Danny Diaz - Verdigris

Texas poet Danny Diaz reveals to readers of his poem “Verdigris” the hinge upon which viewpoint transforms. Mechanical tangibility is at play in the opening arc of the poem, exploring the meaninglessness of labels in a metaphysical sense, but the poem unburdens itself of such sterility and coldness, exploring by the poem’s conclusion light and life. Danny told The Dewdrop, “The poem shifts from a portrait of a printing press and the promulgation of nominalism to a contemplation of mortality and the desire for universals that outlive the particular.”

Verdigris

The meaning of a word
is inessential
It must be embodied
redolent
with distant portents
and graphic
intimations
Pages
pressed in
at corkscrews
coiled
in fat quartos
heavy with ink
they too are inessential
Papered windows
wink at sunlight
Vats of lye leach tannins
Barrels of piss
to moil and mollify
the slabs of cold cut leather
Beneath
the floor-boards bruise and sweeten
with the sloshing of beer
and of brew
Look out among the plains
crawled in at distances
You should not be troubled
by the changing of a leaf
Long fields of desolation
reckon more at hand
Though death should not be touched
upon the language of the young
it may find us
either way
Life is less selective
when in the service to ordeal
All things in nature come to die
and what have we to marvel in return
but few immortal fragments
when even these may go
Return with me
The heart that changes patter
does it not strive
by an increase
against the waning of the sun
Step into this stream
The water rounds
in gulping wavelets
circling in fear
We too
are tall
like giants foraging
the tiny hills
writ large by lofty arrogance
and not by love
The clouds
for whom the pallor
of soft skin
slips out
gathers in cold air
couples the house
the treelock
the beams hoisted
on high blocks
or where
a blizzard of dark stars
despair the brief
the shattered sunset
coupled in soft shine

Danny Diaz

Danny Diaz is a native Texan currently living in San Antonio. When he is not writing, he enjoys cooking and spending time with his wife and their three dogs.