Restless Astronomy: Poems New and Selected

by Gilmore, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780981744308
• ISBN10: 0981744303
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-10-01
• Publisher: Dalton Pub

Summary

Michael Gilmore is astonishingly good at pulling us into the center of what it means to ache with the power and vulnerability of art and love. He can capture the delicacy of lace caught in a button and equally eviscerate a pompous radio personality with Freudian puns of fish and cigars. Visual and visceral, [i]Restless Astronomy[/i] slices into the madness coiled within the simultaneously bloated and anorexic American monster. Gilmore's x-ray insight into our historical blindness is at once bracing and heartbreaking. He calls us to an action that both acknowledges and refutes the power of one ego to determine the destiny of others. Yet, we must also act to face our common humanities. Gilmore trusts that the center will hold in the centrifuge of the human soul.

Author Biography

Michael Gilmore is astonishingly good at pulling us into the center of what it means to ache with the power and vulnerability of art and love

Table of Contents

Collateral Archeology
Achilles Proposes to Isadora Duncan Near Athens: 1903	p. 3
Incident in the Province of Noricum	p. 5
Madame Pissarro Sewing	p. 6
While Stacking Firewood	p. 7
On the Commissar of Love's Absence	p. 8
After Curfew on Mount Bonnell	p. 9
Meander Lines	p. 10
Negatory Mon Amour	p. 11
Come Away	p. 12
Saurian Optics	p. 13
Minotaurian Architecture	p. 14
Celtica	p. 15
Modern Music in the Ancient Realm	p. 19
Vita Nuova	p. 20
Chinoiserie
Tiu nan tiao chin-ching	p. 23
Tropical Insomnia	p. 24
On Koshinga's Island, Japan's First Colony, and Though Freed from Nipponese Domination at the Cessation of Hostilities at the End of the Pacific War in 1945 None-the-Less Looking to Japan for Pop Culture Influences Over That of America, the Western Barbarian Receives a Nickname not Un-apt or Non-Indicative, but Humorous in some Lights and Thereby Deserving	p. 25
Darwin, the Water Cure at Malvern, & My Ex, an Acupuncturist	p. 30
In the Palace Garden	p. 33
Knocking at a Star with My Exalted Head	p. 34
Martian Fevers
Houding the Thracians	p. 37
Apollinaire to Lou / Autumn 1914 (imitation from the French)	p. 39
While Watching a Documentary on PBS During the Commercial Break of a Network Medical Drama	p. 40
Ezra Pound's Arrest	p. 41
Thirty Six Hours	p. 42
The Ruins of Old Sheldon Parish Church	p. 46
The Messenger May Be a Witness Against You	p. 48
The Stele of Vultures	p. 50
Talking to Chang on the Road to Chernobyl	p. 53
Realities on the Temperament
Sitting Down to Write a Poem	p. 57
Platform Agnostic	p. 58
On the Gravitational Effects of the Human Heart on Foreign Bodies [the Club Mix]	p. 60
"Unfocused Reverence"	p. 61
After Tvardovsky	p. 63
Simple Fate in a Complex Time	p. 66
On Tuesday or There is No Such Thing as a Simple Act	p. 67
Deleted Scene Now Included on DVD	p. 68
After Reading Freud Rutherford Addresses His Secretary	p. 69
Loneliness Among the Von Neumann Machines	p. 71
Lonesome Doggerel	p. 72
What's That German Word for Broadcasting Thoughts	p. 73
Brown Trout	p. 74
Eakins at the Oar	p. 75
Letter from a Bathysphere	p. 76
Restless Astronomy	p. 78
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