TIME AND FEVERS
New and Selected Poems
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
THE SOULS
Outside on a green
lawn a giant water-oak conducts a sunset.
Some unsteady hum has summoned us out of our houses.
My ancient lady friend, who lives nearby, is jawing now, and wears
an awed-holy expression as she says they are souls, yes sir.
And they are everywhere, they wade the dusky clouds,
they are
giant black-winged fruits hanging, falling, bouncing. The green
is black with them. And neighbors stare;
they worry for their
cars
and pickups. If they get into the red
berries, it's hell on
paint. Shoot them. No, they are beautiful. They are a menace.
Look out below! They rise and wheel, kaleidoscopic, inside rings
of themselves. They set themselves
against the sky, black on blue.
They caw. They are telling themselves,
or us, something.
They caw and caw, and what is it they are saying, so
earpiercingly, holes through your eardrums, through
your brain,
as
if lasered? Then they settle again, like a black
blizzard
of huge coal flakes. The souls come back
to visit us, to tell
us that they know everything now. Now
their sharp yellow beaks
pierce the lawn. They are busier than worms, in a feast
of famishment, an ecstasy of appetite.
Now, she says,
the nonagenarian, I'll soon be with them, and then
it's always now for me like them. The
souls have found their
bodies. I don't know which is which, but somewhere,
there,
is everyone who died, all the loved ones, and even the others,
the ones that nobody loved, they are all there now, she says.
I stare as deep as I can see. They are every blessed
place--on roofs, looking down, in trees, on bushes, under,
over, and around. Some seem to be
waiting, some tug
at the turning-emerald lawn in the lowering light: and now
how
do they know to rise suddenly, and become one wide
black wing? How do they know to circle and circle in unison,
one boomerang black wing composed of so many blood-beating,
sky-rowing black wings? How do they know when it's time
to fly along a horizon, rimmed with rising red?
The souls,
they know, they know! I think it must be
out of some distant
folklore that the old lady speaks, eyes fixed, waving them goodbye.
Originally published in Stand Magazine, Vol. 38, No.
4
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About the Book
Winner of the 16th Annual Writers Digest Self-Published Award for Poetry, 2008
An Eric Hoffer Book Award Winner, 2007
I am always happy to drop everything--pretty nearly--when I make the acquaintance of a new poet as good as E.M. Schorb.
The poems of E.M. Schorb shine calmly even as they buzz with energy; are connaissant with the world and yet transcendent of it; make something deeply funny and yet highly sad--given a world and a time and a good mind’s eye. This is the work of a mature intelligence, its ironies unadulterated by cynicism, and its swells informed by understatement. Heather McHugh
Schorb’s poetry is rich with humor and an almost gestaltic sense of clarity; this unique voice allows him to maintain a tonal unity while moving through a variety of forms. Raymond Thibodeaux, "New Delta Review"
Schorb draws from science, art, literary history, and popular culture, balancing these subjects in a thoughtfully conceived and organized book. Lurking behind all is the danger and violence of life--call it man’s and nature’s inhumanity to each other--which Schorb handles maturely, without cynicism, and often with a humor that places him somewhere between Marvin Bell and Kenneth Koch. Todd
I think Ed Schorb is one of our very finest poets. Some of the poems are breathtaking both for their literary skill and for their human appeal. E.M. Schorb’s work has range, variety, wit, depth and a zest for both language and life. Anthony S. Abbott, poet and author of the Novello Prize winning novel, Leaving Maggie Hope
"Schorb's poems are good modern poems, on a high literary level--some are touched with greatness." Cornel Lengyel, poet, playwright, publisher: Dragon's Teeth Press
About the Author
E.M. Schorb
began publishing in small literary magazines as an undergraduate at