1000 poems from Poetry Foundation in jsonl fomrat

poems.jsonl

{"poem": "If the hope of giving\n\r is to love the living,\n\r the giver risks madness\n\r in the act of giving.\n\n\r Some such lesson I seemed to see\n\r in the faces that surrounded me.\n\n\r Needy and blind, unhopeful, unlifted,\n\r what gift would give them the gift to be gifted?\n\r \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The giver is no less adrift\n\r \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0than those who are clamouring for the gift.\n\n\r If they cannot claim it, if it is not there,\n\r if their empty fingers beat the empty air\n\r and the giver goes down on his knees in prayer\n\r knows that all of his giving has been for naught\n\r and that nothing was ever what he thought\n\r and turns in his guilty bed to stare\n\r at the starving multitudes standing there\n\r and rises from bed to curse at heaven,\n\r he must yet understand that to whom much is given\n\r much will be taken, and justly so:\nI cannot tell how much I owe.\n", "title": "The giver (for Berdis)", "id": 88930, "author": "James Baldwin"}
{"poem": "The lady is a tramp\n\r \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a camp\n\r \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a lamp\n\n\r The lady is a sight\n\r \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a might\n\r \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a light\n\r the lady devastated\n\r an alley or two\n\r reverberated through the valley\n\r which leads to me, and you\n\n\r the lady is the apple\n\r of God's eye:\n\r He's cool enough about it\n\r but He tends to strut a little\n\r when she passes by\n\n\r the lady is a wonder\n\r daughter of the thunder\n\r smashing cages\n\r legistlating rages\n\r with the voice of ages\n\r singing us through.\n", "title": "Le sporting-club de Monte Carlo (for Lena Horne)", "id": 88932, "author": "James Baldwin"}
{"poem": "In a strange house,\n\r a strange bed\n\r in a strange town,\n\r a very strange me\n\r is waiting for you.\n\n\r Now\n\r it is very early in the morning.\n\r The silence is loud.\n\r The baby is walking about\n\r with his foaming bottle,\n\r making strange sounds\n\r and deciding, after all,\n\r to be my friend.\n\n\r You\n\r arrive tonight.\n\n\r How dull time is!\n\r How empty\u2014and yet,\n\r since I am sitting here,\n\r lying here,\n\r walking up and down here,\n\r waiting,\n\r I see\n\r that time's cruel ability\n\r to make one wait\n\r is time's reality.\n\n\r I see your hair\n\r which I call red.\n\r I lie here in this bed.\n\n\r Someone teased me once,\n\r a friend of ours\u2014\n\r saying that I saw your hair red\n\r because I was not thinking\n\r of the hair on your head.\n\n\r Someone also told me,\n\r a long time ago:\n\r my father said to me,\nIt is a terrible thing,\n\r son,\n\r to fall into the hands of the living God.\n\r Now,\n\r I know what he was saying.\n\r I could not have seen red\n\r before finding myself\n\r in this strange, this waiting bed.\n\r Nor had my naked eye suggested\n\r that colour was created\n\r by the light falling, now,\n\r on me,\n\r in this strange bed,\n\r waiting\n\r where no one has ever rested!\n\n\r The streets, I observe,\n\r are wintry.\n\r It feels like snow.\n\r Starlings circle in the sky,\n\r conspiring,\n\r together, and alone,\n\r unspeakable journeys\n\r into and out of the light.\n\n\r I know\n\r I will see you tonight.\n\r And snow\n\r may fall\n\r enough to freeze our tongues\n\r and scald our eyes.\n\r We may never be found again!\n\n\r Just as the birds above our heads\n\r circling\n\r are singing,\n\r knowing\n\r that, in what lies before them,\n\r the always unknown passage,\n\r wind, water, air,\n\r the failing light\n\r the failing night\n\r the blinding sun\n\r they must get the journey done.\n\r Listen.\n\r They have wings and voices\n\r are making choices\n\r are using what they have.\n\r They are aware\n\r that, on long journeys,\n\r each bears the other,\n\r whirring,\n\r stirring\n\r love occuring\n\r in the middle of the terrifying air.\n", "title": "Munich, Winter 1973 (for Y.S.)", "id": 88926, "author": "James Baldwin"}
{"poem": "\u00a0 Lord,\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 when you send the rain\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0think about it, please,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0a little?\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Do\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0not get carried away\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0by the sound of falling water,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the marvelous light\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 on the falling water.\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 am beneath that water.\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 It falls with great force\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and the light\n\r Blinds\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 me to the light.\n", "title": "Untitled", "id": 88936, "author": "James Baldwin"}
{"poem": "I shall never get you put together entirely,\n\r Pieced, glued, and properly jointed.\n\r Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles\n\r Proceed from your great lips.\n\r It\u2019s worse than a barnyard.\n\r \u00a0\n\r Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,\n\r Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.\n\r Thirty years now I have labored\n\r To dredge the silt from your throat.\n\r I am none the wiser.\n\r \u00a0\n\r Scaling little ladders with glue pots and pails of lysol\n\r I crawl like an ant in mourning\n\r Over the weedy acres of your brow\n\r To mend the immense skull plates and clear\n\r The bald, white tumuli of your eyes.\n\r \u00a0\n\r A blue sky out of the Oresteia\n\r Arches above us. O father, all by yourself\n\r You are pithy and historical as the Roman Forum.\n\r I open my lunch on a hill of black cypress.\n\r Your fluted bones and acanthine hair are littered\n\r \u00a0\n\r In their old anarchy to the horizon-line.\n\r It would take more than a lightning-stroke\n\r To create such a ruin.\n\r Nights, I squat in the cornucopia\n\r Of your left ear, out of the wind,\n\r \u00a0\n\r Counting the red stars and those of plum-color.\n\r The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue.\n\r My hours are married to shadow.\n\r No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel\n\r On the blank stones of the landing.\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "The Colossus", "id": 89119, "author": "Sylvia Plath"}
{"poem": "The problem\u2014\n\r it\u2019s not been written yet, the omens:\n\r the headless owl, the bobcat struck,\n\r the red wolf where she could not be.\n\r \u00a0\n\r None of it done and yet it\u2019s over.\n\r \u00a0\n\r Nothing yet\n\r of night\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 when she called me closer\n\r asked me to bring her crow painting\n\r to stay straight across from her feet\n\r so she could waken into it,\n\r \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 remember her friend.\n\r \u00a0\n\r Of Old Chief alongside her shoulder\n\r \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 still watching over her\n\r just as the mountain had done\n\r throughout her Alberta childhood.\n\r \u00a0\n\r The Pendleton shroud bearing our braids,\n\r her figure in flaming pyre.\n\r \u00a0\n\r The cards, the notes, the tasks\n\r the things undone, \u00a0 \u00a0 not done\n\r and she with us \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0faraway\n\r as this has always been\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and ever\n\r will continue.\n\r \u00a0\n\r \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We meet we leave\n\r we meld and vaporize from whatever\n\r it was that held us human\n\r \u00a0\n\r in this life.\n\r \u00a0\n\r And all the beautiful things\n\r that lead our thoughts and give us reason\n\r remain despite the leaving and\n\r all I know \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 is what you know\n\r \u00a0\n\r when it is over said and done\n\r it was a time\n\r \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and there was never enough of it.\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "A Time", "id": 89060, "author": "Allison Adelle Hedge Coke"}
{"poem": "America, I sing back. Sing back what sung you in.\n\r Sing back the moment you cherished breath.\n\r Sing you home into yourself and back to reason.\n\r \u00a0\n\r Before America began to sing, I sung her to sleep,\n\r held her cradleboard, wept her into day.\n\r My song gave her creation, prepared her delivery,\n\r held her severed cord beautifully beaded.\n\r \u00a0\n\r My song helped her stand, held her hand for first steps,\n\r nourished her very being, fed her, placed her three sisters strong.\n\r My song comforted her as she battled my reason\n\r broke my long-held footing sure, as any child might do.\n\r \u00a0\n\r As she pushed herself away, forced me to remove myself,\n\r as I cried this country, my song grew roses in each tear\u2019s fall.\n\r \u00a0\n\r My blood-veined rivers, painted pipestone quarries\n\r circled canyons, while she made herself maiden fine.\n\r \u00a0\n\r But here I am, here I am, here I remain high on each and every peak,\n\r carefully rumbling her great underbelly, prepared to pour forth singing\u2014\n\r \u00a0\n\r and sing again I will, as I have always done.\n\r Never silenced unless in the company of strangers, singing\n\r the stoic face, polite repose, polite while dancing deep inside, polite\n\r Mother of her world. Sister of myself.\n\r \u00a0\n\r When my song sings aloud again. When I call her back to cradle.\n\r Call her to peer into waters, to behold herself in dark and light,\n\r day and night, call her to sing along, call her to mature, to envision\u2014\n\r then, she will quake herself over. My song will make it so.\n\r \u00a0\n\r When she grows far past her self-considered purpose,\n\r I will sing her back, sing her back. I will sing. Oh I will\u2014I do.\n\r America, I sing back. Sing back what sung you in.\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "America, I Sing You Back", "id": 89062, "author": "Allison Adelle Hedge Coke"}
{"poem": "In the half-light, I am most\n\r at home, my shadow\n\r as company.\n\r \u00a0\n\r When I feel hot, I push a button\n\r to make it stop. I mean this stain on my mind\n\r I can\u2019t get out. How human\n\r \u00a0\n\r I seem. Like modern man,\n\r I traffic in extinction. I have a gift.\n\r Like an animal, I sustain.\n\r \u00a0\n\r A flock of birds\n\r when touched, I scatter. I won\u2019t approach\n\r until the back is turned.\n\r \u00a0\n\r My heart betrays. I confess: I am afraid.\n\r How selfish of me.\n\r When there\u2019s no one here, I halve\n\r \u00a0\n\r the distance between\n\r our bodies infinitesimally.\n\r In this long passageway, I pose\n\r \u00a0\n\r against the wallpaper, dig\n\r my heels in, catch the light.\n\r In my vision, the back door opens\n\r \u00a0\n\r on a garden that is always\n\r in bloom. The dogs\n\r are chained so they can\u2019t attack like I know\n\r \u00a0\n\r they want to. In the next yard\n\r over, honeybees swarm\n\r and their sound is huge.\n", "title": "The Current Isolation", "id": 89055, "author": "Camille Rankine"}
{"poem": "Dogs so long with us we forget\n\r that wolves allowed as how\n\r they might be tamed and sprang up\n\r all over the globe, with all humans,\n\r all at once, like a good idea.\n\r \u00a0\n\r So we tamed our own hearts.\n\r Leashed them or sent them to camp\u2019s edge.\n\r Even the shrinks once agreed, in dreams\n\r our dogs are our deepest selves.\n\r \u00a0\n\r Ur Dog, a Siberian, dogged\n\r the heels of nomads,\n\r then turned south to Egypt\n\r to keep Pharaoh safe.\n\r \u00a0\nSeemed strange, my mother sighed,\n\r when finally we got a hound,\n. . . a house without a dog. \n\r \u00a0\n\r Her world never knew\n\r a yard un-dogged and thus\n\r unlocked. Sudden intrusions\n\r impossible where yappers yap.\n\r \u00a0\n\r Or maybe she objected\n\r to empty armchairs,\n\r rooms too quiet\n\r without the beat\n\r of tail thump or paw thud.\n\r \u00a0\nN\u2019de, Ojibwe say, my pet, \n\r which also suggests ode, that spot in the chest,\n\r the part you point to when you pray,\n\r or say with great feeling\u2014great meaning,\n\r meaning dog-love goes that deep.\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "De'an", "id": 89051, "author": "Heid E. Erdrich"}
{"poem": "Some teeth down there\n\r some hair and gray\n\r gums\n\r \u00a0\n\r Some grass and dirt\n\r down there some gristle\n\r and whimpers\n\r \u00a0\n\r All stupid grinning death running around the yard making a little child cry\n\r \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 with each busted grass blade\n\r \u00a0\n\r I had a dog\n\r I had three dogs\n\r I sit and stay\n\r \u00a0\n\r They did not disappear into\n\r the trees one day\n\r \u00a0\n\r Their brains were not broken coral on the street\n\n\r They were meat\n\r \u00a0\n\n\r \u2022\n\n\r \u00a0\n\r Some leash\n\r down there some shit\n\r and tennis balls\n\r \u00a0\n\r I had a dog\n\r I had three dogs\n\r I sit and beg\n\r \u00a0\n\r Their brains were not broken coral on the street\n\r \u00a0\n\r They were not meat\n\r one day they did not disappear\n\r into the trees\n\r \u00a0\n\r All stupid grinning death running around the yard making a little child cry\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0with each busted grass blade\n\r \u00a0\n\r Some whimpers\n\r down there some nipples\n\r and pink tum-tums\n\r \u00a0\n\n\r \u2022\n\r \u00a0\n\n\r Some biting tails\n\r down there some sunlight\n\r and long nails\n\r \u00a0\n\r Some fleas dug up some mange and gray tongues\n\r \u00a0\n\r I had a dog\n\r They were meat\n\r I had three dogs\n\r \u00a0\n\r They did not disappear into the streets\n\r They did not tree\n\r \u00a0\n\r Some haunch skid\n\r and drag down there some\n\r mouths one day\n\r \u00a0\n\r They did not smell like baby\u2019s breath\n\r \u00a0\n\r All stupid grinning death running around the yard making a little child cry\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0with each busted grass blade\n\r \u00a0\n\n\r \u2022\n\r \u00a0\n\n\r Some grass and dirt\n\r down there some teeth and\n\r ruined carpets\n\r \u00a0\n\r I had a dog\n\r I had three dogs\n\r I fucked fleas\n\r \u00a0\n\r All stupid grinning death running around the yard making a little child cry\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0with each busted grass blade\n\r \u00a0\n\r Some eyelashes\n\r down there some eating grass\n\r and mange some\n\r baby\u2019s breath\n\r \u00a0\n\r One day their brains were not broken\n\r coral on the street\n\r \u00a0\n\r They did not disappear into the trees\n\r \u00a0\n\n\r \u2022\n\r \u00a0\n\r Some sit and stay\n\r down there some meat\n\r and sunlight\n\r \u00a0\n\r Their brains were not\n\r broken coral on the street they\n\r did not disappear into\n\r the trees\n\r \u00a0\n\r They did not fuck fleas\n\r \u00a0\n\r All stupid grinning death running around the yard making a little child cry\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0with each busted grass blade\n\r \u00a0\n\r Some bones and baby\u2019s breath down there\n\r some bark and seizures\n\r \u00a0\n\r Distant watery eyes\n\r \u00a0\n\r One day I had a dog\n\r \u00a0\n\r I had three dogs\n\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "Dog Vertigo", "id": 89063, "author": "Michael Dickman"}
{"poem": "The ghost prisoner, a murderer,\n\r wishes he was invisible, sheer air,\n\r already dead. His narrow bed\n\r washes him away to dream escape\n\r through holy gaps that open\n\r in the grin of his small son.\n\r Lost teeth offer him a freedom\n\r so absurd he wakes and laughs.\n\r \u00a0\n\r No one hears the ghost prisoner.\n\r Whether he groans or bears stoically\n\r what instruments we\u2019ve paid to play\n\r this march toward a freedom so absurd\n\r we wake and silently shake our heads.\n\r We do not speak ill of the dead.\n\r \u00a0\n\r The ghost prisoner, still murderer,\n\r wishes he was visible, fiery air,\n\r rallying the dead. His narrow cell\n\r just the place for prayer. Holy, holy,\n\r a ghost\u2019s revenge pushed through gaps\n\r in his own gashed mouth, a curse\n\r so absurd, he wakes to its howl.\n\r \u00a0\n\r No one says his name, his crimes,\n\r how many jolts it took to resurrect\n\r him as a betrayer of insurrection,\n\r paying for freedom\u2019s ring.\n\r \u00a0\n\r We do not want to know what it took.\n\r We\u2019d rather not speak the dead ill.\n\r We do not want to know what it took\n\r to make him wish he were dead still.\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "Ghost Prisoner", "id": 88989, "author": "Heid E. Erdrich"}
{"poem": "Thunder loves you,\n\r mumbles charms to warm\n\r you\u2014folded cold body.\n\r \u00a0\n\r Lightning\u2019s pity picks you,\n\r licks a kiss, but what\u2019s left\n\r to wick?\n\r \u00a0\n\r Even direct hits miss\u2014\n\r no amount of flash and hiss\n\r fires you. Inviolate virgin,\n\r \u00a0\n\r inflammable channel to Gods\n\r long gone or gone underground,\n\r ghost-gray flecks left in the rock\n\r \u00a0\n\r altar, your shelter for five centuries\n\r where you huddled, red-painted\n\r hair and wreathed with feathers.\n\r \u00a0\n\r Weave threads of your shawl\u2014\n\r not a shroud since you were live\n\r when left for dead\u2014weave cover\n\r \u00a0\n\r please, I beg your handlers.\n\r Pull stitches so that wound closes\n\r over your smoldered remains.\n\r \u00a0\n\r They say you clutch your mother\u2019s hair,\n\r strands in a bag sent up the mountain,\n\r an introduction to the Gods\n\r \u00a0\n\r of Science, who read threaded\n\r DNA to determine who you\n\r were related to when human.\n\r \u00a0\n\r Not the crushed boy near you,\n\r no brother he nor sister the girl,\n\r bound away to sacred silence,\n\r \u00a0\n\r cased in plastic cased in glass.\n\r Visitors point and justify the past:\nSee what they did\u2014child sacrifice.\n\r \u00a0\nFattened \u2019em up, drugged \u2019em\u2014\n\r Spanish violence, Christian influence,\n\r border fences, all deserved because of her\n\r \u00a0\n\r wad of coca leaves and elaborate braids.\n\r Lightning\u2019s mark spares you display.\n\r Singed cheek and blasted chest,\n\r \u00a0\n\r blackened flesh looks less asleep,\n\r flashed back the fact you\u2019re dead,\n\r a charred mummy, so far gone even\n\r \u00a0\n\r Lightning\u2019s longing couldn\u2019t wake you.\n\r Thunder won\u2019t forget you, hums\n\r a generator\u2019s song in cooler vents\n\r \u00a0\n\r to your coiled form in cold storage\u2014\n\r song of your six years plus five centuries\n\r come to this: doom, doom, doom.\n\r \u00a0\n\r Lightning still sighs: release, release, release.\n", "title": "Girl of Lightning", "id": 89052, "author": "Heid E. Erdrich"}
{"poem": "Our stone wall was built by slaves and my bones, my bones\n\r are paid for. We have two\n\r \u00a0\n\r of everything, twice heavy\n\r in our pockets, warming\n\r our two big hands.\n\r \u00a0\n\r This is the story, as I know it. One morning:\n\r the ships came, as foretold, and death\n\r pearl-handled, almost\n\r \u00a0\n\r and completely.\n\r How cheap a date I turned out to be.\n\r \u00a0\n\r Each finger weak with the memory:\n\r lost teeth, regret. Our ghosts\n\r walk the shoulders of the road at night.\n\r I get the feeling you\u2019ve been lying to me.\n", "title": "History", "id": 89054, "author": "Camille Rankine"}
{"poem": "I was listening for the dog\n\r when the locks were pried open.\n\r The man was dead. The dog, a survivor,\n\r was dead. It happens\n\r \u00a0\n\r more often this way.\n\r A disease left\n\r untreated; the body,\n\r in confusion, gives in.\n\r \u00a0\n\r The bomb breathes its fire down\n\r the hallway, the son comes back\n\r in pieces; the body,\n\r in confusion, gives in.\n\r \u00a0\n\r The grief is a planet. A dust ring.\n\r A small moon that\u2019s been hidden\n\r under my pillow, that\u2019s been changing\n\r the way my body moves this whole time.\n", "title": "The Increasing Frequency of Black Swans", "id": 89056, "author": "Camille Rankine"}
{"poem": "It wasn\u2019t socks missing from his feet,\n\r not elbow cloth unraveled unilaterally,\n\r not equal displacement of chin and brow,\n\r nor the eye that sat a bit lower on the right,\n\r it was his knuckle that made me weep,\n\r clove corners gone wayside, like miniscule meat\n\r hooks clawed away bits of him each shift he made,\n\r invisible a timeliness unfurled. It was his muscle\n\r torn through, festering, the prosthetic hand, finger-\n\r width dismay all across his attempted grin, left\n\r there just like that, for anyone to see\u2014it was his mercy.\n\r In the end we\u2019re rarely beautiful, mostly placed\n\r away from compromising situations into poses\n\r offsetting what has become of us in some gawker\u2019s\n\r unnerving eyes. Yet, he was, is, still here in mine,\n\r and I\u2019m human because of it. Maybe only. Maybe.\n", "title": "Measuring Up", "id": 89061, "author": "Allison Adelle Hedge Coke"}
{"poem": "In the new century,\n\r we lose the art of many things.\n\r \u00a0\n\r For example, at the beep, I communicate\n\r using the wrong machine.\n\r \u00a0\n\r I called to say we have two lives\n\r and only one of them is real.\n\r \u00a0\n\r When the phone rings: you could be anybody.\n\r In the evening: you are homeless\n\r \u00a0\n\r and hunting for good light, as safe a place\n\r as any to make a bed for the night.\n\r \u00a0\n\r In both my lives, my nerves go bust.\n\r I\u2019m certain that I\u2019m not\n\r \u00a0\n\r as I appear, that I\u2019m a figment and\n\r you\u2019re not really here.\n\r \u00a0\n\r The struggle\n\r is authenticity.\n\r \u00a0\n\r I have a message.\n\r You must believe me.\n", "title": "Symptoms of Prophecy", "id": 89053, "author": "Camille Rankine"}
