SCOTT MINAR
Real Illusions
I wanted to see Troy up close.
So I got out my microscope,
The one I had decades ago as a boy,
I wound the dial
Round till sand and sky
Zoomed in. I saw it there
In the sun like a three-dimensional
Beach towel and floated down
To get into it. I was one of them then,
Half-notes running madly
Around like snow.
I was aware of my other self
Back home in my laboratory
And kicked the box at my feet
To be sure. But there was no leaving
That place. I had to be in two
Stories at once, this world and that--
Like Dante on the page
Watching Alighieri with his pen.
It was a paradox I knew
From experience, to be forced outside myself
By circumstances I couldn’t control.
In a kind of enjambment
I lived my life—sometimes heroically;
sometimes coward, looter, thief.
The line moving down
A page like Sisyphus and his rock.
Nothing between me and all that emptiness
But the gap inside a solid,
A hollowed portico drawn on a wing.
Sokratis
He stops at restaurant chalkboards
on busy sidewalks—to jot down
a few formulae,
as people move past scratching
their rears.
His frock catches the wind--
a tiny violin plays Für Elise
in its threads.
What Palimpsest Means to Me
I watched a Japanese chef cut
a salmon filet once, so thin you could read a poem
through it. You could feel as if
your life were that clear--
words seen through flesh.
I wanted to see Troy up close.
So I got out my microscope,
The one I had decades ago as a boy,
I wound the dial
Round till sand and sky
Zoomed in. I saw it there
In the sun like a three-dimensional
Beach towel and floated down
To get into it. I was one of them then,
Half-notes running madly
Around like snow.
I was aware of my other self
Back home in my laboratory
And kicked the box at my feet
To be sure. But there was no leaving
That place. I had to be in two
Stories at once, this world and that--
Like Dante on the page
Watching Alighieri with his pen.
It was a paradox I knew
From experience, to be forced outside myself
By circumstances I couldn’t control.
In a kind of enjambment
I lived my life—sometimes heroically;
sometimes coward, looter, thief.
The line moving down
A page like Sisyphus and his rock.
Nothing between me and all that emptiness
But the gap inside a solid,
A hollowed portico drawn on a wing.
Sokratis
He stops at restaurant chalkboards
on busy sidewalks—to jot down
a few formulae,
as people move past scratching
their rears.
His frock catches the wind--
a tiny violin plays Für Elise
in its threads.
What Palimpsest Means to Me
I watched a Japanese chef cut
a salmon filet once, so thin you could read a poem
through it. You could feel as if
your life were that clear--
words seen through flesh.
Copyright © October 2019 Scott Minar
Scott Minar teaches literature and writing at Ohio University Lancaster and is Consulting Poetry Translations Editor for Crazyhorse in Charleston, SC. His most recent book is Gilgamesh and Other Poems (published simultaneously in English and Arabic by Mammoth Books, Dubois - PA 2018 and Linda House, Sweida - Syria/Arab Intellectuals Foundation, Sydney – Australia 2018). His poems and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry International, Ninth Letter, Crazyhorse, The Laurel Review, and elsewhere in the US, Canada, the Middle East, England, Sweden, and Australia. He is also a performing musician and singer/songwriter.
