Evident all through Self-Portrait as Missing Person, respect for poetry and respect for us makes for true new thoughts and feelings about thought. In these poems we’re in this world, but this world is in another world...
—Dara Wier
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Chapbooks
Self-Portrait as Missing Person by Justin Boening
Winner of the 2012 PSA Chapbook Fellowship
Self-Portrait as Missing Person by Justin Boening, selected and introduced by Dara Wier.
Edition: 500 Copies of the winning books were printed by Westcan Printing Group and designed by Gabriele Wilson.
$8.00
To Be A God
Starting now, I'll do everything
as if I were a god.
I'll walk from a dark room
as a god walks from a dark room,
I'll speak to strangers
as a god speaks to strangers.
When it's time to say something important,
I'll rise from my chair like a god would
and speak in my
celestial certitudes.
There will be no more
lap-sitting, no more stories
about when I was a barback or a ferryman
or a farrier. There will be
fewer hours spent
tuning my piano
and patting my hunting dogs,
or remembering
my youth. When I need you to hurt
I'll put you to sleep as a god puts you to sleep,
I'll play my discordant harp as a god plays a harp,
and the effects will be the same.
The noise of the bramble
never leaves me.
I bless the cedar. The months go by. I bless your saw.
When you need
me to hurt, I'll dim in the linden leaves,
I'll hide in the fire-scarred hills,
and the great guards
of my gilded name
will circle around to protect me.
And you'll be there.
And I'll know your name
as a god knows your name,
as a father knows your name,
but you won't recognize me.