{"poem": "We were the land's before we were.\n\n\r Or the land was ours before you were a land.\n\r Or this land was our land, it was not your land.\n\n\r We were the land before we were people,\n\r loamy roamers rising, so the stories go,\n\r or formed of clay, spit into with breath reeking soul\u2014\n\n\r What's America, but the legend of Rock 'n' Roll?\n\n\r Red rocks, blood clots bearing boys, blood sands\n\r swimming being from women's hands, we originate,\n\r originally, spontaneous as hemorrhage.\n\n\r Un-possessing of what we still are possessed by,\n\r possessed by what we now no more possess.\n\n\r We were the land before we were people,\n\r dreamy sunbeams where sun don't shine, so the stories go,\n\r or pulled up a hole, clawing past ants and roots\u2014\n\n\r Dineh in documentaries scoff DNA evidence off.\n\r They landed late, but canyons spoke them home.\n\r Nomadic Turkish horse tribes they don't know.\n\n\r What's America, but the legend of Stop 'n' Go?\n\n\r Could be cousins, left on the land bridge,\n\r contrary to popular belief, that was a two-way toll.\n\r In any case we'd claim them, give them some place to stay.\n\n\r Such as we were we gave most things outright\n\r (the deed of the theft was many deeds and leases and claim stakes\n\r and tenure disputes and moved plat markers stolen still today . . .)\n\n\r We were the land before we were a people,\n\r earthdivers, her darling mudpuppies, so the stories go,\n\r or emerging, fully forming from flesh of earth\u2014\n\n\r The land, not the least vaguely, realizing in all four directions,\n\r still storied, art-filled, fully enhanced.\n\r Such as she is, such as she wills us to become.\n", "title": "The Theft Outright", "id": 89050, "author": "Heid E. Erdrich"}
{"poem": "Daffodils shimmy\n\r in the dilated onion grass\n\r their hearts out\n\r \u00a0\n\r Shelovesme Shelovesmenot\n\r \u00a0\n\r Smeared\n\r against the sidewalk\n\r \u00a0\n\r Urine left in the toilet all day simmers under halogens\n\r \u00a0\n\r Listening\n\r to someone else breathe\n\r listening to static cling\n\r \u00a0\n\r Time to wipe down the refrigerator with a handful of ibuprofen and a bandanna\n\r \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 soaked in tonic water\n\r \u00a0\n\r Butter-butter\n\r Black lemons\n\r Pine-Sol\n\r \u00a0\n\n\r \u2022\n\n\r \u00a0\n\r Daffodils shimmy\n\r in the dilated onion grass\n\r their asses off\n\r \u00a0\n\r Other yellow flowers I don\u2019t see you yet\n\r \u00a0\n\r Noon\n\r tears down the street\n\r a terrible kid\n\r on a brand-new\n\r \u00a0\n\r Now I remember the faces of tulips\n\r \u00a0\n\r Speechless\n\r \u00a0\n\r Yellow peaches\n\r sweat inside brown\n\r paper bags\n\r \u00a0\n\r Press your forehead against the pit in the perfect peach and everything will stop\n\r \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 moving how about that?\n\r \u00a0\n\n\r \u2022\n\n\r \u00a0\n\r Daffodils shimmy\n\r in the dilated onion grass\n\r their eyes closed\n\r \u00a0\n\r Close your eyes I close my eyes\n\r \u00a0\n\r Families of worms work their yellow way up through clouds in the mustard air\n\r \u00a0\n\r Slams into the yard\n\r \u00a0\n\r Pollen\n\r lies down on everything\n\r it just lies down\n\r sun the color of\n\r photosynthesis and\n\r that\u2019s fine\n\r \u00a0\n\r Birds bark inside houses\n\r \u00a0\n\r Yellow fingers work the yellow spine\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "Yellow Migraine", "id": 89064, "author": "Michael Dickman"}
{"poem": "Young enough to believe nothing\n\r will change them, they step, hand-in-hand,\n\n\r into the bomb crater. The night full\n\r of \u200ablack teeth. His faux Rolex, weeks\n\n\r from shattering against her cheek, now dims\n\r like a miniature moon behind her hair.\n\n\r In this version the snake is headless\u2009\u2014\u2009stilled\n\r like a cord unraveled from the lovers\u2019 ankles.\n\n\r He lifts her white cotton skirt, revealing\n\r another hour. His hand. His hands. The syllables\n\n\r inside them. O father, O foreshadow, press\n\r into her\u2009\u2014\u2009as the field shreds itself\n\n\r with cricket cries. Show me how ruin makes a home\n\r out of \u200ahip bones. O mother,\n\n\r O minutehand, teach me\n\r how to hold a man the way thirst\n\n\r holds water. Let every river envy\n\r our mouths. Let every kiss hit the body\n\n\r like a season. Where apples thunder\n\r the earth with red hooves. & I am your son.\n", "title": "A Little Closer to the Edge", "id": 88734, "author": "Ocean Vuong"}
{"poem": "After Roselia Foundling Asylum and Maternity Hospital, \u2028corner of Cliff and Manilla\n\n\r This is the house I was born in.\n\r Look at it. Asylum.\n\n\r Narrate it:\n\r Notice the sloping cornice, look at the curved windows, etc.\n\n\r This is the house I was born in.\n\r The cast-iron balconies\u200a/\u200anot wide enough for bodies.\n\n\r Look at the photos:\n\r 3 stories, 8 front windows and a wide door.\n\n\r Dark red brick\u200a/\u200ainlaid with brown stone.\n\r Women\u2019s bodies\u200a/\u200aexpelling\u200a\u200a/\u200abanishing\u200a\u200a/\u200a\n\n\r Leaving the babies there.\n\r Look at the photos, include the photos.\n\r \u00a0", "title": "Asylum", "id": 88738, "author": "Jan Beatty"}
{"poem": "This song is not a language,\n\r Not a thing to be remembered,\n\r The field-holler tradition of\n\r Teeth and knees\n\r Cursing wind,\n\r A concert hall of \u200a\u200abloody hands\n\r Spilling the earth,\n\r Strangling dirt,\n\r Sledgehammer curses\n\r Of \u200amen busted open.\n\n\r On Parchman Farm\n\r You could hear it coming\n\r Up through the trees,\n\r The hammering pulpit of\n\r Crooning men and sweat,\n\r The tender meat of palms\n\r Pulped like plums.\n\n\r Them men gulped down the\n\r Dawn dew air,\n\r Let it catch in their throats,\n\r Broke the sunrise up and\n\r Sang hymns like hexes:\n\nBe my woman gal, I\u2019ll beeee your maaaaaaan\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\n\n\r And the killing fields of \u200aMississippi\n\r Fizzled down to juke joints and\n\r The hothouse music of illegal clubs\n\r With thick women they loved outright and\n\r Played cards with and\n\r Gave bourbon to when their hands\n\r Didn\u2019t hold sorrow like\n\r Pickaxes and the railroad was\n\r Just a railroad,\n\r A way to ride north if \u200ayou could\n\r Get your money right.\n\n\r Redbone gals with rosewater sweat,\n\r When they lifted their knees\n\r Sunflower County was a heaven\n\r They believed in.\n\nStick to the promise, gal, that you maaaaaade meeeeee\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\n\n\r Steady now,\n\r They turned back the clock on\n\r Their hard, hard hands,\n\r Let the memory of fresh linen and\n\r Ladies\u2019 slips like gossamer\n\r Wings, a parade of \u200aplump thighs,\n\r The juju thrust of \u200afurious bones\n\r Spread like grease\n\r Across starched-white sheets,\n\r Midwife them out of ol\u2019 Parchman Farm\n\n\r And back to the cockfights and gambling,\n\r Back when they had ambition,\n\r Back when they had a sweet woman\n\r To hold, her fat wrists\n\r Soft as butter,\n\r Limp as rain.\n\nWhen she walk, she reel and rock beeeeeehind\n\r Ain\u2019t that enough to make a convict smiiiiiiiiile.\n\n\r Mississippi\u2019s where the cock crowed,\n\r A hoodwink if ever there was one,\n\r But see how a man can make a\n\r Steeple outta his hands,\n\n\r See how he can break away\n\r From his hurt and be God\n\r If \u200ahe wants to,\n\r How he can keep his mind\n\r Wrapped in yesterday,\n\r Drown out memory\n\r Like rain drumming\n\r Down like hornets\nYeahhhhhh.\n\n\r Them Parchman men,\n\r Ants in single file,\n\r Draft dodgers\n\r Digging trenches\n\r Pounding concrete\n\r Laying tracks\n\r Pretending it\u2019s Christmas\n\r So they can keep their hands\n\r Away from the colic of axe handles,\n\r The sputtering earth\n\r Snarling under their feet.\n\r Warden says every man\n\r Gotta pay his way on Parchman Farm\n\r Same as the outside.\n\n\r Yessuh. They remember what it was like to be a man,\n\r To know that didn\u2019t mean put a gun in your hand\n\r Or go lookin\u2019 for somebody to take down, naw.\n\r They sang \u2019til the hurt was just an\n\r Experiment in forgetfulness and they\n\r Were back in clean clothes makin\u2019 plans and\n\n\r Tryin\u2019 to get a little money\n\r To buy tobacco and\n\r A pint with a little left over\n\r To get somethin\u2019 sweet\n\r For the women who were wet\n\r Underneath them, crooning\n\r A tumorless midnight.\n\n\r The moans of \u200awild women\n\r Are specific:\n\r A whisper of \u200ahell danced pink\n\r By the rosewater sweat and mewling,\n\r Questions they ask when\n\r Their clothes are off.\n\n\r When you gon\u2019 take me to the movies?\nWe goin\u2019 Saturday, baby\n\r When you gon\u2019 get you a steady job?\nWorkin\u2019 on it everyday, baby\n\r Why you love me anyway, man?\nAin\u2019t a man alive who could help it\n\n\r The dance, you know, the dance of \u200abeing a free man\n\r That never shows its fullness to you \u2019til\n\r It\u2019s stripped down and gobbled up\n\r By railroad tracks and guards in high towers\n\r With rifles watching your back,\n\r Bend to question mark\n\r Under a sun that won\u2019t mind its business,\n\n\r When the only part of \u200ayour living life left\n\r Is in the things you remember\n\r About a woman who hung\n\r Pantyhose off her porch to\n\r Dry and made you peach cobbler\n\r In the middle of the night\n\r If you asked nice and\n\r Danced with you to songs\n\r Written on the back of a\n\r Watermelon truck by folk who\n\r Knew something about longing,\n\r And those are the songs you give her now\n\r While you bust the earth open.\n\n\r Cuz your heart is a burial plot\n\r So stony.\n\n\r Can\u2019t ask nothin\u2019 of a grave.\n\r Everybody knows that.\n\n\r So you dig and\n\r Pound and\n\r Snatch and\n\r Haul and\n\r Scrape and\n\r Lift and\n\r Tote and\n\r Hammer.\n\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Lay it down, man!\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Pick it up again, man!\n\n\r You\u2019re knuckles and\n\r Dreams deferred in a place\n\r Where every stone,\n\r Every goddamn stone\n\r Is important!\n\nI go free, lawd, I goooooooo free\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "Chain Gang", "id": 88741, "author": "Dominique Christina"}
{"poem": "The giant Slinky\n\r of \u200aSpring approaches\n& I have nothing\n\r to sport after spending\n\r a fortune on hooded\n\r sweaters that make\n\r me look like I\u2019m searching\n\r for the Holy Grail.\n\n\r Struggling with\n\r granola & soy milk,\n\r dental bills accumulate\n\r like snow & the potatoes\n\r I forgot have rotted.\n\r I\u2019m broke & broke\n& broke & broke\n& broke, a bowling\n\r ball spiraling down\n\r a middle-aged\n\r staircase of doubt.\n\n\r The night I crazily\n\r fled for the gentrified\n\r grids of\u200a 14th Street.\n\r A pinball, I landed\n\r in Playbill. I left\n\r Brooklyn tossing\n\r televisions & futons\n\r like bombs\n\r in the bowels\n\r of \u200ahipster bohemia.\n\r In the piano karaoke\n\r bar, I met Kevin,\n\r a Peter Pan\n\r Tennessee man\n\r who spun quips & wit\n\r like pixie dust about me.\n\r A puckish chariot\n\r fueled by moxie,\n\r this lean tambourine\n\r of charms leaned\n\r over me, a hot flamingo\n\r in the midnight light\n& admitted his\n\r once-upon-a-time\n\r fetish for Laotian\n\r men in his youth.\n\r I wanted him to fall\n\r for me as if \u200ahe stumbled\n\r into the inside\n\r of an Oriental\n\r mansion shaking\n\r the tchotchkes\n\r in my heart, steeping my\n\r crush into sweet green tea.\n\r Kevin would be my model\n\r of elegance, unabashed\n\r confidence, a dragon\n\r fierceness. He said,\n\r There\u2019s more to Rainbow\n\r Pride than RuPaul\n& Stonewall kickball\n& I finally felt\n\r I belonged in DC.\n\n\r November, Kevin\u2019s\n\r jaw ached. He showed\n\r up at The Black Fox\n\r mumbling\u200a jumble\n\r garble through tears.\n\r His feature canceled.\n\r After the first break\n\r from winter gray to blue,\n\r Facebook alerts Kevin\u2019s\n\r wheeled to hospice,\n\r liver cancer.\n\n\r I teach Donmike\n\r how to make pancit\n\r noodles. We become\n\r the curse of gossiping\n\r Filipina spinster aunts.\n\r How have we become\n\r giggling little lily pad\n\r princesses behind\n\r invisible hand\n\r fans, waiting for\n\r our potential\n\r suitors to make\n\r the first move?\n\n\r I wonder whether\n\r you\u2019re afraid my hug\n\r lingers a little too long\n\r after I rub your feet\n\r or maybe you\u2019re just\n\r a Scorpio expressing\n\r affection & I know\n\r I have 3rd world Daddy\n\r issues but I don\u2019t want\n\r to bring up hopes\n& fuck ups.\n\n\r Maybe I\u2019m in love\n\r with you like that\n\r baby weasel riding\n\r the flying woodpecker\u2019s\n\r back. It\u2019s an Avatar\n\r magical, sci-fi,\n\r unexpected flash\n\r of \u200abliss when really,\n\r the woodpecker is\n\r fighting for his life.\n\r The weasel doesn\u2019t\n\r know what it\u2019s gotten\n\r itself into but a thrill\n\r that will never\n\r come again,\n\r something better\n\r than a feathered\n\r Baby Jane din-din.\n\n\r Tomorrow, you\u2019ll\n\r want to go to Rehoboth\n& kite surf at the beach\n\r house of the guy who\n\r lusts after you. The priest\u2019s\n\r sermon makes no sense:\n\r Forest Fires in the Bay,\n\r Water Well Maidens\n& \u201cLet It Go\u201d from Frozen.\n\r It\u2019s not that I hate white\n\r people or that we\u2019re soul mates.\n\r It\u2019s that you\u2019re beginning\n\r to wash off me like ashes\n\r in holy water.\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "Daylight Saving Time Flies Like an Instagram of a Weasel Riding a Woodpecker & You Feel Everything Will Be Alright", "id": 88740, "author": "Regie Cabico"}
{"poem": "The body, bearing something ordinary as light \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Opens\n\r as in a room somewhere the friend opens in poppy, in flame, burns & bears the child\u2009\u2014\u2009out.\n\n\r When I did it was the hours & hours of breaking. The bucking of\n\r it all, the push & head\n\n\r not moving, not an inch until,\n\r when he flew from me, it was the night who came\n\n\r flying through me with all its hair,\n\r the immense terror of his face & noise.\n\n\r I heard the stranger & my brain, without looking, vowed\n\r a love-him vow. His struggling, merely, to be\n\n\r split me down, with the axe, to two. How true,\n\r the thinness of our hovering between the realms of Here, Not Here.\n\n\r The fight, first, to open, then to breathe,\n\r & then to close. Each of us entering the world\n\n\r & entering the world like this.\n\r Soft. Unlikely. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Then\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r the idiosyncratic minds & verbs.\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Beloveds, making your ways\n\n\r to & away from us, always, across the centuries,\n\r inside the vastness of the galaxy, how improbable it is that this \u2028iteration\n\n\r of you or you or me might come to be at all\u2009\u2014\u2009Body of fear,\n\r Body of laughing\u2009\u2014\u2009& even last a second. This fact should make us fall all\n\n\r to our knees with awe,\n\r the beauty of it against these odds,\n\n\r the stacks & stacks of near misses\n\r & slimmest chances that birthed one ancestor into the next & next.\n\n\r Profound, unspeakable cruelty who counters this, who does not see.\n\n\r & so to tenderness I add my action.\n", "title": "From \u201cThe Black Maria\u201d", "id": 88747, "author": "Aracelis Girmay"}
{"poem": "Jennifer had a tendency to stop in\n\r the street and listen to the neighbors\u2019\n\n\r problems. She was consoling to them.\n\r Jennifer would look for people in trouble\n\n\r and offer help, even though\n\r her body was relatively weak, and\n\n\r she could not carry groceries\n\r for the old people, really.\n\n\r When the young mothers had issues\n\r they would come to Jennifer because they\n\n\r knew that Jennifer also had had issues\n\r as a young mother and would listen to them.\n\n\r Now Jennifer had middle mother issues.\n\r \u00a0\r \n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\r Everything can be illuminated by water\n\r or most things.\n\n\r The two women in the black of mourning\n\r knelt by the river in exact tandem, and\n\n\r they spoke softly.\n\r The film, like life itself, had minimal\n\n\r plot and extraordinary beauty.\n\r The film, like life itself, was\n\n\r slow and maniacal. And when\n\r we walked the village afterwards\n\n\r in search of just the right martini\n\r I thought of the same steps I had\n\n\r taken years earlier in preparation\n\r for mourning, and I was not unhappy.", "title": "From \u201cThe Hindrances of a Householder\u201d", "id": 88736, "author": "Jennifer Bartlett"}
{"poem": "Darkness spills across the sky like an oil plume.\n\r The moon reflects bleached coral. Tonight, let us\n\r praise the sacrificed. Praise the souls of\u200a black\n\n\r boys, enslaved by supply chains, who carry\n\r bags of cacao under West African heat. \u201cTrick\n\r or treat, smell my feet, give me something good\n\n\r to eat,\u201d sings a girl dressed as a Disney princess.\n\r Let us praise the souls of \u200a\u200abrown girls who sew\n\r our clothes as fire unthreads sweatshops into\n\n\r smoke and ash. \u201cTrick or treat, smell my feet, give me\n\r something good,\u201d whisper kids disguised as ninjas.\n\r Tonight, let us praise the souls of Asian children\n\n\r who manufacture toys and tech until gravity sharpens\n\r their bodies enough to cut through suicide nets.\n\r \u201cTrick or treat, smell my feet, give me,\u201d shout boys\n\n\r camouflaged as soldiers. Let us praise the souls\n\r of \u200aveterans who salute with their guns because\n\r only triggers will pull God into their ruined\n\n\r temples. \u201cTrick or treat, smell my feet,\u201d chant kids\n\r masquerading as cowboys and Indians. Tonight,\n\r let us praise the souls of native youth, whose eyes\n\n\r are open-pit uranium mines, veins are poisoned\n\r rivers, hearts are tar sands tailings ponds. \u201cTrick\n\r or treat,\u201d says a boy dressed as the sun. Let us\n\n\r praise El Ni\u00f1o, his growing pains, praise his mother,\n\r Ocean, who is dying in a warming bath among dead\n\r fish and refugee children. Let us praise our mothers\n\n\r of\u200a asthma, mothers of \u200acancer clusters, mothers of\n\r miscarriage\u2009\u2014\u2009pray for us\u2009\u2014\u2009because our costumes\n\r won\u2019t hide the true cost of our greed. Praise our\n\n\r mothers of\u200a lost habitats, mothers of \u200afallout, mothers\n\r of extinction\u2009\u2014\u2009pray for us\u2009\u2014\u2009because even tomorrow\n\r will be haunted\u2009\u2014\u2009leave them, leave us, leave\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "Halloween in the Anthropocene, 2015", "id": 88745, "author": "Craig Santos Perez"}
