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May
2007
F. Keith Wahle
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F.
Keith Wahle is a Cincinnati, Ohio native. Wahle’s
poems have appeared in a diverse array of literary
journals including “The Paris Review”, “Ellipsis” and
the “Cornfield Review”; this feature represents
the first collection of Wahle’s writings and
performances presented in the web medium. Off the page,
Wahle worked in the mid 1990's to help develop the
now annual Cincinnati “Performance and Time Arts
Series”, Wahle is also a three time Ohio Arts
Council Fellow, first, in 1984, in 1990 and again in
2003. On stage, Wahle is known for his memorable collaborations
with dancers Judith Mikita, Cheryl Wallace, any many
others, to bring physical form to his incisive use
of vernacular. Seven books of poetry in all, Wahle's
last three books, “A Choice of Killers” (1998), “Farewell
to Happytown” (2004) and "The Invitations" (2006),
feature photographs by Brad Austin Smith and Amberlyn
Nelson. Feature
includes work from "A Choice of Killers", "Farewell
to Happytown" and includes video perfomance of "Secrets",
and an exclusive "Secrets" broadside poster.
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| f.
keith wahle, cincinnati, ohio, poet, performance artist, performance
and time art series, dancing to poetry, iowa writers workshop,
secrets, paris review, ohio arts council fellow |
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Imaginary
and Unknown Numbers
from "Farewell
to Happytown" (Morgan Press, 2004)
The number of stars that can fall
into a teacup before it breaks;
the number of coathangers you can
hang on the tip of an eyelash,
each one holding a snowflake’s nightgown;
the number of ghosts it takes to
turn the pages of a book; the number
of unspoken words in a sentence;
the number of dinosaurs that can
dance at the wedding of an angel
the number of shadows it takes
to weave a pair of stockings for the moon:
these are the imaginary
and unknown numbers in our lives,
the numbers we count again and again
in the hour between darkness and dream,
in the hour of nakedness, and coughing,
and surrender, the time when babies
whisper songs into their mother’s hair,
the time when dead men get their shoes shined,
numbers our hands reach out to grasp,
like a martyr reaching out for pain-
the number of thoughts that can waltz
on a placebo, the number of saints
that are making love behind
the curtains of a sleepless night.
We add them on an adding machine
of prayer and hunger and purest gold.
The gold has been refined from an
ancient emperor’s metal gloves.
A Sung Dynasty Chinese merchant
sits counting onions into his boat,
as if counting the scars of his ancestors.
The shiny beads of his abacus
glisten like raindrops on spider’s yarn,
like black pearls loose in the morning grass.
As we watch him he fades from substance
to smoke, and then to emptiness.
how many emperors can fit in
a poor man’s coffin? How many children
can sleep in the open mouth of a shark?
Get a million balloons, and measure
how much music it takes to fill them all;
measure
the sleep it takes to fill
a thousand hotel rooms. Add up all of
the disconnected telephone numbers,
the numbers of the dead and missing.
Multiply them by the number of teeth
in a country of empty houses.
the answers will be the number of
fingers on God’s great questioning hands.
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