Steve Tills and Wordsworth

Wordsworth's cloud wanders without wondering into Steve Tills' poem as well, but the closest thing to flowers is the bum's rush of strokes articulating air and page with the repetition of mathematics while waiting for what might well be the blessing of a final one. ("Tasting like electricity running through the molars," Bernadette Mayer once told me.) Wordsworth's "spots of time," like his future of tranquil memory, have dissipated like a wisp of airy matter. In fact there's no future at all. No reason to keep swinging, as they say, through this "curse" except to mindlessly repeat this purposeless activity. Rugh Stuff indeed. A "sport," they say.

["Golf Gods, Forgive me]

                   --Steve Tills

"Golf Gods, Forgive me

for loving the foursome

up ahead,

deliberating so much

over the scoreboard,

counting strokes

instead of breaths

or blades of grass,

                or angels

in the lonesome clouds . . .






If I had had it,


two deuces all over again,
4 pars and a quadruple


bogeyman, yeah, if.


Just one thing, just one
secret, just one reason


to keep swinging
out here


on this curse, these
courses without destination."

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         ["I wandered lonely as a cloud"]

                           --William Wordsworth

     I wandered lonely as a cloud

          That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

          When all at once I saw a crowd,

          A host, of golden daffodils;

          Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

          Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

          Continuous as the stars that shine

          And twinkle on the milky way,

          They stretched in never-ending line

          Along the margin of a bay:                                  

          Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

          Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

          The waves beside them danced; but they

          Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

          A poet could not but be gay,

          In such a jocund company:

          I gazed--and gazed--but little thought

          What wealth the show to me had brought:

          For oft, when on my couch I lie

          In vacant or in pensive mood,                               

          They flash upon that inward eye

          Which is the bliss of solitude;

          And then my heart with pleasure fills,

          And dances with the daffodils.

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BIO:

Steve Tills has published approximately four  and  a half  books (Invisible Diction, Loose Gravel, 1996; Mr. Magoo, Hank’s Original Loose Gravel Press, “1997”; Behave, dPress, 2004; Sleeve from  The Helen Keller Series, PO25¢EM, 2005; Rugh Stuff, theenk Books, 2009.  He is the founder of theenk Books and co-founder of the recently revived Hank’s Original Loose Gravel Press.  He edits and  publishes the journal Black Spring. He is also co-founder with Patricia Schwartz of the brand new 2011 Literary Guild of the Finger Lakes.


William James Austin's Blackbox
Jill Chan's Poetry sz
Mark Young's Otoliths
Mark Young's Otoliths 
Del Ray Cross' Shampoo
David Brazil and Sara Larsen's Try
Sarah Sarai's My 3000 Loving Arms