WHAT YOU MEANT
This marriage is dead,
Cannot be plagiarized
The backside is rose rubbed.
What feels right are patterned reminders.
Say, you didn’t mean, butcher.
Say, you didn’t mean, cleave.
Say, you wanted to leave me a bit to hang onto.
(c) Umansky 2010
Posted in poems | Tagged poem | 1 Comment »
Archaic Figuration
1.
Steal the sad
Stealing; stealing.
Undone
Telling
The tenderest truth
The sad beginning
Be beginning and gold
Be lighthanded
But telling
2.
There.
The tender.
Keep echoing this.
Keep undoing the sad and the stealing.
Keep undoing
Undone.
© Umansky 2010
Posted in poems | Leave a Comment »
Tell Me
Tell me, what it was like
to trumpet this around.
And tell me what it was like
The small
Under-current at your heels
*
The other day, I thought I heard your laugh
I sat on the couch, head rolled back
a cackle from my throat
Stared at the door like a fool, then
I knew it: I am part of the lonely.
Even my laugh is uncoupled.
These are the moments I am supposed to give to myself.
These partial portraits.
*
Tell me: is it hard to be reflexive?
It must be hard to keep going back to
you.
(c) Umansky 2010
Posted in poems | Leave a Comment »
EVERY HEART A KNOT
In every way against this
nevermind the tide
This will buoy beyond
to and fro
in every way this next
to sound this next to sound
a volley.
this will be unconscious
(and for good reason, too)
You were never beneath
this breast or that
In every way splintered or
ingrained.
In every way dead, but sparkling
In every dead-as-a-barnacle plush
In every dead as a [nevermind, the rocks and glass]
a half-crisp mollusk or
yellowed pine
Admit it: you wanted this mossy.
You wanted this thrown.
Here, take hold, Honey:
Every heart is a different knot.
© Umansky 2010
Posted in poems | Leave a Comment »
Self :: History
I don’t want
this third pull
Do as the duckling
Lop-tailed and clacking
Put it small
but, full.
I am sure; I am sure; Sure, I am
learning occurrences differently.
I am enlightened.
Throw a lighted-one here.
Oh, these spaces
With their certain hurts and harms.
I am done being ___________
Done being _____________
Kill the sweet.
No marveling.
Steal your life.
Require cutting.
Juxtapose: self-healing w/descent
If this were olden times;
If this were olden,
I’d still supply it all.
©Umansky 2010
Posted in poems | Tagged poem | Leave a Comment »
I was a recent recipient of a 1-week poetry scholarship to the Norman Mailer Writing Colony in Provincetown, MA !! See NEWS for more information.
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
blog of poet, leah umansky 
You must be logged in to post a comment.