Outpost: A Collection of Poems by Abbott Ikeler

Avatar of Abbott Ikeler.
Avatar of Abbott Ikeler.

Outpost: A Collection of Poems by Abbott Ikeler

Providence, RI, USA

—EXCERPT—


For Marion

Year upon year it gathers round a name;

identity unburies itself slowly

in habit and response,

in the planes and hollows of a face,

the timbre of a voice,

the signature of a phrase.


The weight and shape of a life

comes clear in time,

though felt first fully only

as it slips beyond our ken,

weightless and free.

In Outpost, we watch the footprints of dancing maidens disappear at the edge of shore. We watch the beasts of the woods watching a wild thing cutting wood. We trace the DNA of Jove back to the scenes of his crimes. These poems combine the observation of a Robert Frost walking a bleak New England landscape, the pessimism of a Matthew Arnold listening to the sea above Dover Beach, and the wit of an Alexander Pope, as Ikeler encounters the paradox of living a life consistently shadowed by death. Spare in expression but unsparing in their vision, the poems manifest a rare fusion of intelligence and imagination.
Avatar of the user.
Please login to comment.

Published: Jun 15th 2021
34
5
0

author
literature
poems
poetry

Share