Joseph Rocco - 4 Very Short Poems (1929-1930)

Forgotten Poems #109

    
              —: Paradigm (1929) :—

       I have only
       You have
       Comma
       Dream
       I had often
       You had
       Stop
       Wish
       I love
       You love
       Apostrophe
       Sleep
    

    
              —: Molka (1929) :—

       Very early flowers for spring
           guessing are for your very
               early love the know before
                    hand fruit
       Very early fruit for your
           careful to pick before hand
               flowers is summer
                   knowing love
                       and sleep
       Becomes a very very early
           knowing flowers are
               guessing at very very
                   early fruit are
                       knowing because
                           very very
                               early
                                   Weep
    

    
              —: Song Of A Fallen Thing (1930) :—

       Rightly the light clear the sun sheer light
       of all bright going
       never to the tight hold the sharp bold grasp will come
       drum of air thump the way set ever since the way
       began when ran ever the day clear the night bright
       light of being where the thing is seen or ever go
       never know in emptiness will fill

       until the ever known there has grown pile on pile 
       higher till the thing seen grown into the low unrest
       of steady days that stay instead of many ways
       the happy lost that loose again the stop and stoop stumbling
       of the chain

                             when light on light brightly burns
       night to night bravely turns, “turn too,” my song said
                             the dead have touched and learned.
    

    
              —: Untitled (1930) :—

       I know I
       God knows why
       Stand in the sun

       I know why
       God knows I
       Have done

       I know I
       God knows why
       Begun
    

Joseph Rocco (b. 1904), “Born in New York, where he is now living; Revolted at 21 from the teachings of a Franciscan monastery. Has contributed to The Commonweal and The Miscellany.” (Blues Magazine, 1930)

In 1934 was included in the anthology Modern Things, edited by Parker Tyler, and also including “new verse” poets like Marianne Moore, Gertrude Stein, E. E. Cummings, Harold Rosenberg, alongside William Carlos Williams, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound & Louis Zukofsky, all of whom associated with the ‘Objectivist’ movement: “Modern Things presents an elect body of work, composed by those who have worked successfully in literary styles for a number of years to the accompaniment of ever-growing critical and general recognition, together with those younger moderns who, not yet intrenched in the libraries with volumes of their own or with anthology reputations… [but] have had successes definitely meriting critical attention. These poems have been collected with applied reference to the unity of a continuous contemporary literary impulse, operating through related and developing modes of writing.” (Tyler, 1934) Lionel Abel, also included in Modern Things, dedicated a poem to Rocco.

    
              —: For Joseph Rocco (1930) :—
                             by Lionel Abel

       So comely the beginning        a road        so perplexed
       turning to starve onward           speak of knives
       and satiety halfway to understanding
	       				       why
       has the dark sobbed on your shoulder turning
       in the road's quest
			       under the mango trees
       the jewish lads are getting Ph.D.'s
			              the mangoes lie
       I shall fall suddenly and from the sky.
    

    
                            Epitaph
              —: After Joseph Rocco :—
                         by Dick Whyte

       for your multifaceted
       role in death

       make your peace
       giant—

       the earth has teeth
       sharper
       than any dead bug
     

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