{"id":29819,"date":"2015-09-20T07:54:25","date_gmt":"2015-09-20T13:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=29819"},"modified":"2025-10-24T06:59:48","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T13:59:48","slug":"sunday-blog-read-raphael-dagold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/sunday-blog-read-raphael-dagold\/","title":{"rendered":"READ LOCAL First: Raphael Dagold"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dagold<\/a>READ LOCAL First is your glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah\u2019s literary writers. Each month, 15 Bytes offers works-in-progress and \/ or recently published work by some of the state\u2019s most celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary non-fiction and memoir.<\/p>\n

Today, 15 Bytes features Salt Lake City-based Raphael Dagold who offers here a selection of poems of which the first two appear in his 2014 collection Bastard Heart, <\/em>a\u00a0finalist for this year’s 15 Bytes Book Award. He will be reading with other finalists at the Utah Humanities Book Festival<\/a> Monday October 5, at Weller Book Work<\/a>s. You can read the 15 Bytes interview of him here<\/a>. He will also be reading with\u00a0Lisa Fay Coutley\u00a0Oct. 7 at King’s English Bookshop.<\/p>\n

Sunday Blog Read continues to accrue a distinguished group of established and emerging Utah writers for your review and enjoyment.<\/p>\n

So curl up with your favorite cup of joe and enjoy the work of Raphael!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tattoo<\/strong><\/p>\n

All night rain made its bells on the streets,
\npeople tossed under sheets washed in fanned air and murmuring televisons,
\nthe broken fountains of Patterson Park filled up from the sky.<\/p>\n

I was awake thinking of staying here.
\nI imagine my body has its reasons for cohesion,
\nmy mind, its will for veins cushioned by the same skin
\nas always, like Baltimore spinning its tattoo,
\nsharp pricks of dark and light, in flowering tracks:<\/p>\n

The searchlight of morning, white in rainwater\u2019s hovering steam,
\nsparks bottlecaps and safety glass tamped into the street,
\ncasts shadows chasing old women\u2019s brooms on their marble steps.
\nOn Lombard the Polish marquee exclaims another musical.
\nFlooded markets hawk fishermen’s jewels on ice.
\nRoaches come like forest beetles on wet pavement
\nnext to rainbows swirling on asphalt with its lifted gasoline,
\na blue El Camino slicks by hauling a rebuilt black v-8 in back,
\nsoft brick buildings look down from their measurable heights.<\/p>\n

I open my door and this city could swallow me.
\nI open my door and this city could take me in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Tree Heart<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a tree, blackbirds\u2014a swarm, an open hive,
\neach black lightness its own small chamber:
\nThe birds are not crows and are not death<\/p>\n

and there are hundreds of them in the dryness,
\nquick late-summer breathing back at the leaves
\nthey\u2019re hungry doubles of, wet shades of oxygen<\/p>\n

gathering, a gather and a making of a flock
\nfrom a tree, a leaf a wing, two a bird, three a bird
\nwith a beak and a flutter and a lack<\/p>\n

of patience, sun up and a hot sheen
\nalready, air heated and moving in quick drifts
\nshaking the leaves, the leaves are strange here,<\/p>\n

so many of them shaking but still silent,
\ntheir sound is under the sound of the birds
\nloud in the light, light shooting clean<\/p>\n

from one hillside through to the next, pale,
\nbefore it\u2019s gone and saturated everything,
\nlight strung to a key the birds play, each of the hundred,<\/p>\n

the birds are so loud it\u2019s easy to think this,
\nthat the very light is sound:
\nThen one of them goes. No mission. No scout.<\/p>\n

Just goes, comes back, like that, some more go
\nto land in the field below the tips of grain
\nso a haze begins, elastic, a stream of one body<\/p>\n

from the tree like a cell\u2019s separation,
\nno flat, no hollow, no more,
\nyou\u2019d think, could fit where they all go<\/p>\n

to eat, is all, all the flock\u2019s pieces
\nbeating their wings for the ground.
\nIt is almost. It is almost too much<\/p>\n

for the field to carry where they\u2019ve described
\nthemselves, written their own low arcs,
\nrippling and settling for each new two or three<\/p>\n

until the tree of birds is in the field. Murmuring.
\nThe light is there. The light is a disappearance.
\nAnd they are eating. And they are making room.<\/p>\n