{"poem": "November 2015\n\n\r \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a01\n\n\r Open up for close\n\r out \u00a0 \u00a0soul-clothes \u00a0 \u00a0every-\n\r thing has to go \u00a0 \u00a0closing\n\n\r down time \u00a0 \u00a0call them all\n\r saints \u00a0 \u00a0souls \u00a0 \u00a0my own gone\n\n\r ones: \u00a0Andy \u00a0 \u00a0Marcia \u00a0 \u00a0Mary Alice\n\r Mary Anne \u00a0 \u00a0 cloud of all \u00a0 \u00a0carried out\n\n\r \u00a0\r 2\n2\n\n\r outside my window: locust, cloth\n\r of gold\u00a0\u200a \u00a0\u00a0on the ground: its yellow\n\n\r tabs \u00a0 linden hearts \u00a0 sweetgum stars\n\r like cut-outs from the same ...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\n\n\r paper-napkin ghosts in a tree near\n\r the house where a year ago my friend\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r rust-colored chrysanthemums \u00a0 rust-colored door\n\n\r \u00a0\r 3\n3\n\n\r door to door the angel no the Lord\n\r passed or did not pass\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r the angel opened the prison\n\r door \u00a0 \u00a0 doors to pass through, out\n\r or in: \u00a0our millions, more than any\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r in the other story the Lord\n\r said: \u00a0to put a difference between\n\n\r \u00a0\r 4\n4\n\n\r between one and another\n\r a gun: \u00a0at one end it\u2019s a good\n\n\r gun because at the other\u2019s a cell\n\r phone pill bottle toy gun nothing a\n\n\r Trayvon \u00a0 \u00a0Tamir \u00a0 \u00a0Dontre \u00a0 \u00a0Michael\n\r Laquan \u00a0 \u00a0Eric \u00a0 \u00a0Rekia \u00a0 \u00a0John: \u00a0 \u00a0call\n\n\r them out and the others, black and many\n\n\r \u00a0\r 5\n5\n\nmany thousand gone \u00a0 \u00a0no\n\r more auction block\u00a0 \u00a0 slaves gone\n\n\r up north where I am going\n\r again, coppery oak leaves holding\n\r on, overlaid with gold, then just rust\n\r above the skeletal gray ...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\n\n\r chains gone, or gone before, more\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r \u00a0\r 6\n6\n\n\r more new neighbors residing\n\r on these avenues: \u00a0thousands in white\n\r marble: \u00a0whitman harvey harris bliss\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r past yellowing birch and weeping beech\n\r at the intersection of\u200a Larch and Oak\nwhitney spencer jewell: \u00a0a startle\n\n\r of Japanese maple spreading red\n\n\r \u00a0\r 7\n7\n\n\r red shadow on pale\n\r moon: \u00a0earth curtain\n\n\r drawn slowly across\n\r quarter half \u200aalmost\n\n\r across: \u00a0weeks ago, weeks\n\r of \u200amy small life, child-\n\n\r sized life so little left\n\n\r \u00a0\r 8\n8\n\n\r left them there\nmother \u00a0 father\n\r left leaving their living\n\n\r their death-days:\n\r his Labor, her June\n\n\r yellow circles of \u200aleaves beneath\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r something left behind\n\n\r \u00a0\r 9\n9\n\n\r behind all that is\n\r is not \u00a0 \u00a0God: \u00a0still, small\n\r silence of \u00a0 \u00a0not beyond\n\r beneath before but\n\n\r no \u00a0 \u00a0where \u00a0 \u00a0name\n\n\r blue sky gray\n\n\r cloud that is \u00a0 not there\n\n\r \u00a0\r 10\n10\n\n\r There was a road, long,\n\r gray, with dotted line\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r wanted to write\n\r old, I thought years ago\n\r young, and here it is: road\n\n\r running out, gold gone\n\r now, cut here \u00a0 cut to old\n\n\r \u00a0\r 11\n11\n\n\r old vets: \u00a0in 2012 the last\n\r from the First, the Great, the war\n\r to end all wars, its Armistice honored\nthe cause of world peace but there was\n\n\r the Second, not even a million left and now\n\r it\u2019s all Veterans, suicides, homeless, parades\n\r rained on today, our post-traumatic war\n\n\r \u00a0\r 12\n12\n\n\r wars now, ten to watch: \u00a0Syria/ISIS\n\r Ukraine S.\u200aSudan Nigeria Congo Afghanistan\n\n\r while the faithful debate: turn the other or\n\r uniformed Christ with gun, as in the First\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r while boys spill toy soldiers, khaki and green\n\r with tanks and guns, from a plastic tub\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r while leaves dry to khaki on our ground\n\n\r \u00a0\r 13\n13\n\n\r ground covered with oak leaves, crisp\n\r and tan, and others under, crushed\n\r into brown, soon to be earth\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r but sun still lighting the threadleaf\n\r Japanese maples apricot plum\n\n\r sun still paling my pink-tinged skin\n\r blood showing through my thinned\n\n\r \u00a0\r 14\n14\n\n\r thinned to spindly twigs with dangles\n\r of pods the once-gold locust\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r thinner the ice and higher the seas\n\r and hotter the planet and what will be done\n\r at the Paris talks to slow it \u00a0 Paris\n\n\r where last night terrorists killed and Beirut\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r to stop the killing the dying earth \u00a0 \u00a0to turn\n\n\r \u00a0\r 15\n15\n\n\r turn on red \u00a0 \u00a0stop\n\r light to go \u00a0 \u00a0light\n\n\r touch \u00a0 \u00a0blood \u00a0 \u00a0love\n\r light \u00a0 \u00a0wrote mind-\n\n\r field for \u00a0 \u00a0mine- \u00a0 \u00a0it\u2019s\n\r a gold \u00a0 \u00a0mine \u00a0 \u00a0rising\n\n\r into light \u00a0 \u00a0field to go\n\n\r \u00a0\r 16\n16\n\n\r go with me, my love, my one\n\r into that night where one will go\n\n\r before the other but still our night\n\r boat our bed \u00a0 \u00a0our lovers\u2019 tongues\n\r songs in the night \u00a0 \u00a0nor the moon\n\n\r by night \u00a0 \u00a0our little light \u00a0 \u00a0night-\n\n\r night my love \u00a0 \u00a0by and by\n\n\r \u00a0\r 17\n17\n\n\r by order of \u00a0 \u00a0no exit except\n\n\r the angel troubled the pool but\n\n\r stubble before the wind just\n\n\r two apples left on this tree\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r cloud from cl\u016bd, rock, but\n\n\r the stars we see are not stars but\n\n\r light \u00a0 \u00a0but cloud over light\n\n\r \u00a0\r 18\n18\n\n\r lights out wars on last\n\r days end times reckoning left\n\n\r behind but which us them not one\n\r stone upon another nation against\n\n\r mirror terror Jesus Isa no one knows but\n\r hurry it up faster let climate also be\n\n\r a sign beginning of sorrows\n\n\r \u00a0\r 19\n19\n\n\r sorrow sorrow my friend\u2019s last bed\n\n\r just five months after they said he ...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\n\n\r behind the rust-colored door\n\n\r brown brown all leaves on the ground\n\nrequiem aeternam we sang together\n\n\r year years all tumbled down\n\net lux perpetua\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0light\n\n\r \u00a0\r 20\n20\n\n\r light of sun on sweetgum leaves\n\r glisten of amber and green or\n\n\r sudden light of gunfire, bombs:\n\r Nigeria now: two girls, one\n\r eleven, strapped into suicide\n\r vests, and Mali, the world\n\n\r lit with the light of darkness\n\n\r \u00a0\r 21\n21\n\n\r darkness He called ... or darkness\n\r we make, denying the fallen among,\n\r the recent threatened tortured escaped:\n\nsend them back send them to camps\n\r make them register carry\u00a0IDs\nclose down their mosques let only\n\nChristians \u00a0\u00a0 passing by on the other\n\n\r \u00a0\r 22\n22\n\n\r other, the once-red Japanese\n\r maple, bare now, gray but\n\n\r see its great muscled limbs\n\r stretch out low, then curve up\n\n\r as if to embrace, climb on a limb\n\r and see in the cleft a small cluster,\n\n\r as if arranged, of curling red\n\n\r \u00a0\r 23\n23\n\n\r red heart pulse of\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r red the fountain filled\n\r with Jesus\u2019s blood, in another\n\r country filled with martyrs\u2019\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r red the last apple on the tree I\n\r could reach if I leaned\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r red that looks blue until it\u2019s shed\n\n\r \u00a0\r 24\n24\n\n\r shed skin feathers leaves water\n\r -shed dividing line deciding\n\n\r time \u00a0 \u00a0earth-age named\nanthro- for us, our own doing our\n\r undoing losing dying unless\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r the most fit the worst\n\r fit for earth in all its ages\n\n\r \u00a0\r 25\n25\n\n\r age mine \u00a0 \u00a0day mine \u00a0 \u00a0past\n\r my appointed \u00a0 \u00a0night\n\n\r mine \u00a0 \u00a0full moon \u00a0 \u00a0mourning\n\r moon in a clear sky \u00a0 \u00a0old\n\n\r light: wanted to make an opening\n\r out from closing down but\n\n\r enough to leave behind\n\n\r \u00a0\r 26\n26\n\nbehind them a mighty ocean\n\r around them beasts and wilde men\n\n\r after them us, closing our shores\n\r ahead of us, rising oceans\n\n\r forgive us this day our\n\r immigrant past that isn\u2019t even\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r first which shall be last\n\n\r \u00a0\r 27\n27\n\n\r last chance ditch effort gasp:\n\n\r gone-before last and could-be last:\n\r how much can one elegy hold?\n\ncould this be it? a friend wrote, her last\n\r words\u2009\u2014\u2009last lost it for all our earth?\n\n\r but last night that moon, all the way home\n\n\r \u2009\u2014\u2009from Old English follow: \u00a0 \u00a0to last beyond last\n\n\r \u00a0\r 28\n28\n\n\r last night I woke and found my body-\n\r held living-for-now a piece of all\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r over the graves the beautiful\n\r skeletal: chalice and vase, tangle\n\r and dance, the white bones\n\r of the birch, its vertical script\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r over my bones, this living that is my\n\n\r \u00a0\r 29\n29\n\n\r my life my living my being my loving\n\n\r my friend my friends my one my love\n\n\r the huge white moon, missing almost nothing\n\n\r my love in my arms, in my bed again\n\n\r the advent candle for earth for hope\n\n\r this almost last this work these leavings\n\n\r my blessings my many my thanks for these\n\n\r \u00a0\r 30\n30\n\n\r these days and nights, these lines\n\r have changed (you must change)\n\r my life my loving (my one) and\n\n\r now this leaving behind this opening\n\n\r out (the spaces between the dark\n\r lines of the great unleaved) to where\n\n\r the night is as clear as the day", "title": "Leaving Behind", "id": 88742, "author": "Martha Collins"}
{"poem": "Some of us are like trees that grow with a spiral grain\n\r as if prepared for the path of\u200a the spirit\u2019s journey\n\r to the world of all souls.\n\n\r It is not an easy path.\n\r A dog stands at the opening constellation\n\r past the great helping hand.\n\n\r The dog wants to know,\n\r did you ever harm an animal, hurt any creature,\n\r did you take a life you didn\u2019t eat?\n\n\r This is the first on your map. There is another\n\r my people made of\u200a the great beyond\n\r that lies farther away than this galaxy.\n\n\r It is a world that can\u2019t be imagined by ordinary means.\n\r After this first one,\n\r the next could be a map of \u200aforever.\n\n\r It could be a cartography\n\r shining only at some times of\u200a the year\n\r like a great web of finery\n\n\r some spider pulled from herself\n\r to help you recall your true following\n\r your first white breath in the cold.\n\n\r The next door opens and Old Woman\n\r counts your scars. She is interested in how you have been\n\r hurt and not in anything akin to sin.\n\n\r From between stars are the words we now refuse;\n\r loneliness, longing, whatever suffering\n\r might follow your life into the sky.\n\n\r Once those are gone, the life you had\n\r against your own will, the hope, even the prayers\n\r take you one more bend around the river of sky.\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "Lost in the Milky Way", "id": 88744, "author": "Linda Hogan"}
{"poem": "the afterworld sea\n\n\r there was a water song that we sang\n\r when we were going to fetch river from the river,\n\r it was filled with water sounds\n& pebbles. here, in the after-wind, with the other girls,\n\r we trade words like special things.\n\r one girl tells me \u201cmai\u201d was her sister\u2019s name,\n\r the word for \u201cflower.\u201d she has been saving\n\r this one for a special trade. I understand\n& am quiet awhile, respecting, then give\n\r her my word \u201cmai,\u201d for \u201cwater,\u201d\n& another girl tells me \u201cmai\u201d is \u201cmother\u201d\n\r in her language, & another says it meant,\n\r to her, \u201cwhat belongs to me,\u201d then\n\r \u201cbelonging,\u201d suddenly, is a strange word,\n\r or a way of \u200afeeling, like \u201cto be longing for,\u201d\n& you, brother, are the only one,\n\r the only one I think of \u200ato finish that thought,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 to be longing for\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 mai brother, my brother \n\r \u00a0", "title": "luam/asa-luam", "id": 88748, "author": "Aracelis Girmay"}
{"poem": "rustle, the way\nover my mouth?\nsome thing, a head-\nlaid their head\non the disappeared\u2019s pillow?\nOne minute a person licks your ear,\nthe next, you cannot see your own white breath.\non over to the party way\nI am not a boy in anyone\u2019s body.\r\n\u00a0\nI am not a black in a black body.\nI will not kowtow inside your opposites.\n\u2022\nmouth, a bit feeding,\nhold the figure that is the body that is,\n\u2022\nTo sing the blue song of longing, its webbed feet along jungle floor. What of our mechanical arm, our off-melody? Purpose in the gathering, I know, dear self. It rains and we think, God, or we think Universe. I say, portent across the wind. When wind is wrought, whole song fallen from its lip, some black unknown, where they say, time ends. What speech into hard God breath just as night park is godless? What of a silver cube in the mouth? This is our wandering.", "title": "Our Wandering", "id": 88735, "author": "Dawn Lundy Martin"}
{"poem": "We\u2019re sitting in Uncle Sam\u2019s Subs, splitting\n\r a cheesesteak, when Shelley says:\nI think I should buy a gun.\n\r I look up at her puffy face, and she\u2019s staring,\n\r her hands shaking. On medication for\n\r schizophrenia, she\u2019s serious.\n\r I say, Tell me why you need a gun.\n\r Her voice getting louder: You know why.\nNo, no I don\u2019t, I say.\nIn case I need it. I might need it to shoot somebody.\n\r I give her a hard look\u2009\u2014\u2009You don\u2019t need a gun.\n\r No one is after you.\n\r She stares back: You might be after me.\n\r I don\u2019t know what to say\u2009\u2014\u2009I never know what to say.\n\r I know it\u2019s not her speaking, but it\u2019s my friend,\n\r far away in some other stricken mind.\n\r What\u2019s it like to know you\u2019re right/\n\r you\u2019re in danger\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\r and the world says no?\n\r Every woman I know has lived that.\n\r I say: I would never hurt you. I\u2019m not a threat to you.\n\r She laughs, says, Well, you might be.\n\r The laughing scares me.\n\r I want out of this place,\n\r this sub shop, to walk away,\n\r knowing she can\u2019t walk out of her mind, leave\n\r the illness behind. The long minutes,\n\r the long, long minutes. She says, What do you think?\n\r I think we should eat our sandwiches, then\n\r take a walk, I say.\nWhat about the gun?\nLet\u2019s talk about it later, I say,\n\r not knowing a thing.\n\r Not knowing a goddamn thing.\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "Stricken", "id": 88737, "author": "Jan Beatty"}
{"poem": "You who cannot hear or cannot know\n\r the terrible intricacies of our species, our minds,\n\r the extent to which we have done\n\r what we have done, & yet the depth to which\n\r we have loved\n\r what we have\n\r loved\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\r the hillside\n\r at dawn, dark eyes\n\r outlined with the dark\n\r sentences of \u200akohl,\n\r the f\u016bl we shared\n\r beneath the lime tree at the general\u2019s house\n\r after visiting Goitom in prison for trying to leave\n\r the country (the first time),\n\r the apricot color of camels racing\n\r on the floor of \u200athe world\n\r as the fires blazed in celebration of \u200aIndependence.\n\n\r How dare I move into the dark space of \u200ayour body\n\r carrying my dreams, without an invitation, my dreams\n\r wandering in ellipses, pet goats or chickens\n\r devouring your yard & shirts.\n\n\r Sea, my oblivious afterworld,\n\r grant us entry, please, when we knock,\n\r but do not keep us there, deliver\n\r our flowers & himbasha bread.\n\r Though we can\u2019t imagine, now, what\n\r our dead might need,\n& above all can\u2019t imagine it is over\n& that they are, in fact, askless, are\n\r needless, in fact, still hold somewhere\n\r the smell of coffee smoking\n\r in the house, please,\n\r the memory of joy\n\r fluttering like a curtain in an open window\n\r somewhere inside the brain\u2019s secret luster\n\r where a woman, hands red with henna,\n\r beats the carpet clean with the stick of a broom\n& the children, in the distance, choose stones\n\r for the competition of stones, & the summer\n\r wears a crown of \u200abeles in her green hair & the tigadelti\u2019s\n\r white teeth & the beautiful bones of Massawa,\n\r the gaping eyes & mouths of its arches\n\r worn clean by the sea, your breath & your salt.\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Please, you,\n\r being water too,\n\r find a way into the air & then\n\r the river & the spring\n\r so that your waters can wash the elders,\n\r with the medicine of the dreaming of their children,\n\r cold & clean.\n", "title": "to the sea", "id": 88746, "author": "Aracelis Girmay"}
{"poem": "yellow plastic\n\r black sea\n\n\r eye-shaped shard\n\r on a darkened map\n\n\r no shores now\n\r to arrive\u2009\u2014\u2009or\n\r depart\n\r no wind but\n\r this waiting which\n\r moves you\n\n\r as if \u200athe seconds\n\r could be entered\n\r & never left\n\n\r toy boat\u2009\u2014\u2009oarless\n\r each wave\n\r a green lamp\n\r outlasted\n\n\r toy boat\n\r toy leaf \u200adropped\n\r from a toy tree\n\r waiting\n\n\r waiting\n\r as if the sp-\n\r arrows\n\r thinning above you\n\r are not\n\r already pierced\n\r by their own names\n", "title": "Toy Boat", "id": 88733, "author": "Ocean Vuong"}
{"poem": "in the backseat of my car are my own sons,\n\r still not yet Tamir\u2019s age, already having heard\n\r me warn them against playing with toy pistols,\n\r though my rhetoric is always about what I don\u2019t\n\r like, not what I fear, because sometimes\n\r I think of \u200aTamir Rice & shed tears, the weeping\n\r all another insignificance, all another way to avoid\n\r saying what should be said: the Second Amendment\n\r is a ruthless one, the pomp & constitutional circumstance\n\r that says my arms should be heavy with the weight\n\r of a pistol when forced to confront death like\n\r this: a child, a hidden toy gun, an officer that fires\n\r before his heart beats twice. My two young sons play\n\r in the backseat while the video of \u200aTamir dying\n\r plays in my head, & for everything I do know, the thing\n\r I don\u2019t say is that this should not be the brick and mortar\n\r of poetry, the moment when a black father drives\n\r his black sons to school & the thing in the air is the death\n\r of a black boy that the father cannot mention,\n\r because to mention the death is to invite discussion\n\r of \u200ataboo: if you touch my sons the crimson\n\r that touches the concrete must belong, at some point,\n\r to you, the police officer who justifies the echo\n\r of the fired pistol; taboo: the thing that says that justice\n\r is a killer\u2019s body mangled and disrupted by bullets\n\r because his mind would not accept the narrative\n\r of \u200ayour child\u2019s dignity, of \u200ahis right to life, of \u200ahis humanity,\n\r and the crystalline brilliance you saw when your boys first breathed;\n\r the narrative must invite more than the children bleeding\n\r on crisp fall days; & this is why I hate it all, the people around me,\n\r the black people who march, the white people who cheer,\n\r the other brown people, Latinos & Asians & all the colors of \u200a\u200ahumanity\n\r that we erase in this American dance around death, as we\n\r are not permitted to articulate the reasons we might yearn\n\r to see a man die; there is so much that has to disappear\n\r for my mind not to abandon sanity: Tamir for instance, everything\n\r about him, even as his face, really and truly reminds me\n\r of my own, in the last photo I took before heading off\n\r to a cell, disappears, and all I have stomach for is blood,\n\r and there is a part of me that wishes that it would go away,\n\r the memories, & that I could abandon all talk of making it right\n& justice. But my mind is no sieve & sanity is no elixir & I am bound\n\r to be haunted by the strength that lets Tamir\u2019s father,\n\r mother, kinfolk resist the temptation to turn everything\n\r they see into a grave & make home the series of cells\n\r that so many of my brothers already call their tomb.\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "When I Think of Tamir Rice While Driving", "id": 88739, "author": "Reginald Dwayne Betts"}
{"poem": "When the body wishes to speak, she will\n\r reach into the night and pull back the rapture of \u200athis growing root\n\r which has little faith in the other planets of the universe, knowing\n\r only one, by the bulbs of the feet, their branching of toes. But the feet\n\r have walked with the bones of their ancestors over long trails\n\r leaving behind the roots of forests. They walk on the ghosts\n\r of all that has gone before them, not just plant, but animal, human,\n\r the bones of even the ones who left their horses to drink at the\n\r spring running through earth\u2019s mortal body which has much to tell\n\r about what happened that day.\n\n\r When the body wishes to speak from the hands, it tells\n\r of\u200a how it pulled children back from death and remembered every detail,\n\r washing the children\u2019s bodies, legs, bellies, the delicate lips of the girl,\n\r the vulnerable testicles of \u200athe son,\n\r the future of my people who brought themselves out of the river\n\r in a spring freeze. That is only part of \u200athe story of\u200a hands\n\r that touched the future.\n\n\r This all started so simply, just a body with so much to say,\n\r one with the hum of\u200a her own life in a quiet room,\n\r one of the root growing, finding a way through stone,\n\r one not remembering nights with men and guns\n\r nor the ragged clothing and broken bones of my body.\n\n\r I must go back to the hands, the thumb that makes us human,\n\r but then don\u2019t other creatures use tools and lift what they need,\n\r intelligent all, like the crows here, one making a cast of earth clay\n\r for the broken wing of \u200athe other, remaining\n\r until it healed, then broke the clay and flew away together.\n\n\r I would do that one day,\n\r but a human can make no claims\n\r better than any other, especially without wings, only hands\n\r that don\u2019t know these lessons.\n\n\r Still, think of \u200athe willows\n\r made into a fence that began to root and leaf,\n\r then tore off the wires as they grew.\n\r A human does throw off \u200a\u200abonds if \u200ashe can, if \u200ashe tries, if \u200ait\u2019s possible,\n\r the body so finely a miracle of \u200aits own, created of\u200a the elements\n\r and anything that lived on earth where everything that was\n\r still is.\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "When the Body", "id": 88743, "author": "Linda Hogan"}
{"poem": "I have a special ticket\n\r to another planet\n\r beyond this Earth.\n\r A comfortable world, and beautiful:\n\r a world without much smoke,\n\r not too hot\n\r and not too cold.\n\r The creatures\n\r are gentler there,\n\r and the governments\n\r have no secrets.\n\r The police are nonexistent:\n\r there are no problems\n\r and no fights.\n\r And the schools\n\r don\u2019t exhaust their students\n\r with too much work\n\r for history has yet to start\n\r and there\u2019s no geography\n\r and no other languages.\n\r And even better:\n\r the war\n\r has left its \u201cr\u201d behind\n\r and turned into love,\n\r so the weapons sleep\n\r beneath the dust,\n\r and the planes pass by\n\r without shelling the cities,\n\r and the boats\n\r look like smiles\n\r on the water.\n\r All things\n\r are peaceful\n\r and kind\n\r on the other planet\n\r beyond this Earth.\n\r But still I hesitate\n\r to go alone.\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "Another Planet", "id": 88941, "author": "Dunya Mikhail"}
{"poem": "Sometimes I think about climbing\n\r a telephone pole but then what?\n\r Telephone poles now have almost nothing\n\r to do with telephones but I liked\n\r how a curly cord went into the receiver\n\r then a sturdier black wire went into the wall\n\r through the wall out to a pole then\n\r miles and miles of wire pole wire pole\n\r sometimes underground underwater to\n\r whomever you needed who\u2019d dry her hands\n\r thinking Gosh now what or Thank heavens\n\r or Oh no then say Hello as a question\n\r or a lie then the intimate negotiations\n\r and sorry confessions and flat jokes\n\r would take word form from excited electrons\n\r moving through the wire and sometimes\n\r a cowboy would suddenly gallop to town\n\r through dust and cactus Yup a storm\u2019s\n\r a-coming to call someone but the fates\n\r always intend so the cowboy must listen\n\r for the rest of his days to the phone\n\r make a funny insect-performing-Beckett\n\r sound until the operator comes on and says,\n\r Sorry but that calling area's been hit\n\r by the blast and the cowboy thinks,\n\r What blast? What blast? riding off\n\r into the moonlessly blue chaparral.\n", "title": "Bird-Shaped Cliff", "id": 88942, "author": "Dean Young"}
