Abingdon Square Park

Photo by A. Strakey.

Abingdon Square Park

I once had had a thought
About a thought I once had had

About whether it was natural
For nature to seem so natural,

Whether there was a Man in the Sun
Who steadied the sun with levers,

Pulleys, and gears, and if so whether
He ever managed not to be there,

Whether we gauge and are gauged
By what randomly remains

As the bang implodes back
Into the calyx of its heart

And singes and sings and searches
For itself in the intersperséd dark.

I once had had a thought.
I was here in Abingdon Square Park.

There were these magnificent Technicolor
Tulips. Their lips were tilted like blind lips.

They sang like heralds of the spring.
And by June they were gone.

Taken from the forthcoming collection The Ground.

You can also hear Rowan Ricardo Phillips read and discuss his work this evening in New York:

The Way Out
13 February, 7 p.m., McNally Jackson, 52 Prince Street, New York, NY 10012

Join Exit Strategies poets Paula Bohince, Sophie Cabot Black, Ishion Hutchinson, Rowan Ricardo Phillips and Soledad Marambio for readings that explore fleeing one’s life, phantoms and choice.