cardiopolis
colin dodds
Floating through the world
dispensing permission
unknowingly
Cranes raise houses, office boxes
bivouacs for a war not yet agreed upon
Buildings like the stock exchange
blossom in the snow
At midday in midtown
towers pose for their ruin
The city from any distance at all—
its surges, precipices, idiosyncratic ridges
repetitions and anomalies
like an EKG in three dimensions
like the shape of a life
The more you look at it
the harder it becomes to even ask
which parts matter
Colin Dodds grew up in Massachusetts and completed his education in New York City. He’s the author of several novels, including WINDFALL and The Last Bad Job, which the late Norman Mailer touted as showing “something that very few writers have; a species of inner talent that owes very little to other people.” Dodds’ screenplay, Refreshment, was named a semi-finalist in the 2010 American Zoetrope Contest. His poetry has appeared in more than a hundred eighty publications, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. The poet and songwriter David Berman (Silver Jews, Actual Air) said of Dodds' work: “These are very good poems. For moments I could even feel the old feelings when I read them.” Colin lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Samantha. You can find more of his work at thecolindodds.com.
poetry
