April Poem of the Month — Sharon Venezio

 

 

DISQUIETUDE

For two months I’ve been living with monks.
No longer dizzy from the circle of worry,
I see truth in the order of things,
eat for the body, not the senses.  Still

I crave the sky in my mouth, feel
Kerouac’s fabulous roman candles explode
like spiders beneath my skin, wake

yawning for coffee, daydream
of curry and spice, make poems in my head
about the wild dishevelment of being,
that fierce blue drowning.

Of the ten defilements, passion is the one
I can’t shake.  In a month, I’ll step out
of the forest, carry my longing home again.

 

Sharon Venezio received and MA in creative writing from San Francisco State University.  Her first full-length collection of poems, The Silence of Doorways, was released by Moon Tide Press in March 2013.  Her poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Chaparral, Midway Journal, Reed, Transfer, and elsewhere.  She is co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets and works as a behavior analyst in Los Angeles. You can purchase her book here: http://www.sharonvenezio.com/books.php

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