The Pigfoot Rebellion
Charles O. Hartman’s poems embrace variety, as this first collection makes plain in its wide range of styles and subjects. An expert, engaging stylist in both metrical and free verse, Hartman writes poems to explore the systems of relationships—familiar, biological, ecological—surrounding the self that observes and imagines. A poem by Hartman invites the reader into its world without insistence, and then changes that world.
A Little Song
She beyond all others in deepest dreams comes
back. You shun sleep, lying in darkness, breath held,
hearing that voice over the rustling dry grass
breathing in darkness.
Walk for miles each day, with a dog to watch, pen,
paper, ink, try, focus attention somewhere
else. But Mi, Sol, Re go the notes her voice slips
into your blind heart.
Once you knew each inch of her body. No more.
Only one thing, caught in your faithful ear, still
lives. Your eyes lie. Even in dreams the face fades.
Only a singing.
She’s your cane these days. When you tap, she tells how
far you’ve strayed. Tapestries by the road, you hear how
hollow things are. Listen. You’ll hear in high limbs
voices of dry leaves.