These three poems by Sam Kerbel are in a way fantasies of past (“Lausanne”), present (“The Romanians”), and future (“Spring”)…
by: Sam Kerbel
Lausanne
Had I known the angel’s flesh the way
I know the creatures of our gilded wood
Tobacco spirals of matted boards
Hording winds and spectral rains
And had time lasted, did not slip
Had I been known to make sounds
Irreducible to incense
Light pierced through the seas to make
A continent from which we voyage
Inky dusk, a tincture of rock
From the rubicund effacements of prior centuries
What is missing in every wordless whisper
Is nothing less than treason—
Had this been true, were it true, I
Would never have left the Midwest at so
Late an hour. I would have spent more time
At the lake, would have asked more of the man pacing
In perfect eighths to a woman’s name
Turning the tuned-up flowers in his hand
By open windows from which sleeping radios hummed.
The boats quiet on the piers lend the stars
A moment to tread the sky hanging so low
For summer as if death were not already
So close by—
Had someone come for my hand I would
Have brushed aside the elliptical
Scales of man’s unclouding
The enshrinement of his repose
Never demanding more than to cross
Vast canyons of sulphur to desert him
All vows & unmade things left among the insects.
Had this been all the answers would be simple
Enough, I could sit quietly here & meditate
On your name perched on the fifth rung
Of the ladder like a lighthouse
That endless lyre-shaped name
Which had I remembered I’d have pressed tight
Uncorked at the right moment
I’d have invited our fellow ambassadors
And barons of industry to crush the leaves
Of fate under their peacock sandals
To bathe in this lake of shade
Steeped in the steamy foghorn of a cruise ship
Gone by, stirring the horses to a stern gallop
Along the snowless mountainpass.
The Romanians On quiet days, in early summer, Tulips in the medians potted new, Too tall to be believable, The air light with hope, And a little wind, I drive around in a taxi cab Down Park Avenue, past the banks, And tour the consulates. There are many to speak of but here The Romanians are paragons Of virtue. A man comes out first Lets his female colleague pass, holds The heavy door, follows her out. Their row is so orderly too. The white Light’s perfume cancels the noise Streaking from the avenue. There may be others but my mind Dwells on the Romanians. How Haunted their hillsides. Their dragons Breathe the same fire.
Spring
The skies are saying drizzle
But I’m afraid the spoons of hysteria
Have taken up for reason
And made a carousel
Of mutually assured misery
Those drops contain no feeling
Drip like mustard on an Oxford
I would quit but it wouldn’t help
Anyway I don’t wish it to
Forgetting is to drown
Which is why, sages claim,
The sea always draws back
Toward us
She will return our bodies
The skies will proceed in tandem
To anoint them
With the same holy water
Used to kill on occasion
The Amalekites will be our priests
Animals will resurrect
And pound the earth into its tomb
With their woolly heels
Sam Kerbel was shortlisted for the 2024 Oxford Poetry Prize. His first chapbook, Can’t Beat the Price (2025), is available from Bottlecap Press. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Anthropocene, Argyle Literary Magazine, Lana Turner, Libre, and South Florida Poetry Journal, among other publications.
