MiPOesias Magazine

Randall Williams lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina, and is a member of the Lucifer Poetics Group. In 2005, Octopus Magazine named him one of America’s 16 Hot Shot Poets. His work has been featured in McSweeneys, Salon, Talisman, The Independent, Octopus Magazine, Word/ for Word and the Carolina Quarterly. He’s an ardent feminist and peace activist who blogs . His film collaborations with John Korn and Didi Menendez will soon be viewable at www.poemmovies.com. He’s the author of two chapbooks, Empire (2003) and 40 Days (2004), published by Junk Horse Press.

To Daphne

Daphne, the cobbler will not come drink from your hands
will not come visit you, will not build his rations over your feet.

His horse is a piebald one, poured down a hillside, blackened
wrapped in fountains and sent beneath the service of

a cannon resembling an ancient stone phallus
drug onto the lawn.

We, the reaching branches, rotate once per day
in the purple thick light, perpendicular to

his bronze steed, that warm sum, why are you curled
into my hands again? 40 years ago, a cobbler

came to visit you and into his fountainous arms
he gave you his rations. He built them over your feet.

He opened up the trunk and spiraled into a globe
tied into rations, each being its own aspirant.

Daphne, to return isn’t easy. Jump over this ledge into
the yellow fabric book of Swinburne I have broken.

It is now taking form as my fur coat
I was an enabler, a dervish, the honey

that moves through combs. Union soldiers
weep over these ports, they make their way

through towns. The concrete yard and hounds
that patrol it, the file cabinet’s metal beam

dropped, a cigarette, into an air conditioner.
I know I am speaking. A reporter is lost in violence

has forgotten his friends, has identified with the hill.
Daphne, please, my hands are not those of the cobbler.

I was not at the covered bridge that night.
I did not drop anything into the water.