{"poem": "To the piano of ragtime music,\n\r Paul Newman plunges his head\n\r into a basin of ice and water.\n\n\r A consummate conman, with Robert Redford,\n\r he's up and ready to take on the Mafia.\nThe Sting\u00a0is on.\n\n\r Hollywood redresses the wrongs of the world.\n\n\r From my proscenium seat, it is Newman's\n\r awakening into action that catches\n\r my imagination. Cool. So cool.\n\n\r Outside NAFDEC cinema, Kipling's\nGreat Game\u00a0rages on.\n\n\r Yet, I am barely away. My basin\n\r of ice cold water is going tepid.\n\r The con of it all.\n\n\r But to them it's jazz. It's all cool,\n\r for jazz makes them look cool.\n\n\r As for ragtime, just a last minute\n\r anachronistic improvisation,\n\r for good cinema's sake.\n", "title": "The Con of It All", "id": 88965, "author": "Raza Ali Hasan"}
{"poem": "You shouldn\u2019t have a heart attack\n\r in your 20s. 47 is the perfect time\n\r for a heart attack. Feeding stray shadows\n\r only attracts more shadows. Starve a fever,\n\r shatter a glass house. People often mistake\n\r thirst for hunger so first take a big slurp.\n\r A motorboat is wasted on me even though\n\r all summer the pool was, I didn\u2019t\n\r get in it once. Not in it, not in it\n\r twice. A dollhouse certainly isn\u2019t wasted\n\r on a mouse both in terms of habitation\n\r and rhyme. Always leave yourself time\n\r to get lost. 50 cattle are enough\n\r for a decent dowry but sometimes a larger\n\r gesture is called for like shouting\n\r across the Grand Canyon. Get used to\n\r nothing answering back. Always remember\n\r the great effects of the Tang poets,\n\r the meagerness of their wine, meagerness\n\r of writing supplies. Go ahead, drown\n\r in the moon\u2019s puddle. Contusions\n\r are to be expected and a long wait\n\r in ICU under the muted TVs advertising\n\r miracle knives and spot removers.\n\r How wonderful to be made entirely\n\r of hammered steel! No one knows why\n\r Lee chose to divert his troops to Gettysburg\n\r but all agree it was the turning point\n\r of the Civil War. Your turining point\n\r may be lying crying on the floor.\n\r Get up! The perfect age for being buried\n\r alive in sand is 8 but jumping up 33, alluding\n\r to the resurrection, a powerful motif\n\r in Western art but then go look at the soup cans\n\r and crumpled fenders in the modern wing:\n\r what a relief. Nearly 80% of the denizens\n\r of the deep can produce their own light\n\r but up here, we make our own darkness.\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "Folklore", "id": 88944, "author": "Dean Young"}
{"poem": "A fish\n\r meets another fish\n\r and lays eggs.\n\r As its fins signal to the seaweed\n\r its colors come out\n\r one after the other.\n\r Its bubbles are words\n\r meant for no one.\n\r The world rises and falls\n\r each day\n\r through the eyes of a fish.\n", "title": "In the Aquarium", "id": 88940, "author": "Dunya Mikhail"}
{"poem": "1.\n\r In the first year of war\n\r they played \u201cbride and groom\u201d\n\r and counted everything on their fingers:\n\r their faces reflected in the river;\n\r the waves that swept away their faces\n\r before disappearing;\n\r and the names of newborns.\n\r Then the war grew up\n\r and invented a new game for them:\n\r the winner is the one\n\r who returns from the journey\n\r alone,\n\r full of stories of the dead\n\r as the passing wings flutter\n\r over the broken trees;\n\r and now the winner must tow the hills of dust\n\r so lightly that no one feels it;\n\r and now the winner wears a necklace\n\r with half a metal heart for a pendant,\n\r and the task to follow\n\r is to forget the other half.\n\r The war grew old\n\r and left the old letters,\n\r the calendars and newspapers,\n\r to turn yellow\n\r with the news,\n\r with the numbers,\n\r and with the names\n\r of the players.\n\n\n\r 2.\n\r Five centuries have passed\n\r since Scheherazade told her tale.\n\r Baghdad fell,\n\r and they forced me to the underworld.\n\r I watch the shadows\n\r as they pass behind the wall:\n\r none look like Tammuz.\n\r He would cross thousands of miles\n\r for the sake of a single cup of tea\n\r poured by my own hand.\n\r I fear the tea is growing cold:\n\r cold tea is worse than death.\n\n\n\r 3.\n\r I would not have found this cracked jar\n\r if it weren\u2019t for my loneliness,\n\r which sees gold in all that glitters.\n\r Inside the jar is the magic plant\n\r that Gilgamesh never stopped looking for.\n\r I\u2019ll show it to Tammuz when he comes,\n\r and we\u2019ll journey, as fast as light,\n\r to all the continents of the world,\n\r and all who smell it will be cured\n\r or freed,\n\r or will know its secret.\n\r I don\u2019t want Tammuz to come too late\n\r to hear my urgent song.\n\n\n\r 4.\n\r When Tammuz comes\n\r I\u2019ll also give him all the lists I made\n\r to pass the time:\n\r lists of food,\n\r of books,\n\r lost friends,\n\r favorite songs,\n\r list of cities to see before one dies,\n\r and lists of ordinary things\n\r with notes to prove\n\r that we are still alive.\n\n\n\r 5.\n\r It\u2019s as if I\u2019m hearing music in the boat\u2019s hull,\n\r as if I can smell the river, the lily, the fish,\n\r as if I\u2019m touching the skies that fall from the words \u201cI love you,\u201d\n\r as if I can see those tiny notes that are read over and over again,\n\r as if I\u2019m living the lives of birds who bear nothing but their feathers.\n\n\n\r 6.\n\r The earth circled the sun\n\r once more\n\r and not a cloud\n\r nor wind\n\r nor country\n\r passed through my eyes.\n\r My shadow,\n\r imprisoned in Aladdin\u2019s lamp,\n\r mirrors the following:\n\r a picture of the world with you inside,\n\r light passing through a needle\u2019s eye,\n\r scrawlings akin to cuneiform,\n\r hidden paths to the sun,\n\r dried clay,\n\r tranquil Ottoman pottery,\n\r and a huge pomegranate, its seeds\n\r scattered all over Uruk.\n\n\n\r 7.\n\r In Iraq,\n\r after a thousand and one nights,\n\r someone will talk to someone else.\n\r Markets will open\n\r for regular customers.\n\r Small feet will tickle\n\r the giant feet of the Tigris.\n\r Gulls will spread their wings\n\r and no one will fire at them.\n\r Women will walk the streets\n\r without looking back in fear.\n\r Men will give their real names\n\r without putting their lives at risk.\n\r Children will go to school\n\r and come home again.\n\r Chickens in the villages\n\r won't peck at human flesh\n\r on the grass.\n\r Disputes will take place\n\r without any explosives.\n\r A cloud will pass over cars\n\r heading to work as usual.\n\r A hand will wave\n\r to someone leaving\n\r or returning.\n\r The sunrise will be the same\n\r for those who wake\n\r and those never will.\n\r And every moment\n\r something ordinary\n\r will happen\n\r under the sun.\u00a0\n", "title": "The Iraqi Nights", "id": 88939, "author": "Dunya Mikhail"}
{"poem": "has ever lit up our hearts like this. No king. See\n\r Bhutto in Karachi, 1972. His path strewn with rose petals,\n\r sprinkled with attar, leads him, not to the sea\n\r with its crashing surf and screaming gulls\n\r but into the alleys and passageways of a slum.\n\r Ferdowsi in Shahnamah\u00a0tags it for the interim\n\n\r as \u201cthe place of worship before any others existed. . .\u00a0\u201d\n\r No King, no King of Kings, had ever toured\n\r a slum before. It opened wide the thrice-locked\n\r chamber of mercy in our hearts. The gathering crowds\n\r expecting to catch a glimpse of Bhutto, are,\n\r instead, treated to a double vision: Alexander\n\n\r the Great, in a red robe, left hand resting\n\r on his sword, like in an illustraction from Shahnamah,\n\r as he watches our own pilgrim, the unsuspecting\n\r Bhutto \u201creach for the door handle of the Ka'ba.\u201d\n\r Bhutto\u2019s entourage and PTV news crew\n\r push back. The crowd askew,\n\n\r insufflated by this vision, pushes Bhutto\n\r towards the hovel of the woman driven\n\r half-insane by poverty. Bhutto, aglow,\n\r with tears in his eyes, embraces the woman\n\r who collapses in his arms. No king, no king\n\r of kings, had ever lit up our hearts like this. No king.\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "No King, No King of Kings", "id": 88962, "author": "Raza Ali Hasan"}
{"poem": "My itinerary is the eternity of exile.\n\r Deferred is the trip back into domicile.\n\n\r My marching orders lost at sea;\n\r my papers shrouded in an immigrant's secrecy.\n\n\r Lamar Avenue in Austin, Texas is wide, long and it flows.\n\r Air-conditioned apartments allow for repose.\n\n\r My transports and attachments to the past,\n\r my dream-life, have an urgency that is never lost.\n\n\r An exile's ultimate treat, tonight's dreamlike score:\n\r a dinner with the Zaidis in their Islamabad home.\n", "title": "Nocturnal Tripping", "id": 88964, "author": "Raza Ali Hasan"}
{"poem": "Proxies\u2014pertinent, prominent, proximate\u2014\n\r impose war, sustain it.\n\n\r The Empire ever absent and seemingly elsewhere\u2014\n\r evasive, persuasive, pervasive. Things are\n\n\r this complicated.\n", "title": "On Imperialism", "id": 88963, "author": "Raza Ali Hasan"}
{"poem": "I love when out of nowhere\n\n\r I love when out of nowhere\n\r my cat jumps on me\n\r and my body isn\u2019t even surprised.\n\n\r Me who wants to be surprised by everything\n\n\r like a dandelion\n\n\r like a bottle cap\n\n\r cricket cricket.\n\n\r I keep waiting for the god under the anthill to speak up.\n\r I keep waiting for the part of the myth\n\r where everyone tunrs into a different bird\n\r or the reeds start talking\n\r or horses come out of the ocean\n\r in their parliamentary regalia\n\r and cities grow from their hoofprints.\n\r I keep waiting for the bugle\n\r and the jackal-headed god to weigh my heart across the river.\n\n\r All this daylight in just a few moments\n\r pours itself into darkness. More and more\n\r I\u2019m satisfied with partial explanations\n\r like a fly with one wing, walking.\n", "title": "Quiet Grass, Green Stone", "id": 88943, "author": "Dean Young"}
{"poem": "Humbling of Bhutto in Mecca, Bhutto kissing\n\r Hajar-e-Aswad, half the Bhutto cabinet in Ihram,\n\r kneeling. These were the first scenes, in the rolling\n\r newsreel of half-closed doors, of the doorjamb\n\n\r in the way of the twentieth century\u2019s upstarts.\n\r A nationalization, by Bhutto, of religious piety?\n\r No, but a headlong scram into obeisance\n\r of all and everybody and everything to the stately\n\n\r rise of Islam in the neighboring, overbearing Arabia.\n\r That year Bhutto had appointed my father\n\r Hajj secretary, and we, the seven children and the ayah,\n\r were present at Melody Cinema in full regalia\n\n\r to see, to our amazement, on the screen,\n\r our father in Ihram like Bhutto, and in a tent in Mina,\n\r sitting on the ground in an ablution scene,\n\r the humbling of our mysophobic mother,\n\n\r who before her pilgrimage would have drunk water\n\r only from a glass washed three times by a servant\n\r and who wouldn't sit on the drawing-room sofa\n\r unless it was draped by a freshly laundered sheet.\n", "title": "Melody Cinema", "id": 88937, "author": "Raza Ali Hasan"}
{"poem": "is a river you wade in until you get to the other side.\n\r But I am here, stuck in the middle, water parting\n\r around my ankles, moving downstream\n\r over the flat rocks. I'm not able to lift a foot,\n\r move on. Instead, I'm going to stay here\n\r in the shallows with my sorrow, nurture it\n\r like a cranky baby, rock it in my arms.\n\r I don't want it to grow up, go to school, get married.\n\r It's mine. Yes, the October sunlight wraps me\n\r in its yellow shawl, and the air is sweet\n\r as a golden Tokay. On the other side,\n\r there are apples, grapes, walnuts,\n\r and the rocks are warm from the sun.\n\r But I'm going to stand here,\n\r growing colder, until every inch\n\r of my skin is numb. I can't cross over.\n\r Then you really will be gone.\n", "title": "Grief", "id": 88766, "author": "Barbara Crooker"}
{"poem": "Tonight, I dressed my son in astronaut pajamas,\n\r kissed his forehead and tucked him in.\n\r I turned on his night-light and looked for you\n\r in the closet and under the bed. I told him\n\r \r you were nowhere to be found, but I could smell\n\r your breath, your musty fur. I remember\n\r all your tricks: the jagged shadows on the wall,\n\r click of your claws, the hand that hovered\n\r \r just above my ankles if I left them exposed.\n\r Since I became a parent I see danger everywhere\u2014\n\r unleashed dogs, sudden fevers, cereal\n\r two days out of date. And even worse\n\r \r than feeling so much fear is keeping it inside,\n\r trying not to let my love become so tangled\n\r with anxiety my son thinks they're the same.\n\r When he says he's seen your tail or heard\n\r \r your heavy step, I insist that you aren't real.\n\r Soon he'll feel too old to tell me his bad dreams.\n\r If you get lonely after he's asleep, you can\n\r always come downstairs. I'll be sitting\n\r \r at the kitchen table with the dishes\n\r I should wash, crumbs I should wipe up.\n\r We can drink hot tea and talk about\n\r the future, how hard it is to be outgrown.\n", "title": "Mother Talks Back to the Monster", "id": 88763, "author": "Carrie Shipers"}
{"poem": "What struck me first was their panic.\n\r \r Some were pulled by the wind from moving\n\r to the ends of the stacked cages,\n\r some had their heads blown through the bars\u2014\n\r \r and could not get them in again.\n\r Some hung there like that\u2014dead\u2014\n\r their own feathers blowing, clotting\n\r \r in their faces. Then\n\r I saw the one that made me slow some\u2014\n\r I lingered there beside her for five miles.\n\r \r She had pushed her head through the space\n\r between bars\u2014to get a better view.\n\r She had the look of a dog in the back\n\r \r of a pickup, that eager look of a dog\n\r who knows she's being taken along.\n\r She craned her neck.\n\r \r She looked around, watched me, then\n\r strained to see over the car\u2014strained\n\r to see what happened beyond.\nThat is the chicken I want to be.\n", "title": "Passing a Truck Full of Chickens at Night on Highway Eighty", "id": 88762, "author": "Jane Mead"}
{"poem": "Bless this boy, born with the strong face\n\r of my older brother, the one I loved most,\n\r who jumped with me from the roof\n\r of the playhouse, my hand in his hand.\n\r On Friday nights we watched Twilight Zone\n\r and he let me hold the bowl of popcorn,\n\r a blanket draped over our shoulders,\n\r saying, Don't be afraid. I was never afraid\n\r when I was with my big brother\n\r who let me touch the baseball-size muscles\n\r living in his arms, who carried me on his back\n\r through the lonely neighborhood,\n\r held tight to the fender of my bike\n\r until I made him let go.\n\r The year he was fourteen\n\r he looked just like Ray, and when he died\n\r at twenty-two on a roadside in Germany\n\r I thought he was gone forever.\n\r But Ray runs into the kitchen: dirty T-shirt,\n\r torn jeans, pushes back his sleeve.\n\r He says, Feel my muscle, and I do.\n", "title": "Ray at 14", "id": 88764, "author": "Dorianne Laux"}
{"poem": "Nothing to do but scuff down\n\r the graveyard road behind the playground,\n\r past the name-stones lined up in rows\n\r beneath their guardian pines,\n\r on out into the long, low waves of plains\n\r that dissolved time. We'd angle off\n\r from fence and telephone line, through\n\r ribbon-grass that closed behind as though\n\r we'd never been, and drift toward the bluff\n\r above the river-bend where the junked pickup\n\r moored with its load of locust-skeletons.\n\r Stretched across the blistered hood, we let\n\r our dresses catch the wind while clouds above\n\r dimmed their pink to purple, then shadow-blue\u2014\n\r So slow, we listened to our own bones grow.\n", "title": "Restless After School", "id": 88765, "author": "Debra Nystrom"}
{"poem": "\u00c0 La Mode, 1976, by Asco (photographer: Harry Gamboa, Jr.)\n\n\n\n\n I dare you to hear me\ntell just which and what\nsort of girl I was, always\nhad been, and why. You\nmay as well yes-yes me.\nYou\u2019ll get no chance to\ncut in. This is No Movie\nand I\u2019m the leading gal,\nthe femme fatale in cork\nplatform sandals, mis-\ntaking Woolworth\u2019s\nplastic earrings for\nglam, mis-american,\nwhich and what sort?\nThe kind who never\nintroduces the top six\nbuttons of\u200a her dress\nto their holes, whose\nlegs always cross\nwhen she sits on a\ntable, who pats vanilla\npancake over her rich,\ntheatrical skin to lift\ndark hair, dark eyes, dark\nlips from the level\nof \u200a\u200aEast Los Common\nto revelation, and you\u2019re\nall in my made-up\nfairy tale now, you &\nthese suave muchachos,\nwe\u2019re all queasy in the\nwhere is it 40s \u200950s\u2009 60s\n70s brown beautiful\npeople pronouncing our perfect\nEnglish, accorded\nzero-to-slivers of\nsilver screen glory.\nI dare you, looking\nin from the tangled\nreel of the future,\nsay out loud what I\u2019m\nsitting on. Kitten-posed\non a table top in Philippe\u2019s\nOriginal Sandwich Shop,\nLos Angeles, \u201976, next\nto the napkins and\nsugar shaker, I\u2019m not\nafraid of the cleaning rag\nwiping me out of the frame,\nI take in the unedited\nnumbers that tumble\nin one continuous shot\nfrom my Now to yours,\nand there\u2019s a mestiza\nborn every minute, I\nknow where I sit:\nright on top of a\npretty warm piece\nof sweet American pie.", "title": "A Chingona Plays Miss Dinah Brand", "id": 58870, "author": "Maria Melendez Kelson"}
{"poem": "I am the altar boy with feet flattened by the catechist\u2019s paddle, my skin toasted like stalks of sugarcane at Lent, my shorts baptized in the salt pans of saints. I don\u2019t wear a mask (God hates carnival) but a wool hood, Holy Week\u2019s, that Sister Rose knitted by the charcoal altar, her wooden teeth clacking as she hymned in Latin, the moles on her jowl like prickly pears for penance. My own teeth are those grates that grilled the martyrs, & my little lamb\u2019s ears quiver each afternoon when the wind coughs in fits and pale skies smoke with incense from a clandestine Mass, perhaps on a runaway shallop with sails sewn from stolen cassocks, perhaps on a newborn isle with a thatched church, novices crawling like iguanas around stations of the cross. There\u2019s no home for orphans like us raised in a convent by the wharf where the footless angel blows his trumpet for vesper, and the abbess marches us to the clapboard altar when the cock crows. We sleep in straw cubbies, our sheets those crinkled newspapers that swaddled us like groupers in the foundling\u2019s basket. Hey, you, girl with the twisted neck, your dollhouse will keep on shrinking between your dirty legs. Not even holy water can make you clean. Hey, boy, the more you pull on the kite, the more your house of dreams will get lost in summer\u2019s wayward clouds. Let us live in the meadow, our true home, every bush a hearth, every pond a font: O blessed loam of nettles whose fireflies light the shrine at night, whose blue brooks spread out like veins of \u200aCalvary.", "title": "Altar Boy", "id": 58874, "author": "Orlando Ricardo Menes"}
{"poem": "+\n\nThis is a poured-truth dressed in memory\nand cut down; this is a matter ruff; a gray middle\nthe world is in flight and many things circle.\n\n\n What world do you want me in? I ask.\n What world do you want me in? I ask.\n\nBut I am confronted with touch, the work of hand and eye,\nand a kept-remark roaming ...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\r When in Rome, I think.\nWhen in Rome, I think.\n\n\n+\n\nA dressed-memory: never did more frill mean curtained-silence.\n\n Hello? We\u2019re here, they say.\n Hello?\n We\u2019re here, they say.\n\nI remember the moment first-harvested: no possible brimming is\never frank. At that age, who knew filth could be forward. I thought \nI could cut it down.\n\n\n+\n\nLook, the leaping is possible, I think. I watch the way evening attaches \nto us. See its starting point? It banded, uncontrolled and gleaming. \nOur jewel. Not all worlds see the darkness. \nRemember: the world is good, that leaping center is a tuned heart.\nI want that melody.\n\n\n+\n\nWhat world do you want me in, now? I ask\nI feel broad-throated, and slippy. \nI say, tell me the times the chronicle mentions me.\n\n56, she says.\n56, she says.\n\nLet me be clear: I knew. I said, I knew. I wanted to have my own grown romance.\nPlant me another. Do it now. \nPlant me another. Do it now. ", "title": "The Ambassadors \u2014 Part 5", "id": 58848, "author": "Leah Umansky"}
{"poem": "culture is richest where there\u2019s\nthe greatest ratio\n\nland : coast\nland : coast\n\n\u2014\u2009After Barry Cunliffe\n\u2014\u2009After Barry Cunliffe\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nthis patch of the western\nocean\u2019s coruscating garden\n\nrecalls my favorite song\n(mishearing) the sea\u2019s very hum-\n\ndrum\u00a0...\u2009\u2014\u2009but no, there\u2019s not\none ocean, not when such an\n\ninfinite mix of blues can\noutshine the map\u2019s cerulean\n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nthe sea is there for a solan\nto push his wings against\n\nor plunge in, reinventing\nthe medium\u2009\u2014\u2009when the light\n\ncomes right through them\nthe waves let slip wrack\n\nand tangle, pitching round\nuntil they go breaking on\n\nthe boulder beach, crashing\nunder Row Head, hassling\n\nbrittlestars and urchins, or splash\nnear the shelducks dozing\n\non their green sun shelf\u2009\u2014\u2009\nthere\u2019s no need to worry\n\nthat any wave is wasted\nwhen there\u2019s all this motion\n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nalong the bay there\u2019s\nthe promise of a new world\n\nfrom each new device connect-\ned to the cable that runs\n\nout under the wild rocks,\ninto the diamond space\n\ninside those three buoys\u2009\u2014\u2009\nthis is where the metal\n\ngets salt-wet: and that\u2019s\nthe only true test\u2009\u2014\u2009the problem\n\nis elastic: what kind of roots\nwill grip fast with moorings\n\nsubject to ebb, flood, flux,\nin a surge of such force?\n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nwhat\u2019s solid was once liquid\nas with rock and sand\n\nwhich nature divided\u2009\u2014\u2009\nlike us\u2009\u2014\u2009these waves were\n\ntugged and formed, in\nslowness, slowness that\n\nwe\u2019ve lost, for there\u2019s no\nway to relearn the tide\u2019s\n\nhappy knack of infinitesimal\ngrowth, except by sloshing\n\naround, or waiting, stranded,\non the heave of the moon", "title": "Billia Croo", "id": 58854, "author": "Alec Finlay"}
