3 Poems by David Keplinger

DIMINUENDO FOR THE SHORT FRENCH VERSE OF RILKE

It was believed he wrote less and less in German until he had to salvage 

what was left by packing it quickly into one suitcase, a small valise

containing the word, absence. 

DIMINUENDO FOR THE LEGACY OF LENA HORNE

A hundred years from now, someone will lilt their voice just so, 

singing can’t go on, closing the glottis of the true vocal 

folds, diminishing, finishing the note, and it will be you 

they will be honoring, though they won’t know it, by the shape of the air they 

make tremble, like you 

made air tremble. 

DIMINUENDO FOR THE ACTOR CLAUDE RAINS

In his The Invisible Man, the most spirit-moving performance occurs

when he is naked and unbandaged, alone in a room,

touching nothing, saying not a word.

David Keplinger is the author of several books of poetry, most recently The World to Come (Conduit Books and Ephemera, 2021), which won the Minds on Fire Open Book Prize, and Another City (Milkweed Editions, 2018), which was selected for the 2019 UNT Rilke Prize. In 2020 he was the recipient of the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America, and his work with Danish poet Carsten René Nielsen was shortlisted for the National Translation Award. His eighth collection, Everlastingness, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in 2023. 

4 October 2021