Twenty-One Ways of Looking at an Eye

This is a team effort by the Alta poetry club. We were writing in the mode of Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." I claim numbers 13-18.

I.

II.
Bright light reflecting on retina
Dots dance before
And glaucoma waits
For another day

III.
A circle of black ink
In a field of white
Looks back at me

IV.
So close your eyelash catches mine
So close the veins wind like a maze
Surrounding your eyes
With fitting mystery

V.
The plate slides,
Revealing a hole
Through which photons pour
Like sand down an hourglass
And the silver halide crystals
Remember forever

VI.
Substitute eyes
He promised he’d bring us his eyes in a box.
All 30 of them rolling and clanking into each other as he walked around the classroom.
Worse than having eyes in the back of his head. I felt sorry for him.

VII.
Make up
Pulling, curling, darkening, lining,
Covering, sort-of lying eying

VIII.
Feet
Tired sunburned working man
Life as purposeful as a crow,
and traces of pain in his Eyes.

IX.
The optometrist lights up my eye
And I behold the network
Feeding my vision
My flowing blood

X.
His pupils narrowed in the light
And his ears laid back
As he saw the glassy cat's eyes
Shine to him
Calling him to fight

XI.
A man and a woman are one
A woman and a man with wandering eyes
Soon two

XII.
In my mind I wait for spinning thoughts
To alight on this paper
Each one a decision
And Megan in my peripheral vision.

XIII.
Little hearts of brown
Sprout green when it's time to plant
The potato's eyes.

XIV.
Green as summer,
Green as glass,
Your eyes warm my world
And tint everything I see
Into green

XV.
Glass marbles
Rolling in a glass of water
On top of the piano
Of a blind musician.
Her students grimace, but play on

XVI.
Something about gravity
Weighs down these eyes
And pulls them earthward.
Strain! Lift!
Look up and see the world

XVII.
Glinting in the night,
A predator looks back
From behind the eyes
Of every cat.

XVIII.
Cross my heart and hope to die,
Stick a finger in my eye;
Cross my eyes and poke my heart
I swear that we will never part.

XIX.
Darting back and forth
Twinkling
Unstable as an untrue heart

XX.
Open, close, open, close
I don't know which to prefer

XXI.
My eyes water
Not with feeling
Sad and happy emotions
Are nothing to the potency
Of an onion

May 14, 2010