{"poem": "\nHumanscape 62, 1970, by Melesio Casas\n\n\n\n\nThree years before I\u2019d hear the word / beaner /\nfrom the / white boys / who\u2019d spit first in my broccoli,\nthen in my hair, / my mother / dressed me\n\neach Wednesday in that / brown / sheath: I was seven.\nIt\u2019d be the only time I\u2019d wear a sash\u2009\u2014\u2009\nMiss / America, / she said.\n\nTwenty Miss / Americas, we made /\nkitsch from clothespins, pipe cleaners\u2009\u2014\u2009\nour / brown / socks / banded and complicated /\n\nwith orange tassels just below the / brown /\n/ rosettes / of our knees, little / skulls / knocking\ntogether in our elementary / school / cafeteria.\n\nHow we jumped the day / we heard / voices\nraising there instead of / at home, / when Tracy\u2019s\nmom slapped our / troop / leader / and Tracy\n\ncried. And Tracy\u2019s / mom was white /\nand only her / dad was brown / and Tracy\nwas a little / prettier than the rest of us. /\n\nAt the lunch tables, / white bitch / stuck to our fingers\nlike glue; / fucking Mexicans / landed like glitter\nonto the sashes laid across our / small / hearts. /\n\nWith Tracy, / we watched / manifest between us\n/ a line, / risen from the tiled floor where / we shared /\nmeals as tears clung to the eye-rims of my seven-year-old\n\n/ compa\u00f1eras. / Lorena chewed her nails till blood\n/ bloomed / on her ring finger. Andrea peed quietly\n/ on her brown knee / socks. None of us knew\n\nwhere to hide. This was not / home, /\nwhere / we could run / to the / broom / closet\nor to the / feet / of our big / brothers. /", "title": "Brownies of the Southwest: Troop 704", "id": 58877, "author": "Laurie Ann Guerrero"}
{"poem": "metaphor waits at the\nfoot of his name\n\non thursday he\u2019ll\ncancel experience\n\nmetaphor waits for\nhim to shovel the snow\n\non thursday he\u2019ll\ncrush experience\n", "title": "C", "id": 58850, "author": "Felix Bernstein"}
{"poem": "Whether the harborline or the east shoreline\nconsummated it was nobody\u2019s biz until you got there,\neyelids ashimmer, content with one more dispensation\nfrom blue above. And just like we were saying,\nthe people began to show some interest\nin the mud-choked harbor. It could be summer again\nfor all anyone in our class knew.\nYeah, that\u2019s right. Bumped from our dog-perch,\nwe\u2019d had to roil with the last of them.\n\nIt\u2019s taken a while since I\u2019ve been here,\nbut I\u2019m resolved. What, didn\u2019t I print,\nlittle piles of notes, slopes almost Sicilian?\nHere is my friend:\nSocks for comfort (now boys) will see later. Did they come?\nThe inner grocery had to take three sets of clips away.\nSpeaking to him of intricate family affairs.\nI\u2019m not what you think. Stay preconscious. \nIt\u2019s just the \u201cflooding of the council.\u201d No need to feel afraid.\n", "title": "Day Bump", "id": 58856, "author": "John Ashbery"}
{"poem": "\nDecoy Gang War Victim, 1974, by Asco (photographer: Harry Gamboa, Jr.)\n\n\nFor Harry Gamboa, \u200a\u200aJr.\nFor Harry Gamboa, \u200a\u200aJr.\n\n Just a tick ago, the actor was a Roman candle \nshot to the sky, smudged by rain\u2019s helter- \nskelter. His motivation was: he\u2019s a stooge \non L.A.\u2019s sodden turnpike, so we have \u201cto make\u201d art. Got \nto rezone and react. The world the bare wall to\nhis bullet. Got to rile up the populace, to fortify \nthe arsenal. Once in a while, repopulate and penetrate, \npaint a list of incitement onto the walls. \nAn elder told him that to overturn the city, one must \nsurrender body/belongings to the one explosive \nspectacle of truth, making it ongoing. Pay attention. \nTo overturn the city, not just the scraps but fervor itself. \nNot just the wan broadcast of indignation but \nIRL incursions into the workhouses and \npoorhouses to inflame the thousand points of\u200a light. \nA lean surge, departure pinks both ends of \u200ahim. \nHe\u2019s the nth layer folded into the stand\u2019s nerve.", "title": "Decoy Gang War Victim", "id": 58875, "author": "Carmen Gim\u00e9nez Smith"}
{"poem": "My patio was once a schoolyard, or maybe a barracoon, perhaps both, & the ghosts of children nest under the pink sink, mouths agape for flakes of rust, or they creep to the ceiling, sucking on the five taps of blue water, their little lips abuzz like cicadas. In the moonlight I see them bounce on my feather bed, bowed like an old donkey\u2019s back, or they teeter-totter in my wicker chair darned with burlap string. Leave them alone, I say to my mother, who wants to cleanse the house with carvacrol, trapping these children\u2019s souls in beehives, then stringing them up with kites so they fly to the moon. Let them drum our dented pots, let them screech happy carols, let them dance with tin spurs on their little feet. Mother, I don\u2019t care if they nibble our family photos, soil your heirlooms of lace, or steal what few grains of rice (more like gypsum ants) you hoard in the pink pantry. Let them play cat\u2019s cradle with spiderwebs, let them rummage in your armoire of moths, let them lurk in your shadows of ill will & tease you to laughter. Ghosts are unruly, free to be fickle, unlike me, the pig-tailed girl you kept strapped to the sewing machine in the shed of planks by the mango tree too old to fruit. Work & sweat will set you free, you said, just like Fidel on the radio. Cut me out of those sepia photos on the wall, burn those baby braids you keep in porcelain, toss my first communion gown into the sea. I wish I\u2019d been born into a brood of mice, quick to grow, quick to breed, quick to die among the kapok trees.", "title": "El Patio de Mi Casa", "id": 58873, "author": "Orlando Ricardo Menes"}
{"poem": "Untitled, 1965, by Alberto Vald\u00e9s\n\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not easily mesmerized.\nBut how can you not be drawn in by swirls, \nangles and whorls brought together to obey\na field of moving colors layered, muted\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\nothers bright that make you linger\nthere?\nJust look at those Carpaccio reds.\n\nRight then my mind\nleaps to Cezanne:\nhis dark-blue vest in Self-Portrait (1879\u20131880);\nthe Seven Bathers (ca. 1900) wallowing in blue; \nhis blue beyond in Ch\u00e2teau Noir (1904).\n\nConsider now the three, or is it four figures \nin Alberto Vald\u00e9s\u2019s Untitled (ca. 1965). \nThey are wayward energy, moving right \nto left (the right one more sensuous than the rest) \nabout to dive\ninto the deep-blue waiting\u2009\u2014\u2009call it the unknown.\nI\u2019d like to be there when they meet that blue abyss\nhead on. \nWill they keep their shape, I wonder,\nor break up and rearrange themselves\ninto a brighter, more memorable pose\n...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200ainto a bigger elemental thing?\n\nI\u2019m really asking this:\nWhen they run into the landscape of \u200ablue,\nwill these figures lose their logic of \u200aluster?\nWill they lose their lucid argument of color,\ntheir accumulated wealth of geometry?\nWill they still engage the entire me,\nhold me,\nkeep me mesmerized?", "title": "Field of Moving Colors Layered", "id": 58871, "author": "Tino Villanueva"}
{"poem": "Before the war leaned in and blew out\nthe candles, there were many long days\nwhere lovers called themselves lovers\nand a house was a dream but also\nfour walls, a roof. A father called\nto his daughter to see the monarch butterflies,\npausing in their migration to fan the goldenrod,\na tiger in each coy disclosure.\nA young man reached for a blackberry\nand found draped on a branch a green snake\nthe color of matcha. A snake the color of matcha\nsighed in the sun. People drove in cars.\nThere were jobs and someone had to work\nevery morning. A man quit his job\nbut it was no tragedy. He didn\u2019t like the work.\nAnother man slid in and found it comfortable\nenough, and just as easily slid in beside\nthe man\u2019s wife and into the everyday rhythms\nof his life and that was no tragedy either.\nAfter rains, a ring of mushrooms would delicately\ncrack the earth. Spanish moss harbored red mites.\nThe sky wasn\u2019t interesting. No one looked up.\n", "title": "The Good in the Evil World", "id": 58852, "author": "Rebecca Hazelton"}
{"poem": "\n\nGranite Weaving, 1988, by Jes\u00fas Moroles\n\n\n\nTo climb, in this instance, upon a horizon\n\nShadow-shadow. Lip-to-lip rock.\n\nZiggurat. Ah, from the base to the top.\n\nSideways. Upwards. Again, in succession.\n\nSprung and sprung\n\nFrozen idiom. \n\nBarre. Pietrasanta. Mouth and mouth.\n\nSung. Granite. Stitching \n\nThe way fabric gathers\u2009\u2014\u2009pinch, scrunch.\n\nNot in dreams alone. Not the knot.\n\nStep, step, step, step, step. 35 up.\n\nAs if into clouds\n\nUr, Aqar Quf, Chogha Zanbil, Tikal.\n\nKin. \n\nPlank upon plank upon plank upon\n\nLittle Blocks: ahem. don\u2019t you forget us.\n\n\na, of, or, but, if, la, and\n\n\nClose and closer to flattened.\n\nRock, Water, Bone: Noisy Pilgrim.", "title": "Granite Weaving", "id": 58868, "author": "Valerie Mart\u00ednez"}
{"poem": "In every crowd, there is the one\nwith horns, casually moving through\nthe bodies as if this is the living\n\nroom of a creature with horns,\na long cloak and the song of tongues\non the lips of the body. To see\n\nthe horns, one\u2019s heart rate must \nreach one hundred and seventy\nfive beats per minute, at a rate\n\nfaster than the blink of an eye,\nfor the body with horns lives\nin the space between the blink\n\nand light\u2009\u2014\u2009slow down the blink\nand somewhere in the white space\nbetween sight and sightlessness\n\nis twilight, and in that place,\nthat gap, the stop-time, the horn-\nheaded creatures appear,\n\nspinning, dancing, strolling\nthrough the crowd; and in the\nfever of revelation, you will\n\nunderstand why the shaman\nis filled with the hubris \nof creation, why the healer\n\nforgets herself and feels like\nangels about to take flight.\nMy head throbs under\n\nthe mosquito mesh, the drums\ndo not stop through the night,\nthe one with horns feeds\n\nme sour porridge and nuts\nand sways, Welcome, welcome.\n", "title": "Horns", "id": 58853, "author": "Kwame Dawes"}
{"poem": "1. homilies from home\n\nYou\u2019ve got to put your pants on in the house of fact.\nAnd in the house of fact, when you take off your shirt,\nyou can hear your shirt cry out, Facts are the floor, facts\nare how you make the right side talk to the left.\n\nI\u2019m washing my naked belly clean, and doing it with dignity.\nI\u2019m turning around, trying to see the filthiness\nthat keeps making me filthy. I\u2019ve scraped away \nmy molecules right down to the atoms\u2019 emptiness\n\nand arranged the map\u2019s folds so that nobody \ncan see it breaking into fits of weeping.\nNow that even our eyes have their dedicated poverties,\n\nnow that even our eyes are chained to their slavish occupations,\nwhatever the soul lacks drains the soul to nothing.\nI hate to admit it, but even the house of fact is a house of ruin.\n\n\n2. rest\n\n The strange is done with, over,\n the strange that late at night you returned\n to chat with again and again. No longer will anyone \nwait for me in my corner where\n\n good is bad, where that tight-lipped morning\n of tears by the bay means nothing anymore\n to anyone. To be cleared of the inks that stain\n my ankles while watching my eyes go blind in the mirror\n\n is the kind of rest that the seventh day promises \nbut never brings. Instead, the species\n climbs aboard the ark of copulation\n\n and ignores the forty days and nights of rain. \nAnd the much-talked-of soul that the rain denies\n burrows deep into the mud of so much pain.\n\n\n3. spider\n\n Look at the spider with the enormous body and tiny head, \na spider of no color: today, when I kneel\n down to look at it more closely, its many arms nailed\n to a many-armed cross are a prayer in a code that only God,\n\n who\u2019s forgotten it, can decipher. And its eyes \ninvisible to my eyes, which guided it like a pilot \nthrough the wilderness of space,\n no longer steer its legs across the intricate,\n\n almost-not-thereness of its web. Each thread\n it spins with the finality of fate divides its head\n from its body. And the poor thing,\n\n even with so many legs, doesn\u2019t know which way to run.\n Just look at its abdomen, huge as the stone blocking \nwhat\u2019s-his-name\u2019s tomb, that the head\u2019s condemned to drag around.\n\n\n4. if the sun should blacken to an asterisk\n\n Honestly, when I look at life straight,\n I\u2019m just another blind Brooklynite \u2014 not because \nI can\u2019t see that Jean-Jacques was an idiot,\n or that Saint Peter being nailed to the cross\n\n upside down isn\u2019t the purest measure\n of my humanity, but because my eyes\n can\u2019t see my illiterate skeleton and the razor\n and cigar that will outlive me. So try to save a day\n\n for when there are no days, reason with the lens\n inside every healing wound, witness how your \nown inner grace, gnawing at itself, gets baptized\n\n in phosphates of hemlock and error.\n And so what if the sunset arrives from Athens? \nSo what if no trace of anyone survives?\n\n\n5. the last to be excused\n\n Remember the old aunts, sarcastic,\n chain-smoking, gesturing with their canes,\n scoring point after point with their widowed lungs?\n\n How was I to eat with them as they pushed \naround their plates not peas and carrots\n but distance and disdain for their silly nephew\n\n still trying, at his age, to forget\n how being old is as new to the old\n as being just born is to the just born \u2014\n\n even their glued-together, half-cracked\n china radiates impatience for the pity\n that the young want them to want.\n\n The way they kept saying mother \u2014 \nlike it was all in caps \u2014 saying it like that \nas if they still felt her eyes on how\n\n they handled their knives, forks, spoons, \nmaking each bite harder to swallow.\n The day is coming when there\u2019ll be no water\n\n in the pitcher, no eternally dying father \nserved up like canned spinach and corn, \nno brooches of affection their absent lips\n\n pin to the air. And as that silence \nslowly breaks the hours in two, I\u2019ll be \nleft alone to dine with the nothingness\n\n that, just for form\u2019s sake, says grace.\n The table will be set with shadows,\n the phantom food served up by shadows \u2014\n\n and all the dead mothers come to this repast\n will sit down on chairs of dust\n in the wake of that last supper\n\n in the kitchen gone cold where I\u2019ll hear the last\n maternal \u201cServe yourself, Tom\u201d\n smothered by that dark where no one can tell\n\n the knife blade from the handle,\n or the food from the plate, or the plate \nfrom the table, or if there\u2019s a table at all.\n\n\n6. the eternal dice \n\nomg, it makes me cry to admit that I am human;\n to feel the heaviness of all your bread I\u2019ve eaten.\n\n Oh sure, you claimed you raised me from the dust,\n but where\u2019s the wound fermenting in your side?\n\n You know nothing of those Marias who split for good.\nomg, if you\u2019d been born a human being\n\n today you\u2019d know how to behave like God.\n But in your always everywhere hard partying with perfection\n\n you feel nothing of the pain of your creation.\n And so it\u2019s us, the poor fuckers who suffer, who must be god.\n\n Today, in my middle-aged pupils, I see the glare of candles\n lit for my death-row vigil. omg, old gambler, take up\n\n your crooked tricks again, and let\u2019s throw your cooked pair of dice \u2014 \nin the fated luck you dole out to the universe\n\n maybe we\u2019ll roll snake eyes staring back at us like death, \nmaybe you\u2019ll deal two aces black as the grave\u2019s mud.\n\nomg, in this night gone deaf and blind,\n you won\u2019t be able to play because the poor Earth itself\n\n is just a single die whose edges have grown rounded\n by rolling too many eons through the battering sky\n\n and nobody now can stop it until it rolls into a hole,\n the vast hole, omg, inside a single molecule.\n\n\n7. the other garden\n\n In the Garden there was a spider.\n And because the man knelt beside him, the spider \noverheard him, the agony of his prayer\n like the fear of a fly who can\u2019t steer\n\n any other direction than into the web stretching out\n no matter which way the fly veers. The spider\n felt the threads of all being vibrate\n through him \u2014 and so it vowed to be the answer\n\n to the prayer of the man praying to his father\n to let this cup pass. But on the cross, when the man cried out\n to his father not to abandon him, his father\n\n did abandon him. And so the spider\n vowed to weave a web so tightly around the father that the harder\n he\u2019d struggle the more he\u2019d be caught.\n\n\n8. what hasn\u2019t yet come is already over\n\n If it rains tonight, will a raindrop be my cell?\n Will the bars the sky lets down\n take one look at me and turn to steel?\n Now that the hot afternoon is finally done,\n\n done the cups of tea we drank with your mother,\n I want to ask the rain to yank my strings\n back a thousand years. But even back that far,\n will the rain still be my prison?\n\n To be lost in the minutiae\n of our vacations from the soul, to forget \nthe Vedic threads spun out beyond my end,\n\n to press against your breasts obedient\n to the purest pulses. Yeah, sure. Make the story \nof my life the story of my never having been.", "title": "House of Fact, House of Ruin", "id": 58851, "author": "Tom Sleigh"}
{"poem": "Larry Levan (snake), 2006, by Elia Alba\n\n\n\n\n Hip hip hip hip hip makes the man\nas the conga, serpentine,slides across the frame\nas the conga, serpentine,\nslides across the frame\n\nand the disco dub\u2009\u2014\u2009tilt and sway\u2009\u2014\u2009\nsewing pelves in the room,as if \u200aLarry, still,\nsewing pelves in the room,\nas if \u200aLarry, still,\n\nwere levitating streetwise \nBlacks, Drags, Latinos, Punks:Saturday Mass, 1985,\nBlacks, Drags, Latinos, Punks:\nSaturday Mass, 1985,\n\nin the Paradise Garage\u2009\u2014\u2009Evelyn \n\u201cChampagne\u201d King, Kraftwerk,Ashra.\n\u201cChampagne\u201d King, Kraftwerk,\nAshra.\n\nNo. He\u2019s black-and-white, a head shot, \none two threefour five,\none two three\nfour five,\n\non this S curve of 21st-century revelers, \nmask on the one bodydown,\nmask on the one body\ndown,\n\nshimmer slant of a hoop earring \nunder the ten-leg-hop-and-pulsate\u2009\u2014\u2009\nunder the ten-leg-\nhop-and-pulsate\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nglide on through. And Larry, Dour Father, \nbubble pop-popped,afloat,\nbubble pop-popped,\nafloat,\n\nasking repeatedly: Who, My Friends,\n is fronting? Who is not?\u00a0You,\n is fronting? Who is not?\u00a0\nYou,\n\n\nVelvet Valance, over the sequined \ndrag of curtain. Black is Black, \ndrag of curtain.\n Black is Black, \n\nBrown is Brown, Gay is Gay disco \npulsing up and throughseventeen years\npulsing up and through\nseventeen years\n\nof not-forbidding bodies. Introibo \nad altare Dei. Ad Deumqui l\u00e6tificat\nad altare Dei. Ad Deum\nqui l\u00e6tificat\n\njuventutem meam. Gather you \nto me and to one another. Grind.\nto me and to one another.\n Grind.", "title": "Larry Levan (snake)", "id": 58867, "author": "Valerie Mart\u00ednez"}
{"poem": "Breakfast Tacos, from the series Seven Days, 2003, by Chuck Ramirez\n\n\n\n\n Let me be your last meal.\nLet me harvest the notes\nI took from your mother\u2019s\nwatery hands, street vendors\nin Rome, Ms. Rosie\nfrom our taquer\u00eda, you:\nin the sun, in the open air,\nlet me give you zucchini\nand their elusive blossoms\u2009\u2014\nmy arms, my hands.\nPumpkiny empanadas\nof my feet, pulpy as a newborn\u2019s.\nGuisada\u2019d loin of my calf\nmuscle. On a plate white\nand crisp as the ocean,\nlemoned eyeballs like two\nscallops. The red, ripe\nplum of my mouth.\nPerhaps with coffee,\nyou\u2019d have the little lobe\nof my ear sugared as a wedding\ncookie. The skin of my belly,\nmy best chicharr\u00f3n, scrambled\nwith the egg of my brain\nfor your breakfast tacos.\nMy lengua like lengua.\nMi pescuezo, el mejor hueso.\nLet me be your last meal:\nmouthfuls of my never-to-be-digested\nface, my immovable femur\ncaught in your throat\nlike a fish bone. Let my body be\nwhat could never leave your body.", "title": "Last Meal: Breakfast Tacos, San Antonio, Tejas", "id": 58878, "author": "Laurie Ann Guerrero"}
{"poem": "The girl in the green ski chasuble\nhasn\u2019t yet graduated from radio school.\nLet\u2019s pay attention.\n\nLooking ahead, why, he waved his mouth along.\nDoesn\u2019t life get difficult in the summer?\nThe divine medicine for it collapsed\nin front of the shortstop,\nwho took off like a battalion.\n\nCrowds of older people who would read this\nhappily, willingly, then walking into night\u2019s embrace,\nthen kiss. \u201cTo turn you out, to turn you out!\u201d\nSometimes an arm is accused:\nYou could have felt it, the blue shirts,\nphlegm central, four times a night.\nBut what does that get me?\nLight refreshments.\n\nWhen the suburban demonstration kind of shrunk\nyou put your foot out,\nleave it or kiss it\nor even two years ago,\nCharmaine here tells us.\nI think I should stay ...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\n\nCross-eyed sonofabitch ...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\nHe liked him, he could tell. A de-happening.\nThe gangster no longer wanted to sleep with him,\nbut what the heck. With time off\nfor actual fuzz collected ... All right, boys.\nCheap murders, peach driven ... I seen enough of those\nsamples along the way.\n", "title": "Late-ish", "id": 58855, "author": "John Ashbery"}
