Ars Poetica, by Karla Linn Merrifield

Download the collection here.

ars poetica by karla linn merrifield 3

sing to me as you pass through me, all
of me, my ten-thousand thoughts
of wishful thinking
we could be anything
—“ Tonight I Wish Of”

Karla Linn Merrifield’s poems are thoughts about thoughts put into poetic form. When you summon thoughts, you are making a different sort of reality that exists in your mind, your imagination, your reality. Hers lean toward meta poems. Birds figure often in her poems as physical and metaphorical imagery. Her metaphors are exquisite—see how she writes about grief in “Lode”. What stands out also is her fervour for female empowerment. There is a Dionysian spirit which she situates within form—a dialectic between spirit and form. She celebrates love, music, the human spirit, and poetry, in spades.

On her annual quest to Taos, JoJo the Poet’s soul, by Karla Linn Merrifield

On her annual quest to Taos, JoJo the Poet’s soul
by Karla Linn Merrifield

sopped up Puebloan vibes like so much spilled
iced lattes, musing how What is past or passing
is to come, an idea whose Native American time
had taught long before Yeats copped it;
trouble was Jesus the Penitente kept
scourging himself in her midnight mind’s
eye— So JoJo’d no choice but to smudge
sage through the cortex’s casita consigning
the extremist’s spirit to his afterlife in Hollywood,
leaving Jill and her pal Pi to obtain the mountain.

Karla Linn Merrifield has had 1000+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 15 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. Her newest poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, recently nominated for the National Book Award, was inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars and published in December 2021 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY). She is a frequent contributor to The Songs of Eretz Poetry Review. Web site: https://www.karlalinnmerrifield.org/; blog at https://karlalinnmerrifeld.wordpress.com/; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel.

Père Lachaise Cemetery Diptych, by Karla Linn Merrifield

Père Lachaise Cemetery Diptych
by Karla Linn Merrifield

#1

Une
rose
blanche pour
Héloise
et Abelard, deux âmes—
les amants qui aiment aujourd’hui

One
rose
white for
Heloise
and Abelard, two souls—
two lovers who do love today

#2

Une
rose
blanche pour
Frédéric
Chopin— l’âme qui jeue
parfums d’une polonaise perdue

One
rose
white for
Frédéric
Chopin— his soul plays
perfumes of a lost Polish dance

Karla Linn Merrifield has had 1000+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 15 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. Her newest poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, recently nominated for the National Book Award, was inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars and published in December 2021 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY). She is a frequent contributor to The Songs of Eretz Poetry Review. Web site: https://www.karlalinnmerrifield.org/; blog at https://karlalinnmerrifeld.wordpress.com/; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel;

Our Words Began the Imagination, by Karla Linn Merrifield

Our Words Began the Imagination
by Karla Linn Merrifield

of time, its construct of eons
and nanoseconds. Elasticity
sticks to my tongue and stretches
across your upper palate as we
attempt to pronounce the number
of hours to germinate the idea of love.

Likewise is distance reinvented
every instance your synapses
trick your lips into giving voice
to the exactitude of bird migration.
And my axons and my dendrites pulse
with the articulation of new latitudes.

At long last miles and years evaporate;
we are able to utter in unison: time is
the longest distance between two places,
two bodies and their minds. But with
practice we are able to sing a belief as do
peach-faced lovebirds — Agapornis roseicollis.

Karla Linn Merrifield has had 1000+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 15 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. Her newest poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, recently nominated for the National Book Award, was inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars and published in December 2021 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY). She is a frequent contributor to The Songs of Eretz Poetry Review. Web site: https://www.karlalinnmerrifield.org/; blog at https://karlalinnmerrifeld.wordpress.com/; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel;

Triptych: On Cinematic Waves, by Karla Linn Merrifield

Triptych: On Cinematic Waves
by Karla Linn Merrifield

I.

This is the voyage
of movie songs
of jigs and reels
–oh, and of waltzes
of blues and bar stools
of parallel soundtracks
of Bach and Brubeck—
of your tempo’s desire.

II.

This is of North Atlantic voyaging
of USA and Canada
of international waters betwixt
of British Empire born to independence
of Boston port, 4th of July
of an entire movie plot walking by
of 1st Lt. O’Malley, his “breast salad”
of four wars: WWII to Desert I.

III.

This is to be a voyageur again
of meta-documentary subject matter
of chart and shoal in minute/second parts
of another longitude of longing
of northern latitudes
of surprise and wonder
of the quintessential video du jour
of this truth: I am the movie.

Karla Linn Merrifield has had 1000+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 15 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. Her newest poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, recently nominated for the National Book Award, was inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars and published in December 2021 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY). She is a frequent contributor to The Songs of Eretz Poetry Review. Web site: https://www.karlalinnmerrifield.org/; blog at https://karlalinnmerrifeld.wordpress.com/; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel;  https://www.facebook.com/karlalinn.merrifield.

