William Considine
William Considine writes poems and plays. His books include The Furies and Strange Coherence (both from The Operating System), The Other Myrtle (Finishing Line Press), and the forthcoming Continent of Fire (Kelsay Books). His critically praised full-length plays presented in New York in recent years include Moral Support in an eight-performance run at Medicine Show Theater and Women’s Mysteries in a staged reading at Polaris North. Recent short verse plays presented include Aunt Peg and the Comptometer at Bowery Poetry Club and Persephone’s Return, Odyssey’s End, John Milton in the Tower, and A Common Tongue, all on Zoom during the pandemic. He is a member of Brevitas poets cooperative and Polaris North, a theater artists cooperative. He is a retired lawyer and lives in Brooklyn and Mexico with his wife. They have two grown daughters.
One Plus One
Tango passion, hambone hip, I vote for you.
You peel me open to call out fresh nutrients
And sear them in a large, ovenproof pan.
You pour me into your pie of the day.
Enjoy whatever you might find to like in me.
Others have and have moved on. Their hunger
Lingers and burns through nights as I sweat.
How pale I was as one of two and then two others.
Now I come up with the sun in sober arrogance,
All shining and smiling like a just world,
With jokes and joys to share over time.
Now we are one and can see through our clothes.
Comic book ads for x-ray glasses have nothing on us,
As solid in our solitude as sated panthers.
Cry Wolf
Off-moments, all akilter,
arms akimbo, trains of
almost thoughts sliding through
when snarls of a wolf pounce
from dark edging, a sleek, grey
predator, long teeth bared.
It rips and ravages
disjoints and smears a mess
subliminal passing as sublime
a glimpse of entrails
splattered on the floor.
They seem to spell wolf
but it’s devoured and gone
and only I am howling.
Open Record
While dreaming of Me,
I mostly remember you.
And what is more
Flimsy, fragile and frayed,
A couple, a thought, or
Our time gone away?
So, I open old moments to save
All that lasts of the love we gave.
Earth Song
Earth is river valleys
Restructured as millworks.
Machines feed off barges and long, slow
Trainloads of coal rumbling down nights
Into sleep. Work shift whistles set loose
Crowds of workmen streaming out the gate.
A train of ladle cars tips the brimming
Waste ores, slag to pour
Molten, white-hot and sparking
Down a hillside bright in night’s darkness.
This is incidental to extraction,
Like our pairings in the off-hours.
Rudiments of a Drama
Her voice was a needle.
The pain was precise,
Radiating through every nerve,
A life reduced to all awful feeling.
A cloud covered morning
Like an overwhelmed mother.
The view from the cliff was
An ocean churning with rage.
It was already dawn, but
The darkness went on for years.
Italian Lyric
I’ve brought a large bunch of sweet grapes
We can share. I’m a satyr today.
I’ve slung my pipe of seven reeds and
Feel sure-footed for the way uphill again.
I know a new mountain-top
Palace of gold,
A villa with doors flung open
To the splash of bright fountains.
In pink marble, high-vaulted rooms,
We’ll plunge into cold and hot baths.
Nymphs of carved stone will suggest caresses
That fulfill our affections.
We’ll quiet the honking, squabbling swans
With grass and daisies to feast upon.
I Am, You Are
I am the morning stirring awake.
You are the night still compelling with magic tales.
I am a noon filled with the day’s heat.
You are a late afternoon, soothing with perfect ease.
I am an evening with dark encroaching.
You are skies agleam with
Orion and the Dog stars, Aldebaran, and the Gemini.
I am Midnight fading away.
You are my every dream.