{"poem": "\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 to be\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 gone a\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 to be\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 constant desire\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0embarrassed for the \u00a0 \u00a0\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0giant leaning in for love\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0we had enough\n\r of\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0the dance number but \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the whirling begins\r \u00a0 it just starts\u00a0 silos full of air\u00a0 no more corn\u00a0 no more wheat\u00a0watching myself for\u00a0full details in a strange man\u2019s pants\u00a0we let\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the soldier board the plane\n\u00a0 it just starts\n\u00a0 silos full of air\n\u00a0 no more corn\n\u00a0 no more wheat\n\u00a0watching myself for\n\u00a0full details in a strange man\u2019s pants\n\u00a0we let\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 shot in head three days later\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0why are you angry you said\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0why are you not I said", "title": "Mars.1", "id": 58847, "author": "CAConrad"}
{"poem": "\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0to worship\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0to worship\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0tininess of a\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 martyr\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 observe\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 shrinking\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 church in\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 rearview\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 mirror\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the black deer\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0it turns out was\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 beige a tan doe\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 covered in flies\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0flesh of shame\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0is nearly the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0shame of flesh\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 pressing an unstable\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 clock to cactus with one,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 two, three counts of recalibration\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 fuck you who ask for\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 forgiveness instead of\npermission \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0all\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 clocks are precarious inscrutable windows", "title": "Mars.2", "id": 58846, "author": "CAConrad"}
{"poem": "Sometimes something like a second\n\r washes the base of this street.\n\r The father and his two assistants\n\r are given permission to go.\n\r One of them, a woman, asks, \u201cWhy\n\r did we come here in the first place,\n\r to this citadel of dampness?\u201d\n\n\r Some days are worse than others,\n\r even if we can\u2019t believe in them.\n\r But that was never a concern of mine,\n\r reasoned the patient.\n\n\r Sing, scroll, or never be blasted by us\n\r into marmoreal meaning, or the fist for it.\n\r Kudos to the prince who journeyed here\n\r to negotiate our release, if you can believe it.\n\n\r You\u2019re right. The ballads are retreating\n\r back into the atmosphere.\n\r They won\u2019t be coming round again.\n\r Make your peace.\n", "title": "Mean Particles", "id": 58858, "author": "John Ashbery"}
{"poem": "What is flat and nothing but skin,\nWhat lolls in a shallow world,\nWhat is watched for its surface,\nBetween long episodes of water the color of a dead screen\u2019s \u2028sea-green glass,\nWhat has but a few hairs in the snapshot?\nA bit of muzzle,\nNo more than a pug\u2019s worth for a rented red kayak,\nFor this sailor swallowed by enormous wax lips,\nWhat is gray and aporial,\nOnce mistaken for half girl,\nHalf monster,\nDisappointingly naked and slipping under the hull.\n\n\n\n\u2014Lido Beach, Fla., November 2013\n\u2014Lido Beach, Fla., November 2013\n\n", "title": "Miley Cyrus or Manatee?", "id": 58849, "author": "James Reidel"}
{"poem": "\nNight Magic (Blue Jester), 1988, by Carlos Almaraz\n\n\nAfter Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca\nAfter Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca\n\nBlue that I love you\nBlue that I hate you\nFat blue in the face\nDisgraced blue that I erase\nYou lone blue\nBlue of an alien race\nStrong blue eternally graced\nBlue that I know you\nBlue that I choose you\nCrust blue \nChunky blue\nMoon blue glows that despise\nYou\u2009\u2014\u2009idolize you\nBlue and the band disappears\nBlue of the single left dog\nBlue of the eminent red fog\nBlue that I glue you to me\nYou again and again blue\nBlue blue of the helium\nBubble of \u200aloveloss\nBlue of \u200athe whirlwind\nThe blue being again\nBlue of the endless rain\nBlue that I paint you\nBlue that I knew you\nBlue of\u200a the blinking lights\nBlue of \u200athe landing at full tilt\nBlue of \u200athe wilt \nFlower of\u200a nightfall\nBlue of\u200a the shadow\nIn yellowed windows\nBlue of the blown\nAnd broken glass\nBlue of the Blue Line\nUnderlines in blue\nBlue of the ascending nude\nBlue before the blackness\nOf\u200a new blue of our winsome\nBedlam Blue of the blue\nBed alone: blue of the one\nWho looks on blue of what\nRemains of cement fall\nBlue of the vague crescent\nShip sailing blue of the rainbow\nOf \u200await blue that I whore\nYou\u2009\u2014\u2009blue that I adore you\nBlue of the bluest door\nBlue my painted city\nIn blue (it blew.)", "title": "Night Magic (Blue Jester)", "id": 58859, "author": "Lorna Dee Cervantes"}
{"poem": "\u00bfS\u00f3lo una sombra?/Only a Shadow (Ester IV)?, from the series Santos y sombras/Saints and Shadows, 1993\u20131994, by Muriel Hasbun\n\n\n\n\n My daughter gathers the seeds she finds in our desert, calls them\nspirits\u2009\u2014\u2009the spirits are us, she says when I worry those orbs in my fingers\n\nto conjure her birth. The wind\u2019s first thought is to craft those seeds: \nvessels when the tree worries she\u2019s not enough of a multiplicity,\n\nthat she will burn into the cosmos. The cosmos is no thought, no worry,\nmore than us, but less than wind, and the wind is only the infinite,\n\nnot the body\u2019s death, which is, after all, only a particle, but time formless\nas space. This is only if the wind worries at all. The seed doesn\u2019t think\n\n\u2014\u2009she is the doubling ambition of a vessel. In the wind, the idea\nof the copy is translated by time. We were once that idea. My daughter\n\ncollects me in a box marked for spirits where I unsettle the other seeds\nbegging for wind so that my sound will echo a thousand miles away.\n\nMy daughter was the pulse I toss into the wind with the seeds. Particles\nof us pass over like whispers from the cosmos, the clatter\n\nthe wind makes. I worry birds will take her into themselves, \nthat she\u2019ll become a fleck of their transience, but this is how we furrow\n\nourselves into the cosmos, the twine of our breaths into wind, into\ncarbon, into the tree\u2019s colossal fingers reaching back from under the earth.", "title": "Only a Shadow", "id": 58876, "author": "Carmen Gim\u00e9nez Smith"}
{"poem": "\nNocturnal (Horizon Line), 2010, by Teresita Fern\u00e1ndez\n\n\nI\u2019d come to help settle your \nmother\u2019s affairs. On the last night,\n\nwe ate where she worked all \nher life. Now that she\u2019s gone, \n\nyou said, I\u2019ll never come back. \nLooking out over the dark, you saw\n\na light in the distance, a boat \ncrossing the bay, and told \n\nthe story of the fisherman \ncursed to float adrift \n\nforever. You hadn\u2019t thought of it\nsince you were a child, and held\n\nyour hand across the table to \nshow me how it trembled. \n\nI didn\u2019t understand until, alone, \nyears later, wandering the city where\n\nI was born, I stood before \na black wall, polished to shimmer,\n\nand it looked to me like the sea \nat night, hard and endless.", "title": "Orphan", "id": 58860, "author": "Blas Falconer"}
{"poem": "\nUntitled, from the Silueta series, 1980, by Ana Mendieta\n\n\nhas appeared to the mountain\ndwellers, her grief \u200aengraved\ndwellers, her grief \u200aengraved\nwhere stone softens to clay. Keep \nyour eyes sharp for a dagger.\nyour eyes sharp for a dagger.\nIn its hilt, you\u2019ll find her face\npressed to the earth\u2019s cheek. Kiss\npressed to the earth\u2019s cheek. Kiss\nthis sacred spot before the rains\nwash it away like her orphaned\nwash it away like her orphaned\nfeet. Notched heart cradles \na planet heavy with night-\na planet heavy with night-\nmares flying into empty mouths.\nListen for their thirsty murmurs.\nListen for their thirsty murmurs.\nShe\u2019ll push her ponderous child\ninto the dew of\u200a a San Felipe dawn,\ninto the dew of\u200a a San Felipe dawn,\nname him Salvador. They\u2019ll rest \nbeneath a web spun umbilical,\nbeneath a web spun umbilical,\neclipsed from our human eyes.\n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nOur Lady \n\n\nstone \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 clay\nstone \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 clay\n\n\nearthrainorphanedheart\nearth\nrain\norphaned\nheart\n\n\n\neclipsed\n\n", "title": "Our Lady of Sorrows", "id": 58864, "author": "Brenda C\u00e1rdenas"}
{"poem": "Summer road the ring around the lake, we drove mostly in silence.\n\nWhy aren\u2019t I your wife?\n\nYou swerved around a turtle sunning itself.\n\nI wanted to go back. To hold the hot disc of it and place it in the grass.\n\nWe were late for dinner.\n\nOne twentieth of a mile an hour, I said. Claws in tar. You turned the car around.\n\nTraffic from the direction of the turtle, and you saw before I did, the fifty bones of the carapace,\n\ncrushed roman dome, the surprise of red blood.\n\nI couldn\u2019t help crying, couldn\u2019t keep anything from harm.\n\nI\u2019m sorry, you said, and let it hurt.\n\nThe relief, always, of you in the seat beside me, you\u2019ll never know.\n\nDriving that road next winter, you remembered that place in the road. Your turtle.\n\nDuring hibernation, a turtle\u2019s heart beats once for every ten minutes.\n\nIt cannot voluntarily open its eyes.\n", "title": "Painted Turtle", "id": 58843, "author": "Gretchen Marquette"}
{"poem": "Aggressive panhandling, public urination, verbal threats,\npublic nudity and violation of the open container law\nfollowed us down the days, for why\nare we here much longer,\nor even this long? I ask you\nto be civil and not interrupt night\u2019s business.\n\nIt was fun getting used to you,\nwho couldn\u2019t have been more nicer.\nThis was as modern as it had ever been.\nThey were influenced by him: some dirty magazine\non the air tonight. (Amid the chaos, reports of survivors.)\n\nDidn\u2019t the flowers\u2019 restoration cat fugue keep spilling,\nand like that? It wouldn\u2019t be the first time, either.\nThe pro-taffeta get up and laugh,\ninvestigate or communicate. The night you were\ngoing to stay up late, others will kiss,\nand he talks about you, and I don\u2019t know what.\nCome in, anyway,\nand don\u2019t lack for tales of the Assertion.\n\nWe\u2019re talking civilian unrest.\nYes, well, maybe you should take one.\n\n(Do not bite or chew.)\n", "title": "People Behaving Badly a Concern", "id": 58857, "author": "John Ashbery"}
{"poem": "If the city was a body, graffiti would tell us where it hurts.\u2014\u2009Charles \u201cChaz\u201d Boj\u00f3rquez\nAnd this block would shout, \u201cNos diste un chingaso, cabr\u00f3n. Mira esta cara rota, these baton-cracked ribs, this black and blue street dizzy con gente: blades, kiki, larry, snow, enrique, connie, \u2028elton, king, david, kelly, jeff, rat\u00f3n, chaz, los de aqu\u00ed, los de abajo. This roll call won\u2019t be silenced, not by glock, not by chokehold. This is our temple of runes, our tomb\u2009\u2014\u2009its glyphic curve and flow, calligraphic code writ acrylic. This, our relic, our scroll unrolled in catacombs, our flecks of subtext still buzzing despu\u00e9s de que vayamos con La Pelona. \u00a1qu\u00e9 lucha, loco! Ven, baile con nosotros to the aerosol\u2019s maraca y hiss, al punk en espa\u00f1ol\u2019s furious sweat. Hang your head out the window y dale un grito tan lleno de duende that it cracks the pavement, summons our dead to dinner. Turn the tonal kaleidoscope. Then pause, catch your breath, so you don\u2019t miss the illegible moment where all the mystery lives. There, de-cypher that!\u201d", "title": "Placa/Rollcall", "id": 58863, "author": "Brenda C\u00e1rdenas"}
{"poem": "Radiante, 1967, by Olga Albizu\n\nRadiante, 1967, by Olga Albizu\n\n\n\nJestered ochre yellow my umber Rothko\ndivisions my Brooklyns with Jerry Stern\nblack then oranged gold leaf & tiny skulls\nperforations Dada sugar bread of Oaxacan\necstasy Lorca\u2019s green horse the daffodil head\ncorruptions of the State in tenor exhalation\nsaxophonics blossomings rouged monkey\nDal\u00ed roll down the keys the high G\u2019s\nunderStreets of the undeRealms my hair.\n\nThrottle up into hyper-city correlations =\ncompassion compassion\nthe void extends\nthe void extends", "title": "Radiante (s)", "id": 58862, "author": "Juan Felipe Herrera"}
{"poem": "\n\nPlatanal, 1974, by Myrna B\u00e1ez\n\n\nConsidering Myrna B\u00e1ez\u2019s painting Platanal, E. Carmen Ramos explains, \u201cWhen Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony, artists like Francisco Oller depicted the plantain as both a key accoutrement to the jibaro (rural peasant) and a metaphor for the island\u2019s independent cultural identity.\u201d\nConsidering Myrna B\u00e1ez\u2019s painting Platanal, E. Carmen Ramos explains, \u201cWhen Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony, artists like Francisco Oller depicted the plantain as both a key accoutrement to the jibaro (rural peasant) and a metaphor for the island\u2019s independent cultural identity.\u201d\n\n\n\n Plantain trees gather at the edge \nof the orchard, clamor for light \n\nin the foreground. They seem to grow\nas one, as if they\u2019d fill the field \n\nand the mountains behind them, \nleaves large and frayed. We stood \n\nthere, once, or someplace like it, so\nhere we are again, it seems, \n\nyears later, branches leaning over \nthe road, you in your long skirt, \n\nlooking out as if to recall something\nyou meant to do. My country, I hear\n\nyou say still. But if that\u2019s dusk \nin the hills, you know what\u2019s \n\ncoming to the field. You\u2019ll stand \namong them till there\u2019s nothing left\n\nto see. I\u2019ll wait beside you, though\nI don\u2019t know what we\u2019re waiting for.", "title": "Revolution", "id": 58861, "author": "Blas Falconer"}
{"poem": "Untitled, from the Silueta series, 1980, by Ana Mendieta\n\n\n\nFor Ana Mendieta\nFor Ana Mendieta\n\n\nMud learns to live with mites, worms, beetles, and ticks.\n\nAnd Lioness digs up the earth where a warthog cowers in his den.\n\nYou know you are loved when she tears you to bits, brittle thing.\n\nThe lioness tongue softens you up all the way to her bottom.\n\nRoots, straw, weeds, rain your crown, hija de Ochun.\n\nEven Earth\u2019s suffering arises from pangs of \u200alove.\n\nWhen Lioness fangs diffuse the blood we call it liberation.\n\nWax hisses from the smoldering wick, curtains you draw go shoosh.\n\nThe last earth imprint you ever left on asphalt from thirty floors up.\n\nA shoe curved from the work your instep leaves behind.\n\nThe breath of the lioness heats up your shoulders and your neck.\n\nA genetic photograph of every cell that ever lives exists in a lioness mouth.\n\nShe tears into the riverbed and root hairs clog her claws.\n\nAncient bacteria get all up in you.\n\nControl the fire and it burns deeper, flashing life into sleeping embers.", "title": "Soneto de Silueta", "id": 58865, "author": "Kristin Naca"}
{"poem": "When he speaks of deserved and undeserved as more \nthan terms\u2009\u2014\u2009how they can matter, suddenly\u2009\u2014\u2009I can tell \nhe believes it. Sometimes a thing can seem star-like \nwhen it\u2019s just a star, stripped of whatever small form of joy \nlikeness equals. Sometimes the thought that I\u2019m doomed \nto fail\u2009\u2014\u2009that the body is\u2009\u2014\u2009keeps me almost steady, if \nsteadiness is what a gift for a while brings\u2009\u2014\u2009feathers, burst-\nat-last pods of milkweed, October\u2009\u2014\u2009before it all fades away. \nBefore the drugs and the loud music, before tears and \nrestraining orders and the eventual go fuck yourself get your \nass out of here don\u2019t go, the apartments across the street \nwere a boys\u2019 grammar school\u2009\u2014\u2009before that, a convent, \nthe only remains of which, ornamenting the far parking lot, \nis a marble pedestal with some Latin on it that translates as \nHeart of Jesus, have mercy, as if that much, at least, still \nremained relevant, or should. If it\u2019s true that secrets resist \nalways the act of telling, how come secrets, more often than \nnot, seem the entire story? Caladium, Cleome\u2009\u2014\u2009how delicate,\nthis holding of certain words in the mouth, the all but lost\ntrick of lifting for salvage the last windfalls as, across them,\nthe bees make their slow-muscled, stunned, moving scab ...\n", "title": "Stray", "id": 58840, "author": "Carl Phillips"}
{"poem": "a netless somersault, the trapeze swing disappears in disheveled clouds among cumulus sheep, birds, rowboat\nthe feather on the Joseph Cornell narrow shelf, unruffled as the one we pocketed from the grass in a nearby park to share week by week her house mine but soon forgot and it sat on her dresser maybe sits there still\nelsewhere, heat, light, a shut-eye bat hangs, a limp cyclamen stem straightens, an avocado ripens, a grapefruit tree in a winter kitchen leafs out of season. Wednesday is a calendar X, Thursday, Friday, the impulse: turn inward\nstart with near then far. narrow then broad. wayward then homebound, that, too, is near then far, inward. rate the prospects 1 to 10, Yelp the day 1- to 4-star: accommodations, host, did it match the advertised expectation\nthe box on your lap, open it up. open your lap, open it up and your arms, a is for arm. b is for box, c connection, go on, break the seal, unfold the replacement net", "title": "Terrarium", "id": 58845, "author": "Denise Bergman"}
{"poem": "Humane Borders Water Station, 2004, by Delilah Montoya\n\n\n\n\n Far from highways I flicker\ngold the whisperinggasoline\ngold the whispering\ngasoline\nif \u200aI pinch her nipples\ntoo hardno joy for her\ntoo hard\nno joy for her\nno joy for me\nso I practice on tickspress them\nso I practice on ticks\npress them\njust so so they give\nbut do not burstbeneath\nbut do not burst\nbeneath\nmy boots\nthistle & puncture vinea wild horse\nthistle & puncture vine\na wild horse\nasleep on all fours\nits shadow still grazingmy lips\nits shadow still grazing\nmy lips\nblack meat\nmy tongueblack meat\nmy tongue\nblack meat\nin my backpack\nsardine tinssaltines\nsardine tins\nsaltines\n& a few cough drops\nthe moon is my librarythere\u2019s a glacier\nthe moon is my library\nthere\u2019s a glacier\ninside a grain of salt\ndo you understandI\u2019m sorry\ndo you understand\nI\u2019m sorry\nmy Albanian\nisn\u2019t very goodtremble\nisn\u2019t very good\ntremble\nif \u200aGod forgets you\ntrembleif \u200aGod\ntremble\nif \u200aGod\nremembers you\nout of clay I shapesparrows\nout of clay I shape\nsparrows\nI glaze their bills & claws\nI give them nameslike gossamer\nI give them names\nlike gossamer\ninglenook lagoon\nshe batheda trumpet\nshe bathed\na trumpet\nin milk\nher tenderness acoustic& plural\nher tenderness acoustic\n& plural\nher pupils perched\nin all that greenthere\u2019s nudity\nin all that green\nthere\u2019s nudity\naround the corner\nbones cracked& iridescent\nbones cracked\n& iridescent\nsometimes it rains so hard\neven the moonputs on\neven the moon\nputs on\na raincoat\nzinc razz zinc jazzI notch my arms\nzinc razz zinc jazz\nI notch my arms\nI notch my thighs\nfive six daysI score\nfive six days\nI score\nmy skin but not\nthe back of my kneestwo ovals\nthe back of my knees\ntwo ovals\ntwo portraits\nmy son at tenhis eyes ablaze\nmy son at ten\nhis eyes ablaze\nmy son at one\nhis eyes shutonce\nhis eyes shut\nonce\nI dressed him in burlap\nonce bicycles& marbles\nonce bicycles\n& marbles\nonce I tore rain\nout of a parableto strike down\nout of a parable\nto strike down\nhis thirst", "title": "Testament Scratched into a Water Station Barrel (Translation #11)", "id": 58872, "author": "Eduardo C. Corral"}