Holding Patterns, by Karla Linn Merrifield

Holding Patterns
by Karla Linn Merrifield

1.

I hold you safely
by a tanka’s tight confines—
deliciously—
for we can come together
on the spicy here and now.

2.

I
hold
you yet
bodily
in Fibonacci
safety, perfectly boundaried.

3.

Encore! Encore! Unexpected encore
of holding you again, a kiss’s fleshy surprise
within the slinky five-lined skink
of a playful poem, on my flicking tongue:
you holding me again, how kiss of flesh surprises.

4.

Trust me, I’m containering your hold
to a scherzo.

5.

Holding you?
What?
Just
fuckin’ happily
in bondage of a piem.
Tight? Right!

6.

This:
the box
I cast us in
together, not
so much a looser hold
as one more expansive.
In an etheree I wrap
thigh-lengths of measured lines—heartbeats.
En fin, this exuberance is skin-deep.

7.

All I gotta do
is hold on, hold on—let go
till who fuckin’ knows.

Karla Linn Merrifield has had 1000+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 15 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. Her newest poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, recently nominated for the National Book Award, was inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars and published in December 2021 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY). She is a frequent contributor to The Songs of Eretz Poetry Review. Web site: https://www.karlalinnmerrifield.org/; blog at https://karlalinnmerrifeld.wordpress.com/; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel;  https://www.facebook.com/karlalinn.merrifield.

Tonight I Wish Of, by Karla Linn Merrifield

Tonight I Wish Of
by Karla Linn Merrifield

the taste of that hurricane season
of the ten-thousand thoughts
of wishful thinking that is
of thee
of thy brain and
of leaning over in this poem welcoming you
of salt from your fluid body on my lips
of electrolytes delivered to my tongue
of Beaufort-12 velocity
of lashing me vigorously limp
of humbled pose in the eye—
of deceptive calm—then you, you
of, oh, tumultuous thrashing
of muscles
of my well-toned pelvic floor, but also
of my heart as organ, also fit, and
of my heart, love’s metaphor, imperiled

then of warbler song lovely and lilting,
whistling again and again:
you, insistent for me to listen—
sing to me as you pass through me, all
of me, my ten-thousand thoughts
of wishful thinking
we could be anything

Karla Linn Merrifield has had 1000+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 15 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. Her newest poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, recently nominated for the National Book Award, was inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars and published in December 2021 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY). She is a frequent contributor to The Songs of Eretz Poetry Review. Web site: https://www.karlalinnmerrifield.org/; blog at https://karlalinnmerrifeld.wordpress.com/; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel;  https://www.facebook.com/karlalinn.merrifield.

Bad-Bad to Good, by Karla Linn Merrifield

Bad-Bad to Good
by Karla Linn Merrifield

Bad.
Bad men.
An army of bad men
liked up confront me
even now
DraculaFrankensteinBluebeard
Bigbadwolf.
Why so many monsters?

All we’ll have is Medusa
to seduce with wisdom
signified by writhing snakes
idea serpents
pythons of woman power
to slay monsters.
Hey you, look at all my thoughts
slithering toward you.
I’m be getting into your head.
No more asps of brainwash,
of propaganda reflecting
your own lies.
Let’s do the snake dance, bad boys.
Truth is fanged.

Karla Linn Merrifield has had 1000+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies, with 14 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the newly released full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. Her newest poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars; was published in January 2022 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY). Web site: https://www.karlalinnmerrifield.org/; blog at https://karlalinnmerrifeld.wordpress.com/; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel; Instagram: https://www.facebook.com/karlalinn.merrifield.

Waking Dream in Alesund, Norway, by Karla Linn Merrifield

Waking Dream in Alesund, Norway
by Karla Linn Merrifield

When moon casts shadows on castles,
quoth then old raven to young raven,
There is something I know.

Troll-men may ride hard their wolves,
snapping a bridle of braided snakes.
So it is. But so it once was

eagles screamed in the rain
and a heroine was born
to slay snakes, wolves, trolls

of our imagination.

Karla Linn Merrifield has had 900+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 14 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the 2019 full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. She is currently at work on a poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars; the book is slated to be published in December 2021 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY).

Lode, by Karla Linn Merrifield

Lode

by Karla Linn Merrifield

In the pocket of stillness

below the bottom-weighted

horizon line at my body’s core

I detect a static vista of self:

sleeping volcano above windless seas where,

at the center of gravity at my center,

no longer steaming in the magma chamber of grief

but solidified in stone-strong strata of basalt,

quietly love has begun to breathe again.

Karla Linn Merrifield has had 800+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 14 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the 2019 full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. In early 2021, her Half a World of Kisses will be published by Truth Serum Press (Australia) under its new Lindauer Poets imprint. She is currently at work on a poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars; the book is slated to be published in December 2021 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY).