Michael O'Brien

"Sills" assembles poems from four books and combines them with new work. O'Brien writes, "The poems dance their dance of stillness and motion. The issue is a quiet, patterned music, animated, disciplined, ecstatic; not closure, but recognition." "No other poet now writing registers the world with O'Brien's oblique precision. "Sills" is our first comprehensive look at an American master."- August Kleinzahler Michael O'Brien is the author of five previous books of poetry, including "Veil" and "The Floor and the Breath," He lives in New York City. Selected Poems Sunday The wind pressed against the glass. The light upon the page was morning.carried the river back where it came from. Across the island, another shore. The shards are broken. They will not join. Meeting of rivers troubles the water. It does not know which way to turn. Here the river has two currents, one the tide's share, one that waits. Evening resolves them. They flow south. The moon touches the river's mouth. Another Sunday a durable blanket covers the city the dogs speak French we know the same number of words Moira's toys are a doll & a school-satchel in the caf a disease of mirrors he plays pinball & talks to his girl is it winter coming, or spring the elegant cop salutes methe bus goes to the Pantheon the deaf speak French with their hands Postcard Somewhere in the Hudson Valley a gull is looking at a cow. A sullen wetness smoulders. The silo would like to lie down. Out of its kitchen, ethical as dough & simmering like The Original Amateur Hour spring'sone-man-band lurches across the sodden, lion-colored turf. Quarry So much eyelid in a girl's downcast gaze Washington Square powdery with dusk cicada-song of the nervous system crossing the day's vacant places 37 floors of parallel lives little bell of the coffee-cart Landowska's harpsichord, a clatter of wings dune grass another part of the dark the speck of perception that ignites in all that weather heron, march-lord breath

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