Teesta Review: A
Journal of Poetry, Volume 7, Number 1. May 2024. ISSN: 2581-7094
The Mirrored Dance Between
---
Ken Holland
A brutal beauty
sings within
the unknowable:
a
child born into obscurity,
the
lost-named merchants
of
the Silk Road,
the
ancient visionaries
of
the Lascaux Caves,
the
forgotten godheads
of
language, the first to give
word
to sky-struck fire,
dwarf
stars that never
ignited
into their constellated
tableaux,
the inconceivably
slim
portion of time
that
stands on this side
of
the birthed universe
and
the side of what yet
can’t
be conceived:
the
mirrored dance between
what is, and what is not.
Wherefore
I Say This to You
---
Ken Holland
Sound rides deep
the night as sound is fond of doing.
The air has
cleared itself of ice and flame and the inane
chatter of our
species. Even our whispers have been
locked down to
silence. Every rumor, every religion
Is lying
senseless. Every creation myth staggering home
on an ill-lit
road, passing out among the dust and stones.
Drunk on its own
euphoria. On its own nonexistence.
While the stars
continue to burn their way into oblivion,
toward the day
the universe will be saturated in darkness
when belief will
once more open the artifacts of its eyes
as if to embrace
a light that no longer adorns the sky.
Singing
into the Void
---
Ken Holland
When we ask
death to take us
(as some do), it
is not the same
as to be taken
by death.
For to be taken
by death is as when
one is taken by
beauty
or by the
symmetry of an equation
or the rough-hewn
friction of love,
and to be so
taken is to be taken
by that which
does not let go.
Does not
let go.
So yes,
perhaps I’ve been curiously wrong—
to be
taken by beauty, to be taken by death—
they do
seem now to be the same song.
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Bio:
Ken
Holland has had work widely published in such
journals as Rattle, Tulane Review,
Southwest Review, and Tar River
Poetry. He was awarded first place in the 2022 New Ohio Review poetry contest, judged
by Kim Addonizio, and was a finalist in the 2022 Lascaux Prize in Poetry. His
book length manuscript, Summer of the Gods, was a semi-finalist in the
2022 Able Muse book competition as well as Word Work’s 2022 Washington Prize.
He’s been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in the mid-Hudson
Valley of New York. More by visiting his website: www.kenhollandpoet.com
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