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Stephen Anderson is a Milwaukee poet whose work has appeared in Southwest Review, Verse Wisconsin, Foundling Review, Twist In Time, Tipton Poetry Journal, New Purlieu Review, Free Verse as well as in numerous other print and online journals. Many of his poems have been featured on the Milwaukee NPR affiliate WUWM Lake Effect Program. Anderson is the author of three chapbooks, as well as two full length collections, In the Garden of Angels and Demons and The Dream Angel Plays The Cello. In the summer of 2013, six of his poems formed the text for a chamber music song cycle entitled The Privileged Secrets of the Arch performed by some musicians from the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and an opera singer. Anderson’s work is being archived in the Stephen Anderson Collection in the Special Collections Section of the Raynor Libraries at Marquette University.
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Empty House
The other night
I dreamt I visited Isla Negra
but Neruda was not there. Only
formations of strange seabirds
skittered the sky above, rocks
whispered secret things of protest,
& the sea waves
spoke in tongues that burned clear
through my heart there outside the poet’s
maritime palace ransacked by Pinochet’s
marionettes ages ago in search of truths
they could never understand. I dreamt
that the tree I sat under dropped leaves
with poems written in blood-red ink. I
caressed the lush earth there, & read its
magical leaves accompanied only by the
song of the sea’s rising tide issuing from
Neptune’s throat. The night’s air at dusk
consoled me with its sweet, hypnotic voice
& cool embrace under the slate-grey sky
enshrouding Neruda’s dark island, and left me staring
In awe as I attempted , in desperation,
to stuff the leaf poems Into my coat pocket,
but they crumbled & fell to the ground,
reuniting with the earth that so generously
gave birth to them in the cycle of
that poet’s vision.
*****
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Shifting Gears
And so here we hold onto one thread
at a time, spun from the delicate litany
of things thought to be done,
as if our balance will remain, as if
the yet undefined truth will balance
everything in this dance with the
macabre, this psychic pugilism with
the unknown, all of us looking for the
Joe Louis hurrahs spiriting through
our hearts, with at least a crowd-pleasing
knockout in the third round.
Holding tight in response to everyday
uncertainties, we have become more
intimate with wobble, but far from
expert, as we croon our seemingly
hollow tunes of connection and faux joy
in what has become an altogether common
chorus of pretend togetherness.
*****
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