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On Attention: Vale Ellen Bryant Voigt
“Ruthless attention,” Voigt called it — the discipline to see what is there and what is not. Whether describing a difficult scene or a troubling interior state, she believed accuracy itself could be an ethics.
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The Ferry and the Tree
Past that, the twin diesels rev hard; the boat surges and a boy appears, running in a green Raiders shirt and yellow Crocs that gleam in the sunlight. I laugh, then stop, and return to silence.
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After the Storm
A poem set in the afternoon heat, where humidity climbs and the sky darkens. A bank of pewter cloud muscles across the horizon from the south. Wind rises through the square as a man begins strange gestures— a ritual before the coming storm.
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The Beforetimes
In the cooking room, the kettle begins to sing, and her voice answers — calling a name I no longer trust belongs to me.
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Chasing Clouds in the Burrow
After the day’s heat, a jazz singer colours the evening air turquoise, a man inhales from a blue cylinder, and a dog dances after smoke on Boundary Street.
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The Night Is Young
Evening settles over the river; friends laugh on the damp grass. Memory hovers—half-forgotten, half-desired—like a country glimpsed in fading light.
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Under the Bridge
The damp comes off the river, seeping into clothing, and the sodium light struggles under the bridge’s arc. When the curlew’s wail rises with the storm, the night strikes its bargain with the river, and silence follows
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Whalesong
A reflective poem about whales suspended in air, memory, and the haunting echo of whalesong in a concrete tunnel.
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Bitch; a reflection.
A layered reflection on loyalty, exposure, and refusal: Carolyn Kizer’s “Bitch” occluded beneath anatomical engraving, pop-lyric fragments, and a haunting Dorthia Cotterell lyric.
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Sodium Zone
City bridge after hours: mattress, tent, algae-slick rocks. The light cuts, metal scrapes, light returns—and the scene holds.
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Little Hooks
A poem of moons and tides, of memory’s splinters and small betrayals that lodge like hooks, refusing to leave.
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Compliance is Efficiency
A doctrine-voice poem where the system audits, cascades, and moves non-performing units below grade—cold recursion to a chilling clinch.
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Morning River Notes
Four haiku river poems
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A Tiny Deity
A poem set at the river’s edge in spring, a child lifts fruit into sunlight—an ordinary act that becomes creation, renewal, and wonder.
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Day-Possum
A ringtail possum scurries along the powerline at noon, drawn out of hiding by mango scent — a stillness poem of summer abundance.
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Government Brain Serums Hidden In Street Signs Are Controlling The Schoolteachers
A paranoia-spiral poem: dog walkers, red leashes, barcodes, and the system that wants your eyes.
