Kirjahaku

Mark Fleckenstein is a poet of moments: moments caught and transcribed and wondered at and presented for wonder. His poetry creates the cerebral equivalent of retinal persistence: the images and phrases of his poems echo past the turn of the page and fire an impulse to re-read and reconsider and reconnect. This is an important collection from an accomplished and ambitious poet.Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Mark Fleckenstein has published four books of poetry: Making Up the World, God Box, A Name for Everything, and Lowercase God. He has also published several chapbooks.A Library of Things is his first collection published by in case of emergency press.

MAKING UP THE WORLD is a series of lyrical meditations and reflections of one man's journey through the present and future, relationships, successful and unsuccessful and making the world manageable, by making up a manner of being in the world that is truly one's own.

The first crow in a field, a pearl of the dark, claims it. Then night, morning and other weather.The crow remains like a philosopher's first question. When it leaves, the air fills in mostly.

The poetic imagery in this gem of a collection God Box by Mark Fleckenstein is exemplified in the poem "Flight" where the poet likens falling leaves to "autumnal blood-stars" rooting again. Each brief image-packed poem is like pulling a postcard from a box filled with them, some small thing to marvel over and feel about each one. Throughout the book God is the thread that binds life together.

SELF PORTRAIT WITH THE RADIO ONLast night I might have had Retsina and not cut myself shaving before bedhad it not been for wishing to be elsewhere, goaded by the mirror to hurry, to clearits view of the room. Tonightwill end much the same: watching a woman's hands pretend to know the piano keys, wishing to be fixed inside the song. When you visitthe Oracle, it's best to have your question in mind as well as written on your hand. While a live rabbit or lamb might travel better than a statue, both are necessary forms of appreciation. The spoilsof conquest or dumb luck, too.Laid against itself, notated inthe player's and composer's mind, shadow becoming shadow and back again, to solid. The after-effect, peripatetic, multiphasic. If wateredinto bloom, again in the room, a hand coaxing a hand to become real.This could be the thing that lasts;Makes physical, thought. Is this how to remember? This could be the things that lasts.