Noelle Canty Poems

“I am missing my tongue”

I am missing my tongue

For Spring has taken it from me,

And lolloping over the hills,

With larks, and frogs, and cicadas,

Taunts me with its eloquence.

During the winter,

I flew as I wrote,

Black birds across a white page

Beside a fireplace.

But those black birds have flown

Into the air, escaped, escaped, escaped.

And the snow has evaporated,

And the words I spoke have fallen

Deep, deep, deep into the ground,

Taken root,

And there I will lay my head,

Against the pliant stems,

Till the cold wakes me,

And I complain from want.

“dingy-sharp”

dingy, sharp february-rain:

then, clear, vehement wind-sun.

i stringently step down the uneven concrete blocks

small green leaves in odd cornered places

rain-painted grass beds like fire and ice on my soles

the piquancy of a fizz-quick breath in snap-cold air

bubbles like a drink when humid against my sinuses

and a patch of sky shall lead them

but the line-slim brown branch cut it in two

“Wither: Turn and Be (Saved)”

So much of a human is pigment.

Why then wonder why frescoes fade?

We are painted neatly on the surface of our body,

Anthocyanins and tannins colored in the lines.

Herein is the mystery: why when we

Die do we not get exhumed and restored?

Why this never-ending litany of reds

Blues purples pinks, egg-made and

Berry-blushed palettes, lapis lazuli

And gold-leaf? – and god collects

The offerings in his hands, smiling

Incredulously at our industry –

Squirrels ridiculously frantic to store

Acorns for the Autumn. Autumn

Is already passed and the grave’s

Hoard has metamorphized into tracing paper.

Sic transit one grass into another.

“Child”

I have buried so many words,

Given them up to the sky

Before they hit the earth.

I have died millions of deaths in them,

    on my walks.

My stillborn poem

Floats away from me.

Unwritten, forlorn,

cold in the ether –

I mourn.

Noelle Canty is a scholar, editor, and creative writer. She has published, presented, and collaborated academically and in the mainstream on topics ranging from the sciences to the humanities. Her main focus is a philosophic approach to literature 1850–1950, with special attention to what it means to be a human, an American, and a woman.  Her most recent contributions have been to the Middle West Review, the Southern Humanities Review, and After Dinner Conversation. 

Noelle Canty