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Mn poetry: 'Facing North' by John Medeiros

Posted at 12:29 PM on September 24, 2012 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Minnesota Poets, Poetry

Poet and author John Medeiros co-curates a quarterly reading series at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis called Queer Voices. The next reading is tomorrow night at 7pm.

As part of Tuesday's event, Medeiros will read from his first collection of poetry, titled couplets for a shrinking world.

Here's a sampling:

Facing North

I feel God only
as the stones feel the hard crush.
-- Cain, Ed Ingebretsen

I have looked for heroes in the seaweed.
Searched for tongues in the ocean's waves --

blue & green & wet with nature's fury.
All to find him.

I swear he was there once, lobster-trapped
along the shores of Narragansett Bay,

where I ran for three miles at 5 AM. The weight
of the wind heart-heavy against my chest:

Tired victims seek refuge
by facing north.

& I took him in like a secret breath --
& surrounded myself with holy water.

Faced the monastery to the north
(as if the north would protect me from myself).

Then, like parted waters, my body split in two --
One half crushed by his weight,

the other, long detached like an unknown twin
before dawn has planned her dirty day.

- Facing North, by John Medeiros, from his collection couplets for a shrinking world, published by North Star Press. Reprinted here with permission from the author.