And Iowa is one syllable

What, then, is the nature of this
Divine love with its vicious turn?

Sifting light from the
Impossibility of authenticity

Your pitch straining still as
A concession to the other

Utterances of the unsolvable
Pierces of darkness’ blight

So, then, this is your
Penchance for pomposity

The scattering of intimate
Terseness

The weaves of an edge providing
These delights of heaping

Turn after broken turn
Always just always on the verge

At centre of your own quarrels
The unhurried descent lands

A pitch streaming beyond the lessons
And Iowa is one syllable

Lim Lee Ching
September 2015

***

Lim Lee Ching is a Lecturer at the SIM University, Singapore, where he teaches poetry. His research interests include: literary Englishes, Modernism and violence, literary aesthetics, the Canon, non-ideological cultural theories, and language and the oral tradition. He is the editor of Peter van de Kamp’s poetry collection Scratch & Sniff (2010).

‘And Iowa is one syllable’ first appeared in the 16th incarnation of One Imperative — ‘Teach Me Tonight’ — which can be found here: http://www.oneimperative.com/2015/12/16-teach-me-tonight/ The cover image — ‘Firenze’ — is by Sara Chong.