{"poem": "from locusts and wild honey \n\nOn a lesser diet than that of the wretched\nrests a prophecy: some of us come to prepare.\nI stood before my god, at a foreign altar,\nand promised to guide you; me, with my heretic\ntheology. I practice the ways passed to me\nby descendants of followers of a wild man:\nfollowers in the desert downwind of his musk,\nlistening to him confess himself unfit to\nloose latchets on shoes; they believed his words holy,\nignored bits of insect wing in his beard. And then,\nhe told them of a dove that no one else could see.\nI have learned to retain my head while speaking truth.\n\n\nrite of the baptism of children\n\n Do I reject the glamor of evil? I do.\n You are creation \u2014 the same after water and\n after the Holy Spirit, only now you see\n the door to life and unto the Kingdom of God.\n Do not feel the need of any claimant to royal\n priesthood. Some ancient, calling himself Peter, must\n have been in his cups when he wrote that ish. The nerve!\n You were cleansed with water by power of the Word.\n Sign of the Cross? Phooey! There is no miracle\n in an instrument of death. See: Martin Luther,\n theses 5, 16, 28, and 95.\n God made no symbols; people did, et cetera.\n\n\nsome thoughts on caterina benincasa\n\n Not much older than you when she first saw the Christ\n \u2014 seated in glory with few of His disciples \u2014\n who gave her many gifts: a consummate marriage\n by way of His foreskin; the bless\u00e9d stigmata;\n and her head as a bag of rose petals. To \u201cbuild\n a cell inside your mind,\u201d a cell of self-knowledge,\n is good advice, my child. The Christ commanded her\n to open the eye of her intellect and gaze\n into Him. This made her secularly gifted,\n a power broker. Read her correspondence, yes,\n the letters of a lunatic diplomat but\n heeded, virtuous sweet amorous Word of God.\n\n\nephphatha rite\n\nHe sighed. All power in heaven and in earth is.\n Be opened. Hear and speak the truth but tell no one\n how. Superior to the purifications\n of Old Law was that water. Be opened, daughter.\n All power in heaven and earth is. No questions.\n Be opened. Hold fast to my teachings, not those of\n stewards but my words. Seek you first, girl, the kingdom\n of my love, with all your mind. All your mind. Do not\n forget your mind. You are mine. Be opened. Power!\n Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becomes\n us to fulfill all righteousness. All power in\n heaven and in earth is given me. Be opened.\n\n\ncoda patrinalis\n\n In the land of mama there is a cathedral,\n the cathedral of the Holy Spirit. Inside\n is an icon, an image of Theotokos.\n Once old enough to go solo, after an age\n of discernment is reached, perhaps in passing by,\n go there. Make your way up the nave and to the right;\n there you will find her looking at you, babe in arm,\n tired and anemic as usual. Bless her\n with a kiss and make her holy. Bless the babe, too,\n if feeling generous. Use a chair if needed.\n It is a painting. Simple miracles were made\n on a lesser diet than that of the wretched.", "title": "Theologies for Korah", "id": 58844, "author": "Dante Micheaux"}
{"poem": "When I was twelve, I wanted a macaw\n\nbut they cost hundreds of dollars.\nbut they cost hundreds of dollars.\n\nIf we win the lottery? I asked.\nMacaws weren\u2019t known to be great talkers,\nMacaws weren\u2019t known to be great talkers,\n\nbut they were affectionate.\nYes, my mother said. If we win the lottery.\nYes, my mother said. If we win the lottery.\n\nI was satisfied, so long as it wasn\u2019t impossible.\n\nThe macaw would be blue.", "title": "Want", "id": 58842, "author": "Gretchen Marquette"}
{"poem": "\n\nGranite Weaving, 1988, by Jes\u00fas Moroles\n\n\n\n \u201cHe\u201d grates across the throat, the \u201ch\u201d a dry abrasion on the tongue\u2009\u2014\nAcross the throat, the \u201ch\u201d in \u201cshe\u201d is tucked behind the folded muscle.\nIn \u201cshe\u201d is tucked the \u201ce\u201d the lips unpurse to say, same as saying \u201cwe.\u201d\nMy lips unpurse to say the names of \u200aGod, of \u200a\u200a\u200aLove, and they are \u201cShe.\u201d\nThe names of \u200a\u200aGod, of \u200a\u200aLove are, too, old explosions coded into granite.\nToo, old explosions cooled to stone warm to the touch of \u200alight, as she,\nStone-warmed and glowing, let my lips brush velvet shadows onto hers.\nLet my lips brush the story soft, forget that \u201che\u201d was scrape and struggle.\nThe story soft forgets that \u201che\u201d was heavy, wrestled into \u201cwe,\u201d and weaving\n\u201cHe\u201d heavy, wrestled (strands of \u200agranite yarned like fabric) into \u201cwe,\u201d\nStrands of granite halt their dry abrasion, interlock, and become \u201cShe.\u201d", "title": "Weaving Granite", "id": 58869, "author": "Maria Melendez Kelson"}
{"poem": "Man on Fire, 1969, by Luis Jim\u00e9nez\n\n\n\n\n Because the facial features burn fastest.\n\nBecause the sun sets in Tibet before it ever rises in the West.\n\nBecause Tsering Tashi\u2019s mother told him to dress in the thickest, \u2028finest, llama wool chuba.\n\nFor I find no flattering explanation for the murder of everyone.\n\nFlames consume the head, hands, and feet in the mural by Orozco.\n\nBecause monks don\u2019t even eat meat.\n\nHis clothes made him torch; still Th\u00edch Qu\u1ea3ng \u0110\u1ee9c\u2019s heart would not fire.\n\nBecause his remains stiffened when they tried to place him in a tomb.\n\nBecause what is the point of murdering everyone in the world?\n\nSince the sun sets in Vietnam before it reaches the West.\n\nBecause aren\u2019t the faceless Mexicans always the ones we martyr?\n\nWhy do heretic Indians hurry to incinerate themselves at the stake?\n\nAre you awake enough to remember how we clarify the skin of our slaves?\n\nTo feel the fingers of the children of thread flame stitching your voluminous rugs?\n\nThe candles in the basilica flicker when they channel the nightmares of the dead.\n\nBecause Jim\u00e9nez wept when the mammoth blue mustang leg fell from heaven, rupturing the artery in his leg.\n\nBecause of Chinese soldiers armed to protect Tiananmen Square from monks burning to set themselves ablaze.\n\nLuis says he\u2019s sorry for the pain he caused you having to finish his stallion.", "title": "Why Being \u201cOn Fire\u201d Is for Everyone", "id": 58866, "author": "Kristin Naca"}
{"poem": "About what\u2019s past, Hold on when you can, I used to say,\nAnd when you can\u2019t, let go, as if memory were one of those\nmechanical bulls, easily dismountable, should the ride\nturn rough. I lived, in those days, at the forest\u2019s edge\u2009\u2014\u2009\nmetaphorically, so it can sometimes seem now, though\nthe forest was real, as my life beside it was. I spent \nmuch of my time listening to the sounds of random, un-\nknowable things dropping or being dropped from, variously, \na middling height or a great one until, by winter, it was \njust the snow falling, each time like a new, unnecessary \ntaxonomy or syntax for how to parse what\u2019s plain, snow\nfrom which the occasional lost hunter would emerge\nevery few or so seasons, and\u2009\u2014\u2009just once\u2009\u2014\u2009a runaway child\nwhom I gave some money to and told no one about,\n\nhaving promised ... You must keep what you\u2019ve promised\nvery close to your heart, that way you\u2019ll never forget\nis what I\u2019ve always been told. I\u2019ve been told quite\na lot of things. They hover\u2009\u2014\u2009some more unbidden than\nothers\u2009\u2014\u2009in that part of the mind where mistakes and torn\nwishes echo as in a room that\u2019s been newly cathedraled,\nso that the echo surprises, though lately it\u2019s less the echo\nitself that can still most surprise me about memory\u2009\u2014\u2009\nit\u2019s more the time it takes, going away: a mouth opening\nto say I love sex with you too it doesn\u2019t mean I wanna stop \nmy life for it, for example; or just a voice, mouthless,\nasking Since when does the indifference of the body\u2019s\nstance when we\u2019re alone, unwatched, in late light, amount \n\nto cruelty? For the metaphysical poets, the problem \nwith weeping for what\u2019s been lost is that tears\nwash out memory and, by extension, what we\u2019d hoped\nto remember. If I refuse, increasingly, to explain, isn\u2019t\nexplanation, at the end of the day, what the sturdier\ntruths most resist? It\u2019s been my experience that\ntears are useless against all the rest of it that, if I \ncould, I\u2019d forget. That I keep wanting to stay should \ncount at least for something. I\u2019m not done with you yet.\n", "title": "Wild Is the Wind", "id": 58841, "author": "Carl Phillips"}
{"poem": "Somebody go & ask Biggie to orate\nwhat's going down in the streets.\n\nNo, an attitude is not a suicide note\nwritten on walls around the streets.\n\nTwitter stays lockstep in the frontal lobe\nas we hope for a bypass beyond the streets,\n\nbut only each day bears witness\nin the echo chamber of the streets.\n\nGrandmaster Flash's thunderclap says\nhe's not the grand jury in the streets,\n\nsays he doesn't care if you're big or small\nfear can kill a man on the streets.\n\nTake back the night. Take killjoy's\ncameras & microphones to the streets.\n\nIf you're holding the hand lightning strikes\njuice will light you up miles from the streets\n\nwhere an electric chair surge dims\nall the county lights beyond the streets.\n\nWho will go out there & speak laws\nof motion & relativity in the streets?\n\nYusef, this morning proves a crow\nthe only truth serum in the street.\n", "title": "Ghazal, After Ferguson", "id": 58753, "author": "Yusef Komunyakaa"}
{"poem": "how much of the map\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0could be labeled\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0terraincognita\n\nhow much \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0unknown \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0invisible to others\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 how much of myself \u00a0 \u00a0could I shake off\nabandon \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 those undiscovered places\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[I barely know] \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0exist\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 though the map is not the territory\nhow I am drawn \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0to leave behind the pattern\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0for the path \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0for a minute\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 an hour \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0for one whole day\nI'd be like a Wintu \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 describing the body\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0using cardinal directions\n\nhe touches me on the west arm\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0the river is to the east\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0when we return \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0his east arm\ncircles around me \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and the river\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0stays to the west\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0without that landscape \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0to connect to\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 who am I \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0apart from what surrounds me\n\nat the edge of the unknown \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0dirt\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0unceasingly does my thinking\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0in bonam/malem partem\nuntil it is a smooth stone in my mouth\n\nventurting forward \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0doubling back\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0what I see \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0depends on where I am\n\nif there be death\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0if the dark night of the soul\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0O, I know what is waiting\n\nevery threshold is sacred\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the eternal allure\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of what comes next\n", "title": "[how much of the map]", "id": 58885, "author": "Francine Sterle"}
{"poem": "rain frog \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0thorn bug \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0tent bat\n\r along a broken mosaic \u00a0 \u00a0a spongy \u00a0 \u00a0ever-dwindling path\n\r soaring trees \u00a0 \u00a0woody buttresses \u00a0 \u00a0their massive twisted fins\n\r lofty crowns \u00a0 \u00a0shoulder to shoulder \u00a0 \u00a0climbing lime-green\n\r vines \u00a0 \u00a0restless palms \u00a0 \u00a0one strangling plant \u00a0 \u00a0clinging to\n\r choking another \u00a0 \u00a0a discontinuous canopy of branches and leaves\n\r impenetrable \u00a0 \u00a0alive and teeming \u00a0 \u00a0tangled underbrush\n\r the deeply shaded soil \u00a0 \u00a0lumpy roots \u00a0 \u00a0writhing\n\r across the forest floor \u00a0 \u00a0low-growing ferns \u00a0 \u00a0seedlings\n\r struggling for light \u00a0 \u00a0jewel-colored hummingbirds\n\r insects sizzling and clicking and the dripping water\n\r trickling into the tiniest crevices \u00a0 \u00a0steamy\n\r claustrophobic air \u00a0 \u00a0a dazzling bellbird \u00a0 \u00a0lost\n\r in a shaft of sunlight \u00a0 \u00a0a golden eyelash viper\n\r sinuous as a vein on a broad-leafed frond \u00a0 \u00a0flat worms\n\r land leeches \u00a0 \u00a0walnut-sized spiders \u00a0 \u00a0goliath beetles\n\r camouflaged butterflies on dead leaves \u00a0 \u00a0parasites \u00a0 \u00a0bees\n\r leaf-cutting ants atop glorious white lilies \u00a0 \u00a0everywhere\n\r gripping \u00a0 \u00a0climbing \u00a0 \u00a0twisting \u00a0 \u00a0floating through the trees\n\r stilt-like aerial roots \u00a0 \u00a0the mouth-amazed pitcher plant\n\r buried larvae \u00a0 \u00a0fruit-eating fish \u00a0 \u00a0the perpetual battle to adapt\n\r the ruthless drive \u00a0 \u00a0to survive under a punishing sun\n\r what grows \u00a0 \u00a0bursts forth at astonishing speed \u00a0 \u00a0then decomposes\n\r to be reabsorbed \u00a0 \u00a0so much unknown \u00a0 \u00a0unfamiliar\n\r unnamed \u00a0 \u00a0but before long \u00a0 \u00a0the trees seem the same\n\r the rocks \u00a0 \u00a0every bird track \u00a0 \u00a0who would dare think of such a place\n\r who would dare \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0construct one \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of his own imagining\n\r and be utterly abandoned \u00a0 \u00a0in the middle of it all\n\r if to be lost is to be fully present \u00a0 \u00a0if confusion becomes\n\r the only boundary \u00a0 \u00a0and then \u00a0 \u00a0the decision \u00a0 \u00a0[to divide space\n\r until a direction is created] \u00a0 \u00a0only a madman would begin\n\r thought is its own cage \u00a0 \u00a0the mind \u00a0 \u00a0already anticipating\n\r the first step \u00a0 \u00a0deciding \u00a0 \u00a0every turn will be coupled\n\r by disaster \u00a0 \u00a0and perhaps \u00a0 \u00a0some bestial creature\n\r crouched at the center \u00a0 \u00a0crying \u00a0 \u00a0waiting\n\r for our hero \u00a0 \u00a0our everyman \u00a0 \u00a0our Elijah wandering the earth in rags\n", "title": "[rain frog \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0thorn bug \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0tent bat]", "id": 58884, "author": "Francine Sterle"}
{"poem": "Does Chang feel his teeth falling out?\nOne... two... three...\n\nHis mouth shuts.\n\nHow will he speak?\n\nLike the moon\nreleased at last and speechless,\nhe has lost his descendants.\n\nLife splits\u2014\na rift, a cleft, the half-\nlight between waking and sleeping.\n\nA quartz-colored dawn rescues him.\nThe day clears.\nDizzy waves rush to shore.\n\nThe factory calls him to work, but\neven there, the gap-toothed\n\npartitions in the wall\nwhere the rice bowls are kept\n\nstay empty. It\u2019s another\nsad round of layoffs.\n\nHow many more will be lost?\nHow many?\n", "title": "Consider Lu Chang", "id": 58883, "author": "Francine Sterle"}
{"poem": "The gowns and dresses hang \nlike fleece in their glaring \nwhiteness, sheepskin-softness,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \nthe ruffled matrimonial love in which the brides- \nin-waiting dance around, expectantly, \nhummingbirds to tulips.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I was dragged here: \nDavid\u2019s Bridal, off the concrete-gray arterial \nhighways of a naval town.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I sink into the flush \nbachelors\u2019 couch, along with other men sprinkled \nthroughout the shop, as my friend and her female compatriots parade \ntaffeta dresses in monstrous shades of pastels\u2014persimmons, \nlilacs, periwinkles\u2014the colors of weddings and religious \nholidays.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Trains drag on the floor, sleeves drape \nlike limp, pressed sheets of candied fruits, \nribbons fluttering like pale leaves.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I watch \nfamilies gathered together: the women, like worshippers, \ncircling around the smiling brides-to-be, as if they were \nthe anointed ones.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The men, in turn, submerge \ndeeper into couches, into sleep, while the haloed, \nveiled women cannot contain their joy, \nthey flash their winning smiles, and they are beautiful.\n", "title": "At the Bridal Shop", "id": 52459, "author": "Joseph O. Legaspi"}
{"poem": "No matter how she tilts her head to hear\n\r she sees the irritation in their eyes.\n\r She knows how they can read a small rejection,\n\r a little judgment, in every What did you say?\n\r So now she doesn\u2019t say What? or Come again?\n\r She lets the syllables settle, hoping they form\n\r some sort of shape that she might recognize.\n\r When they don\u2019t, she smiles with everyone else,\n\r and then whoever was talking turns to her\n\r and says, \u201cBreak wooden coffee, don\u2019t you know?\u201d\n\r She pulls all she can focus into the face\n\r to know if she ought to nod or shake her head.\n\r In that long space her brain talks to itself.\n\r The person may turn away as an act of mercy,\n\r leaving her there in a room full of understanding\n\r with nothing to cover her, neither sound nor silence\u00a0.\n", "title": "Going Deaf", "id": 52373, "author": "Miller Williams"}
{"poem": "The reception's not bad, across 50 years,\n though his voice has lost its boot-camp timbre. \nHe's in his 80's now and, in a recent photo, \n\nlooks it, so bald and pale and hard to see behind \nthe tallowing of flesh. Posing with friends, \nhe's the only one who has to sit\u2014the man \n\nthree of us couldn't pin. \"The Hugger,\" \nthey christened him before my class arrived\u2014 \nfor his bearlike shape and his first name, Hugh. \n\nHe fostered even us, the lowly track squad.\n \"Mr. Morrison,\" I still call him. \"You were \nthe speedster on the team, a flash,\" he recalls \n\nwith a chuckle. That's where his memory of me \nfades. And what have I retained of him beyond \nthe nickname, voice, and burly shape? The rest \n\ncould be invention: memory and desire's \nsleight-of-hand as we call up those we think\n we've known, to chat about the old days \n\nand the weather, bum hips and cholesterol,\n our small talk numbing as a dial tone, \nserious as prayer.\n", "title": "Long Distance to My Old Coach", "id": 58410, "author": "William Trowbridge"}
{"poem": "You\u2019re worried, so you wake her \n& you talk into the dark: \nDo you think I have cancer, you \nsay, or Were there worms \nin that meat, or Do you think \nour son is OK, and it\u2019s \nwonderful, really\u2014almost \nceremonial as you feel \nthe vessel of your worry pass \nmiraculously from you to her\u2014 \nGee, the rain sounds so beautiful,\nyou say\u2014I\u2019m going back to sleep.\n", "title": "Long Marriage", "id": 52328, "author": "Gerald Fleming"}
{"poem": "The older we get the stranger my husband becomes, \nand the less certain I am that I know him. \nWe used to lie eye to eye, breathing together\n in the immensity of each moment. \nLithe and starry-eyed, we could leap fences \neven with babies on our backs. \n\nHis eyes still dream off \ntoward something in the distance I can't see; \nbut now he gazes more zealously, \nand leaps into battle with a more certain voice \nover politics, religion, or art, \nand some old friends won't come to dinner. \n\nThe molecules of our bodies spiral off into the stars \non winds of change and chance, \nas we welcome the unknown, the incalculable,\n the spirit and heart of everything we named and knew so well\u2014 \nand never truly named, or knew,\n but only loved, at last.\n", "title": "This Stranger, My Husband", "id": 58411, "author": "Freya Manfred"}
{"poem": "I take my kaleidoscope off the shelf,\nlook through the little hole at the end\nof the cardboard tube;\n\nI turn \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and turn\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and turn\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and turn,\n\nletting the crystals shift into strange\nand beautiful patterns, letting the pieces fall\nwherever they will.\n", "title": "And Later . . .", "id": 58834, "author": "Jen Bryant"}
{"poem": "September breeze, an island chill,\nthe streets so quiet . . . still,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0seem wider now\nbut soon they fill\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0with gulls\n\nthat stride and squawk\nand boldly walk\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the middle of the road\u2014\nI wish I understood\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0gull-talk\n\nperhaps they, too, feel harmony\nno crowds, no noise\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0now once again\njust sand, waves, sky, and sea\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0. . . just gulls and me\n", "title": "The Day After Labor Day", "id": 58839, "author": "Joan Graham"}
{"poem": "Fifty-nine days to go.\n\nI can't find my purple beach towel.\nI can't even get to my closet\nwithout walking across\na sea of dirty socks.\n\nMom pokes her head into my doorway,\nsays:\n\u201cTime to clean your room, Sophie.\u201d\nAnd I have to admit\nshe's right.\n\nAnd it's not that cleaning my room\nis the worst thing to do.\nIt's just that there are so many other\nbetter things to do,\nlike\u2014\npainting my toenails Strawberry Pink,\neating a huge stack of Uncle Joe's pancakes,\ndreaming of riding the Ferris wheel,\nthinking up a story to tell\naround the campfire\non Scary Story Night,\npainting shells,\nriding waves . . .\nall the fun, wonderful,\nsandy, sunny things we do\nat Summerhouse Time.\n", "title": "First Saturday in June", "id": 58836, "author": "Eileen Spinelli"}
