DAVID DODD LEE

Power Grid

Come down from there.
I can imagine
More clearly your
Wistfulness as sculpture.

I made a painting
Of nothing. It's
In my hallway. I
Know it's a tree,

Or rather the soul
Of a tree. The
Wind in it gets caught
In the yellow

Branches. Somewhere deep
In its wood the
Dotted lines of a
Rainstorm. It's just I'm

Too far away now.
I remember six
Actors in a
Split level white house.

The shower's turned
On. The shower's turned
Off. What might I chip
Away? I remember

Distinctly. My middle
Name’s not a name!

A noose dangled from
A rafter in the garage.

I know I was fifteen
Cutting up “death threats”
I’d written at twelve.
One was to Jonny Quest.

Something or nothing,
The sky pours off
Of that canvas.
If the grass spider

Keeps living through
Winter. He tells me
A story. His web
Bubbles up out of

An unused drain.
Paint for the blind,
Tulips. They burn
Until there is no frame.






David Dodd Lee has published five previous books of poems, including Orphan, Indiana (Akron, 2010), The Nervous Filaments (Four Way Books, 2010), Abrupt Rural (New Issues, 2004) and Arrow Pointing North (Four Way, 2002). Sky Booths in the Breath Somewhere, The Ashbery Erasure Poems (BlazeVox, 2010) appeared as well in 2010.



Boxcar Poetry Review - ISSN 1931-1761