\nfirst published in <\/em>Born online magazine in an audio-visual version composed by Brent Mottley<\/em>
\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Alphabet<\/strong><\/p>\n

a is for Annie crying at school,
\nx the Xylophone missing mallets,
\nc for Counting while scuffing linoleum,
\ng is the Gag-rule at nap time,
\nr Rushes up through the throat,
\nf the bad word left hanging on climbing-bars,
\no in the Office waiting its turn,
\ns the hiss Snakes don\u2019t make,
\ne stands for Edward who Everyone Envies,
\nk is for Kickball aimed always at Edward,
\nu is for Useful, as in make yourself,
\nb for Brain, as in use your,
\ni looks so straight but is really Invisible,
\nv Veers away and is struck by a Vehicle,
\nd is for Duncecap stronger in metaphor,
\nm is Missing, printed on Milk cartons,
\nz begins Zoo, as in this place is a,
\nh the House at the end of the block,
\nt\u2019s a little Terror for always,
\ny the Yardstick taller than You,
\nl is for Lullabies recorded in books,
\nq is for Quiet lined up in the hall,
\nw Whispers Warm breath and lies,
\nj stands for Jumpropes hung up on hooks,
\np gets colder the longer you sit,
\nn is for Nurse, who asks for your troubles.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*
\n\u201cMiners Returning to Daylight, South Wales 1931\u201d<\/strong>
\nPhotograph, Bill Brandt<\/em><\/p>\n

Their eye-light is not from fire:
\nit is cold. It does not burn<\/p>\n

their sockets like their sinews
\nburn from driving picks<\/p>\n

into coal, their own tendons
\npulling them along. They draw<\/p>\n

the light from a black chill,
\nthen up like water from a well<\/p>\n

dug to a pool where the star
\nthe earth once was, resides.<\/p>\n

They share the star among them,
\nwide-eyed, blackened faces in a row<\/p>\n

above the mineshaft elevator\u2019s
\ngate, turned to us, the other world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Copyright, Raphael Dagold, 2015<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

The Painters<\/strong>
\nThe painters next door are singing fragments
\nof Mexican pop to an empty house
\nwithout their spattered radio today
\nas miniature orchestra to guide them.
\nThey must be nearly done, looking for swaths
\nof Painter\u2019s Holiday where glum dinge
\nstill breathes through their fresh coat.
\nOak floors have been revealed from under
\nwall-to-wall beige, the vanity has been yanked
\nand replaced, its pink basin lying sideways
\nin the drive. The scrapmetal guy, reverse
\nof Medieval peddlers crying What do you lack
\nto thin streets, slows down in his truck
\nso his nine-year-old daughter can ask if the fridge
\nwill be used or is fated for the dump.
\nA late-summer rain begins, its drops
\nfalling straight through a breeze
\nthat brings July back up from sidewalks
\nwhere its scent had rested. What do you lack?
\nThe singers\u2019 sporadic tenors shine through ladders
\nand windows, through doors and newly-wet leaves.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Copyright, Raphael Dagold, 2015<\/em><\/p>\n

#<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Bastard<\/a>Raphael Dagold<\/a> is the author of the poetry collection Bastard Heart<\/em> (Silverfish Review Press, 2014). This year, he won the Mountain West Writers\u2019 Award in Poetry, the American Literary Review<\/em> Creative Nonfiction Contest, the Scowcroft Award in Prose, and was a finalist for the North American Review <\/em>James Hearst Poetry Prize. Recent and forthcoming publications include The Antioch Review<\/em>, Western Humanities Review<\/em>, North American Review<\/em>, and The Asheville Poetry Review<\/em>. He is currently sending out a new poetry manuscript, Self Storage<\/em>, and is an Associate Instructor of composition and creative writing at the University of Utah, where he received a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature in May. A radio interview of him in can be heard\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Past featured writers in <\/em>15 Bytes\u2019 Sunday Blog Read:Katharine Coles<\/a>, Michael McLane<\/a>, Darrell Spencer<\/a>, Larry Menlove<\/a>,Christopher Bigelow<\/a>, Shanan Ballam<\/a>, Steve Proskauer<\/a>, April Wilder<\/a>,Calvin Haul<\/a>, Lance Larsen<\/a>, Joel Long<\/a>,Lynn Kilpatrick<\/a>,Phyllis Barber<\/a>, David Hawkins<\/a>, Nancy Takacs<\/a>,Mike Dorrell<\/a>,Susan Elizabeth Howe<\/a>, Star Coulbrooke<\/a>, Brad Roghaar,<\/a> Jerry Vanleperen<\/a>,Maximilian Werner<\/a>, Markay Brown<\/a>, Natalie Young<\/a>, Michael Sowder<\/a>, and Danielle Beazer Dubrasky<\/a> ,Kevin Holdsworth<\/a>,\u00a0Jacqueline Osherow<\/a>, Stephen Carter<\/a>,\u00a0Alex Caldiero<\/a>\u00a0and Stephen Tuttle<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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READ LOCAL First is your glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah\u2019s literary writers. Each month, 15 Bytes offers works-in-progress and \/ or recently published work by some of the state\u2019s most celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary non-fiction and memoir. Today, 15 Bytes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1566,"featured_media":29822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,35,2513],"tags":[1710,1918,1395,2512],"class_list":["post-29819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-bytes","category-literary-arts","category-read-local-first","tag-15-bytes-book-awards","tag-raphael-dagold","tag-utah-humanities-book-festival","tag-weller-book-works"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Dagold-Photo-for-15-Bytes.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 07:10:45","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29819"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97333,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29819\/revisions\/97333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}