Poetry of Chris Featherman

Gdansk Masquerade

In the vesper bells doves shatter
a church roof sharp as the day’s

rim where the March leaves find
their curl and rib and the word of

the wind steers through my presence
taking the clouds in one at a time when

down in the square the benches clear
the drying streets marble at twilight

The Last Days of Winter

The storks in the ice on the windowpanes
have blown to the riverbanks where a Dalmatian
bounds, towing daylight with its dropped leash.

All the poems of black coats and wool scarves
on an evening bus are transpiring from
their sweetening musk into the prose of bare hands.

At last, the secret trees of April are blooming in the air.
With each breath, I celebrate the words surging in their roots.
With every footstep, I inherit their liberal emblems.

Coming Back North, a Photograph

Dark figures in the snow by the Neris,
I didn’t know you were there when I snapped.
Clouds bloomed on evening and floes apart,
light judged the baroque to silhouette.

Now your bodies make a comma for breath
on the bank, and the word which divided you
for a moment now quotes light on the floes,
and transcribes the quivers in their wakes,

which leave themselves to change.

Chris Featherman was raised in Pennsylvania but currently resides, with his wife, in Seattle, where he teaches and studies at the University of Washington. Prior to moving to the Pacific Northwest, he lived and worked for several years in Spain, Poland, and Lithuania. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Cortland Review, The Pittsburgh Quarterly OnLine, and The Ledge.

Copyright 2007, Chris Featherman ©. This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.