Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Tim Parksin conversation with Natalia Ginzburg
(PN Review 49)
Next Issue Hal Coase 'Ochre Pitch' Gregory Woods 'On Queerness' Kirsty Gunn 'On Risk! Carl Phillips' Galina Rymbu 'What I Haven't Written' translated by Sasha Dugdale Gabriel Josipovici 'No More Stories' Valerie Duff-Strautmann 'Anne Carson's Wrong Norma'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
PN Review 275
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 21, Volume 8 Number 1, September - October 1981.

Seven Poems Dennis Keene

LANDSLIDE

When we are old, you said; and so the mountain
Let loose its answer on the other side,
The trees laid waste by rocks unseen from here;
From here a dust haze mellowing the sun.

But that at last comes closer; closer as
The unforetold imaginings, these rocks
Sent tumbling by the fall of sand. I climb
In no direction through a hail of them.

PLATEAU

Lost when the headlights show white stones, our road
Has ended here. We bump on through the dust.
What should be going up seems down. Yes, but
The plateau would be flat if we were there.

Night and the map have not been false when day
Shows where we are. You open the door, you
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image