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This poem is taken from PN Review 266, Volume 48 Number 6, July - August 2022.

Two Poems Stav Poleg
Absolute Scenes
After Dante’s Purgatorio

non sapei tu che qui è l’uom felice?

London, spring equinox. There are absolute scenes
in the airport leading towards this dream. The ceiling is tilting,
turning into the floor. It’s snowing in here so I’m pressing
the skylight into the blue-icy fog and look – in the distance –
a ship trying the sapphire-green sea like an incomplete
thought – beautiful – a star forms in the dark like a small provocation,
and three more! The sky, an unsettled machine. Look, I’m now deep
in season two of A Kind of Middle Point. Can we call it that? A kind
of middle point – time according to Aristotle (Physics) or the point
between deficiency and excess (Ethics) and, yes – what the hell
is going on? So many questions – the girl driving a car
in the rain instead of a poem, is she heading towards or leaving
the cliffs hanging over the sea? May I say how I love
...


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