Orbit

By Arthur Vogelsang

Orbit connects the intimate with what is farthest from us, mixing what we can imagine with what is daily and near. Landscapes stretch from stable and fulfilling domestic interiors to the destiny of our sun as an exploding red giant. That dilemma of human fertility and love facing ultimate destruction is orchestrated by the author's provocative voice and coiled lines, which fondle and handle the reader's heart and mind in a bright light. The book insists on connecting the three eras of human experience - Then, Now, and When - at every turn. Orbit continues the unique aesthetic of Vogelsang's first five award-winning books through its "oddly direct original persona," its "mind - prophetic, wild, loony," its "language of surveillance and trembling," and the poems' ability "to find and magnify the emotion suddenly, instantaneously" (comments draw from other poets' reviews.) Vogelsang's new book Orbit is a dialogue between daily life and transcendent vision, insisting on the reality of each.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Release date: Mar 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9780822981336

Book preview

Verde Valley 1311 AD

Our empire became so strong and wide we voted

Each and every person would go to heaven.

Not unanimous—79% to 10% with 11% abstained—

But a clear mandate. Caused a few problems.

Those buried vertically and those buried horizontally

Had to accept each other’s ascension.

Children were not people and a dead child’s spirit

Stayed with the mother until ma’s death

And then went up with her.

Or, a safety net, a dead child’s spirit could be transferred

To the next baby of the mother.

The mother, the next baby, and the dead child (who

Was not eligible due to not being a person)

Had to be near each other when transfer, death of ma,

Or temporary residence of child’s spirit in ma, occurred.

So since all our floors were stone and so were all our walls

(We were a strong, wide, rich empire)

We buried the children under the living room floor

Or in the walls. We cut the knotty problem with one new custom!

What’s more, the vertical burial faction (50% of us)

And the horizontal (other 50%), troublesome assholes each faction,

Had a convention and decided adults should be buried

Like this: \ or this: / (at any 45° angle!) and that was that.

As I come to you from very far away,

Though I am part of we who did this stuff,

I also know the consequences of the unending

Spirit war in an increasingly overpopulated

Heaven, the smell of burning oil

Everywhere all the time, nauseous heavenly odor.

1150 AD

A red scarf on a steel-covered knight,

His large ugly horse with red ribbons on its ears.

The handle of the sword red leather.

The handle of the dagger red leather.

Those scattered touches on an otherwise steel person

And the small pieces of red on his muscular horse

Are enough to make him the red knight.

He is galloping fast in the shallowest part of the surf—

The hard brown sand—for traction—

With five other unadorned knights,

To establish a flank against those on the seaside cliffs.

It may be said a red knight runs on the sea.

Beasts bulkier and swifter than anything on earth

Are a short distance away in four fathoms

(The ocean itself is another cliff, there,

So the beasts are quite near).

They swim at some good miles per hour,

Mates with extensive vocabularies,

And turn aggravated and hungry in the shallow water,

Praying in their religion for the red knight to run on the sea,

Not just that it may be said a red knight runs on the sea.

The fish, if you can call them that, are filled with joy,

Though aggravated, at the beauty of their water,

And break it, into the air and back into the beautiful water.

The six knights point to them even while continuing to ride hard.

Soon the riders are at the end of the cliffs where these get small but steep

And where the one path down is narrow,

And those on the cliffs are flanked and trapped.

Global Positioning

Jesus screamed before the sky yawned (it yawned to fake

Its intent to pull him upward, fake the Roman soldiers

Into not interfering, rather than opened like a God-awful sky).

And there are Civil War soldiers who would hold on longer than He did; by

The way, you who look on your engines for their names and their exact wounds

You can’t participate in any of the activities of the Civil War soldiers and Jesus!

All right, I’ll tell you the kinds of wounds in a minute, but first

Drawing and quartering is harder than crucifixion, I should say,

I hear that from everybody. And the two thieves

Are not like the soldiers holding on longer, don’t go there, the soldiers

Are in the approaches to the Appalachian Mountains

Or on land spits between the tidal rivers and bays, 50-mile spits.

Meanwhile the clouds were swift and