Two Poems by John Sibley Williams
How to Build an American House
What the saw wants once sapwood
has sung itself out. A hammer now
that all the nails are flush. A boy
after having most of his childhood
pulled from his mouth like teeth,
like song, leaving him a man. In any
case, once the job is done the thing
persists. The subject fades to object.
Its verb loses agency. I am. At least
I am. And the sun sinks into grass,
staining the surface red. It’s good,
for now, forgetting the world keeps
going without us, that we are bright
flecks of light dancing into a
back-drop of more light. The saw
hangs static from hooks above its
creation. All the boards are in the
right place. The child has a child he
hopes will have a child someday.
What is it he wants now that the
house is ready for living?
Sanctum
What they’ve died in made sacred
while what killed them is forgotten
or forgiven. No wonder history is
often pictured as a sky-bearing
cross or a sharp cut of moon or an
endless sea of candles in a
guilt-darkened room. The story as
some know it ends with tangled
rebar. A shattered school. Empty
promises made over a rich and
distant earth. I’m more familiar with
young men moving stones from
caves and waiting for their fathers
to call them home. It’s a ramshackle
river we pretend to try to cross to
see ourselves beautiful on the other
shore. We are convinced we cannot
be beautiful here. We find the signs
we’re looking for, and they mean
exactly what we knew they would.
I’m looking for the world the world
doesn’t like to talk about above a
whisper. Some sort of unforbidden
city. A beveled hilltop overlooking
an impossible meadow made
weightless by the dead. The dead
here are so heavy. We may never be
this beautiful again.
John Sibley Williams is the author of nine poetry collections, most recently Disinheritance. A seven-time Pushcart nominee and winner of various awards, John serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review. Publications include: Yale Review, Atlanta Review, Prairie Schooner, Midwest Quarterly, Sycamore Review, Massachusetts Review, Columbia, Third Coast, and Poetry Northwest.
Mesmerized by Sanctum. You captured this so “matter of fact” like a memory I somehow know. I experienced a depth and discomfort of a bleak and beautiful reality…rugged, dark, inevitable, hopeful. Internally, I am full of comments, thoughts and conversations. Externally, I am settled and satisfied. I deduce it all to just say, “Thank you!”