A darker, sweeter string
Lee Sharkey
Off The Grid Press
www.offthegridpress.net
2008, $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-9778429-1-9
Lee Sharkey lures the reader, catches us, shows us the
webs of deception; as a captured audience we face the
reality of what was, what is,
soon enough the dead return and cross the threshold
may slouches her belly good as gold
and from her poem ‘by moon light’
one will lie beside the unsound of not breathing
eating out the night
and from ‘the suicides’
we’re circling the hole where the ones who abandoned
us lie
absent electric
Her sparse emphatic look at the past/present frees the
reader like, "sudden pure white," to pursue our own
responsibility to understand how frail existence is,
this is how the brain relearns to speak
up stairs
downstairs
left hand right foot
right hand left foot
Lee Sharkey’s language is exquisite, self referential
and we are able to devour every thought provoked by
the larger reality, history. Sharkey uses repetition,
sequence and timing in a struggle to release,
what do you do with an eye in the cup of your hand?
This is not an easy book of poetry, (for me, at least)
each poem compels me to read more, to put the book
aside, take it up again.
it is thought that cows’ unhurried lowing
the rise and fall in the evening of toad ululation,
the dense sweet penetration of grasses
in air drawn through the nostrils and deep into lungs
will offer our minds a place to return to
from the caves where they cower
if you buy no other book for the next five years, this
is a must, must read, must possess, must repeat,
there came the time we were moved to move into the
rubble
and
the one who has been silent is the one who sends a
message to the future.
Irene Koronas
poetry editor
wilderness house literary review
www.whlreview.com
poetry reviewer
ibbetson street press
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