrecked, the puck-struck, 
   the viciously punched,
the pole-vaulter whose pole
   snapped in ascent.
      For his asphalt-face,
his capped-off scream, God bless
   his dad in the stands.
      For the living dog in the median
car-struck and shuddering
   on crumpled haunches, eyes
      large as plates, seeing nothing, but looking,
looking. For the blessed pigeon
who threw himself from the cliff
   after plucking out his feathers
      just to taste a failing death.

Gabriel Gudding

2001

Poems

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Destructive Rudder

More by this poet

To That One Figure In Bruegel Ridden By the Fetus of Glory

One Petition Lofted into the Ginkos

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