{"poem": "On Tuesday\non the way to Tween Time\nAlison is all bubbly with\nguess-whos\nand guess-whats.\n\n\u201cGuess who\u00a0really stole\nMrs. Bagwell's ring?\u201d\n\n\u201cGuess what Mrs. Bagwell\nis doing\u00a0now?\u201d\n\n\u201cGuess what you and I\nare going to do this Friday?\u201d\n\nI hold my hand up.\u00a0\u201cWhoa!\nOne guess at a time, please.\u201d\n", "title": "Guess", "id": 58837, "author": "Eileen Spinelli"}
{"poem": "Marvelous\nOpaque\nOrb.\nNight-light\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 for the world.\n", "title": "Moon", "id": 58832, "author": "Amy E. Sklansky"}
{"poem": "Universe\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Galaxy\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Solar System\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Planet\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Continent\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Country \u00a0 \u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0State\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0City\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Me \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\n", "title": "My Place", "id": 58833, "author": "Amy E. Sklansky"}
{"poem": "Divide\nthe year\ninto seasons,\nfour,\nsubtract\nthe snow then\nadd\nsome more\ngreen,\na bud,\na breeze,\na whispering\nbehind\nthe trees,\nand here\nbeneath the\nrain-scrubbed\nsky\norange poppies\nmultiply.", "title": "Nature Knows Its Math", "id": 58838, "author": "Joan Graham"}
{"poem": "I remember\nthe first day,\nhow I looked down,\nhoping you wouldn't see\nme,\nand when I glanced up,\nI saw your smile\nshining like a soft light\nfrom deep inside you.\n\n\u201cI'm listening,\u201d you encourage us.\n\u201cCome on!\nJoin our conversation,\nlet us hear your neon certainties,\nthorny doubts, tangled angers,\u201d\nbut for weeks I hid inside.\n\nI read and reread your notes\npraising\nmy writing,\nand you whispered,\n\u201cWe need you\nand your stories\nand questions\nthat like a fresh path\nwill take us to new vistas.\u201d\n\nSlowly, your faith grew\ninto my courage\nand for you\u2014\ninstead of handing you\na note or apple or flowers\u2014\nI raised my hand.\n\nI carry your smile\nand faith inside like I carry\nmy dog's face,\nmy sister's laugh,\ncreamy melodies,\nthe softness of sunrise,\nsteady blessings of stars,\nautumn smell of gingerbread,\nthe security of a sweater on a chilly day.\n", "title": "Ode to Teachers", "id": 58830, "author": "Pat Mora"}
{"poem": "When my aunt died,\nmy uncle raised his hands\nlike a prophet in the Bible.\n\u201cI've lost my girl,\u201d he said,\n\u201cI've lost my girl,\u201d over and over,\nshaking his head.\n\nI didn't know what to say,\nwhere to look,\nmy quiet uncle raising his voice\nto silence.\n\nMy aunt was eighty-seven.\n\u201cListen,\u201d my uncle said, sighing\nlike a tree alone at night,\n\u201cwomen know.\nEvery midnight on New Year's Eve,\nwhen others sang\nand laughed and hugged,\nyour aunt looked at me,\ntears in her eyes.\nSixty years.\nShe knew.\nOne day, we'd kiss good-bye.\u201d\n", "title": "Old Love", "id": 58831, "author": "Pat Mora"}
{"poem": "\u201cI'm so\u2014\u201d\nI start to apologize,\nbut Albert laughs.\n\u201cIt's not my birthday,\u201d\nhe says.\nI'm confused.\n\u201cIt's for\u00a0you, Bindi.\u201d\n\u201cMe?\u201d I say.\u00a0\u201cIt's not\nmy birthday, either.\u201d\nAlbert leads me to the chair.\nHe hands me the present.\nI open it.\nIt's one of those\nplastic trophy things.\nIt says:\u00a0\u201cWorld's Best Sister.\u201d\nI get all choked up.\n\n\u201cI'm really proud of you,\u201d\nsays Albert.\n\u201cYou are?\u201d\n\u201cTotally. You came through\na really rough time, Bindi.\u201d\n\u201cNot always with flying colors,\u201d\nI say.\n\u201cTrue, but you never gave up.\u201d\n\u201cI thought I did, sometimes.\nAnd you went to all this trouble?\u201d\nAlbert shrugs.\u00a0\u201cIt's what brothers do.\u201d\n\nAlbert's grandmother pops her head in.\nI look up.\nMegan and Kyra are in the doorway,\nsmiling.\nMrs. Poole leads us all\nover to the table.\nThe message on the cake reads:\n\u201cBravo to Our Bindi!\u201d\n\u201cWow!\u201d says Kyra.\nMegan turns to Albert.\n\u201cNeed another sister?\u201d\n", "title": "Suprise", "id": 58835, "author": "Eileen Spinelli"}
{"poem": "As Whistler heard colors like a stretch of music\u2014\nlong harmonies, violet to amber, double hummings of\nsilver, opal\u2014so, in reverse, these three in their capsule,\n\nfree falling two hours through the black Atlantic, ears\npopped, then filled with the music of Bach or Haydn,\nmight fashion a landscape. Low notes bring\na prairie perhaps, the sharps a smatter of flowers,\nas the pip notes of sonar spring back to the screen\nin little blossoms. They have come for the lost\u00a0Titanic\n\nand find instead, in the splayed beam of a headlamp,\nsilt fields, pale and singluar, like the snow fields\nof Newfoundland. \u00a0On its one runner blade the capsule slides,\nslips out through drift hummocks, through\nstones the Ice Age glaciers dropped, its trail\nthe foot-thin trail of a dancer, who\nplants, glides, at his head the flurry\n\nof a ship's chandelier, at his back a cinch-hook of icebergs\ncast down through the winds of Newfoundland.\nThe music these three absorb\nstops with the wreckage, with words\nlipped up through a microphone:\nflange,\u00a0windlass,\u00a0capstan, hull plating, then oddly, syllables\nat a slant, as light might slant through window slats,\n\nstairsteps, doorknob,\u00a0serving bowl,\u00a0teacup,\u00a0Bordeaux.\nMechanical fingers, controlled by the strokes\nof a joy stick, brush over debris, lifting, replacing.\nIn jittery strobe lights, camera lights, all colors\nground down to a quiet palette,\nangles return, corners and spirals\npull back to the human eye\u2014as if from some\n\niced and black-washed atmosphere, boiler coal,\na footboard and platter, each common shape\nbrightened, briefly held for the sake of retrieval.\nThe current spins silt like a sudden storm.\nWith the intricacy of a body the capsule adjusts,\ntemperature, pressure. Someone coughs, then the three\n\nsit waiting, as in Whistler's\u00a0Sad Sea\nthree are waiting. All around them are dollops\nof winter wind, everywhere beach and sea. No horizon\nat all in this painting, just a grey/brown thrum\nbeach to sea. How steady his breath must have been\non the canvas, his hands on the brushstrokes\nof lap robes, of bonnets and beach chairs, the pull\nof a red umbrella: each simple shape\nloved and awash in the landscape.\n", "title": "For the Sake of Retrieval", "id": 58827, "author": "Linda Bierds"}
{"poem": "Dear One,\n\nDo you have the time? Can you take\nthe time? Can you make\nthe time?\n\nTo visit me? The hospital doors have opened to spring,\nand its land\u00a0is high, dear one, each slope\nwith a vapor of crocuses. Its citizens, alas,\n\nare low. Despondent, in fact, though a jar of sun tea\ntans on the sill. The woman beside me\nhas opened the gift of a china doll, an antique\nFrozen Charlotte. Glass face, a cap of china hair,\nshellacked to the sheen of a chestnut.\n\nAt breakfast the shifting returned, dreadful\nwithin me: colors were infinite, part of the air . . .\nlines were free of the masses they held. The melon,\na cloud; and the melon, an empty,\noval lariat.\n\nThey have moved the canvas chair\nfrom the window. Sun, enhanced\nby the brewing jar, threw\nan apricot scorch on the fabric. The fruit,\na cloud. The fruit,\na doll-sized, empty lariat.\n\n D. O., into what shape\nwill our shaplessness flow?\n\n\n\u00a0\n\u00a0\nDear One,\n\nItalian escapes me. Still, I float to the operas\nof Hasse and Handel, a word now and then\nlifting through . . . \u00a0sole,\u00a0libert\u00e0. In an earlier time,\nthe thrum-plumped voice of a countertenor\u2014half male,\nhalf female\u2014might place him\namong us, we who are thickened\nby fracturings. D. O., now and then, my words\n\nbreak free of the masses they hold.\nThink of wind, how it barks through the reeds\nof a dog's throat. How the pungent, meaty stream of it\ncracks into something like words\u2014but not. I just sit\n\nin the sun room then, slumped in my fur and slabber,\nfeeling the wolf begin, back away, then some\ngreat-jawed, prehistoric other\nbegin, back away, then the gill-less,\nthe gilled, then the first pulsed flecks\nbegin, back away, until only a wind remains,\nvast and seamless. No earth, no heavens.\nNo rise, no dip. No single flash of syllable\nthat might be me. Or you.\n\n\u00a0\n\u00a0\nD. O.,\n\nNow a gauze of snow on the crocuses! I woke\nto its first brilliance\u2014midnight, great moon\u2014\nand walked through the hallways. The pin-shaped leaves\nof the potted cosmos threw a netted shadow,\n\nand I stopped in its fragile harmony,\nmy arms, bare feet, the folds of my limp gown\nstriped by such weightless symmetry\nI might have been\nmyself again. Through an open screen door\n\nI saw a patient, drawn out by the brightness perhaps,\nher naked body a ghastly white, her face\na ghastly, frozen white, fixed\nin a bow-mouthed syncope, like something\n\nout of time. As we are, D. O., here\nin the Highland, time's infinite, cyclic now-and-then\none simple flake of consciousness\nagainst the heated tongue.\n\n\u00a0\n\u00a0\nDear One,\n\nMy Italian improves:\nsole,\u00a0libert\u00e0,\nand\u00a0Dio, of course, D. O.! (Although He\nhas forsaken me.) The tea at the window\ngleams like the flank of a chestnut horse. It darkens\nimperceptibly, as madness does, or dusk.\nAll morning, I held a length of cotton twine\u2014\na shaggy, oakum filament\u2014\nbetween the jar and brewing sun.\nWe made a budding universe: the solar disc,\n\nthe glassy globe of reddish sea, the stillness\nin the firmament. At last across the cotton twine\na smoke began, a little ashless burn, Dio,\n\nthat flared and died so suddenly\nits light has yet to reach me.", "title": "The Highland", "id": 58828, "author": "Linda Bierds"}
{"poem": "They darken. In the sky over Florence,\nthe oblong clouds swell and darken.\nAnd hailstones lift back through the updrafts,\nthickening, darkening, until, swollen as bird eggs,\nthey drop to the cobbled streets.\n\nHorses! the child Galileo thinks, then\npeeks through the doorway\nto the shock of ten thousand icy hooves.\nAt his back, his father is tuning violins,\nand because there is nothing sharper at hand\n\nGalileo saws through a captured hailstone\nwith a length of E-string,\nthe white globe opening slowly, and the pattern inside\nalready bleeding its frail borders.\nLayers and layers of ice\u2014\n\nLike what? Onion pulp? Cypress rings?\nIf only the room were colder, and the eye\nfiner. If only the hand were faster,\nand the blade sharper, and firmer,\nand without a hint of song . . .\n", "title": "Prologue", "id": 58829, "author": "Linda Bierds"}
{"poem": "In a wide hoop of lamplight, two children\u2014\n\r a girl and her younger brother\u2014jump marbles\n\r on a star-shaped playboard. Beside them,\n\r in a chair near a window, their father\n\r thinks of his mother, her recent death\n\n\r and the grief he is trying to gather.\n\r It is late October. The hooplight spreads\n\r from the family, through the window,\n\r to the edge of a small orchard, where\n\r a sudden frost has stripped the fruit leaves\n\r and only apples hang, heavy and still\n\r on the branches.\n\n\r The man looks from the window, down\n\r to a scrapbook of facts he is reading.\n\r The spider is proven to have memory, he says,\n\r and his son, once again, cocks his small face\n\r to the side, speaks a guttural oh, as if\n\r this is some riddle he is slowly approaching,\n\r as if this long hour, troubled with phrases\n\r and the queer turn in his father's voice,\n\r is offered as a riddle.\n\n\r There is the sound of marbles\n\r in their suck-hole journeys, and the skittery\n\r jump of the girl's shoe\n\r as she waits, embarrassed, for her father\n\r to stop, to return to his known self, thick\n\r and consistent as a family bread.\n\r But still he continues,\n\n\r plucking scraps from his old book, old\n\r diary of wonders: the vanishing borders\n\r of mourning paper, the ghostly shape\n\r in the candled egg, beak and eye\n\r etched clearly, a pin-scratch of claw.\n\n\r A little sleet scrapes at the window.\n\r The man blinks, sees his hand on the page\n\r as a boy's hand, sees his children bent over\n\r the playboard, with the careful pattern\n\r of their lives dropping softly away, like\n\r leaves in a sudden frost\u2014how the marbles\n\r have stalled, heavy and still on their fingers,\n\r and after each phrase the guttural\n\r oh, and the left shoe jumping.\n", "title": "Wonders", "id": 58826, "author": "Linda Bierds"}
{"poem": "In the beginning,\nin the list of begats,\none begat\ngot forgot:\nwork begets work\n(one poem\nbears\nthe next).\nIn other words,\nonce there was air,\na bird \ncould be got.\nNot taken.\nNot kept.\nBut conjured up.\n\n\n", "title": "Beginning", "id": 58823, "author": "Lia Purpura"}
{"poem": "A clear choice\n\r is so sweet. Not\n\r reluctance but\nreal resistance.\n\r Joy-to-bursting,\n\r or none.\nGrief,\n\r not gradations.\n\r Someone essential\n\r and someone not.\n\r A good, dark\n\r strike-through\n\r versus\n\r weighing everything\n\r at the end of each day.\n\r Look, a cat killed a cardinal\n\r on an emerald lawn.\n\r For so many reasons\n\r it shouldn't have been\n\r beautiful.\n\r But that's also\n\r the kind of book\n\r I like best.\n", "title": "Rare Moment", "id": 58824, "author": "Lia Purpura"}
{"poem": "No one home.\nSnow packing\nthe morning in.\nMuch white\nnothing filling up.\nA V of birds\npulling\nthe silence\nuntil some dog\nacross the street\nbarks, and breaks\nwhat I call my peace.\nWhat a luxury\nannoyance is.\nIt bites off\nand keeps\njust enough of\nwhat I think\nI want to be endless.\n", "title": "Solitude", "id": 58825, "author": "Lia Purpura"}
{"poem": "Its nature\nis ruthless, nothing\nas simple as\nloss being ruinous,\nthose undeniable rainbows\nof oil, shock of bright\nsulphurous puddles\n(in goldfinch, in lemon)\nand now what,\nif that beauty's\nterrible plumage\nmakes you keep looking\nand disturbs your despair.\u00a0\n\n\n", "title": "Some Beauty", "id": 58822, "author": "Lia Purpura"}
{"poem": "I regard your affections, find your teeth have\nleft me a bruise necklace. Those lipstick\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 marks leech a trail, ear to ear, facsimile your\nsmile. Your 40 ounces of malt liquor, your\nshrink hate, your eyes dialing 911. The hearts\nyou draw with ballpoint on my cigarette packs\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 when I've left the room, penned in your girl's\n\ncursive, look demented, misshapen approximations\nof what I refuse to hand over. It's a nice touch,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 though: a little love to accompany the cancer.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 My thought follows you to where you spend\nyour days lying in bed, smoking and reading\nthe Beats. The accumulation of clothes and ashes\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 circles you, rising like a moat after rainfall.\n\nOften you are a study in detachment\u2014the trigger\neye is your eye, still as a finger poised to press\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 should one refuse to cooperate, and I wonder\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 how you can hate men so much when you think\nlike one. Think of what I could be doing outside\nif I could unlock the door of myself: think bikini,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 think soda fountain, think tradition, a day lacking\n\nentirely your brand of ambivalence. If you were\na number, I'd subtract you; if you were a sentence,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I'd rewrite you. Are you the one who left these\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 wilted flowers, are you the one whose PIN spells\nout H-O-L-E? Why are you wearing my clothes?\nIf you are weather, then I am a town, closing down\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 at word of your coming: you're a glacier on fast\n\nforward, you're direct as a detour, when I say\ngood-bye you move in next door. You say you\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 want to have my baby, you want to buy me a car,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and you're too young to enter a bar. I should tether\nyou to a tree in the dark park, allow the moon to stroke\nyour white neck. I should give you a diamond collar,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 walk you around the block and show you off.\n", "title": "A Brief Attachment", "id": 58820, "author": "Cate Marvin"}
{"poem": "I carved upon my desk unsayables.\nHe drank until he vomited on himself.\nEavesdropping, the others resisted sleep.\nThe house knew the pain of sun on lacquered floorboards.\n\nI carved it with the tips of scissors.\nA door creaked; he hung his head into the room.\nPlease, the others cannot sleep.\nThe shingles twitched like skin beneath moonlight.\n\nI spent the afternoon at a movie theater.\nHe staggered through brush toward a pay phone.\nThe others continued searching the streets for him.\nThe house held the moon above it, it was that imperial.\n\nI recall the room was empty when I came back in.\nHe was arrested at the Quik-Trip while calling collect.\nFrantic, the others circled the block again.\nThe house was ghost-white, older than the dead.\n\nI needle-pointed for 72 hours straight.\nHe claimed the whole situation humiliated him.\nRelieved, the others refrained from asking him what jail was like.\nThe house was swan to field, tiger to sea.\n\nI lay in bed by the time the others came home.\nHe couldn't recall putting on the orange jumpsuit.\nThe others asked if I'd seen him around.\nThe house shuddered,\u00a0No-o-o-o.\n\nThe house winced, winked its blinds.\nThe house whispered I should stay inside.\nThe others flew out the doors and into their cars.\nThe others slammed their cars into deer and cried.\n\nHe was more humiliated than he'd ever been.\nHe looked more or less the same, though his eyes were ringed.\nThe others hid in the basement.\nHe climbed the stairs and presented a ring.\n\nThe house swung its windows wide to ice.\nHe banged his nails blue, pinned his tongue to his tie.\nHe packed himself in a box, sent it to regions far off.\nThe others pressed their ears to the pipes.\n\nThe house wore its flames like a hat.\u00a0\nThe house called a radio talk-show.\nWe drank all night, laughed all night, the night he left.\nI shook in its mouth till the house drank me up.\n", "title": "After the Last Fright", "id": 58819, "author": "Cate Marvin"}
{"poem": "I never recline in splendor,\nI never take repose. The eyes\nof an old woman are blue\nand stick to me like insects to\na screen. She is not hating me,\nthough there are those who hate me,\nso I never lie in repose for fear\nthat if I agree with the vulnerability\nof sleep, I'll make my own murder.\n\nI don't embrace the unconscious\nor analyze my dreams. The eyes\nof people who hate me might be\nspiders crawling on my hands,\nor snails that leave their shells,\nbut I will not allow their acidic\ntounges to touch me. I belive\nin ghosts only now that her blue\neyes stick to me like humidity.\n\nI will not outgrow my spite,\nthough I read books that instruct\nme to. No, I'll always lie with my\nsleep beside me like a knife.\nI forgot my spite, once, only\nto wish I had not: He lay me\nupon the bed, crossed my arms\nacross my chest, then fell to me,\npressing a book between us.\n\nI never lie in repose. I am not\na portrait. But I think so still\nmy joints ache. One day, he\nshall not be the same (as I have\nnever been the same), and we\nshall read upon his stone a verse\nattributed to my name. This\nis my foresight and my fright,\nblooming red in his eye's white.\n", "title": "Anathema", "id": 58817, "author": "Cate Marvin"}
{"poem": "Inexplicable, the sign outside a deli scrawled\nwith FLOWERS\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and below that: ALWAYS.\nBut there were no flowers. And I have never\nseen an Always. I would like to,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and I have looked.\nI have kept my eye keen\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 for Always, have liked\nits idea like an expensive purse, coveting it as\nit appears,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 riding the arms of rich ladies who are\nso very lady. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I've rolled on velvet\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 cushions where I heard Always slept,\nand I once tried to kiss Always,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 but I don't think it was the Always\nI was looking for.\nI like your Always, it looks\nsuch a demanding pet. It looks like it kisses\nnice and soft.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0It looks like the bruise I found\nflowering on my knee.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I fell down at your voice.\nNot to worry, I got right back up, walked ten\nmore blocks\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and by then I was halfway home.\nI knock my knees blue\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and scabbed crawling\ntoward you, wanting flowers,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and always, always, always\nto slide against the cold vinyl of a car's seat,\nyour pale hands\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 on the bare backs of my legs,\nthat's one Always I want, and whoever knew\nthere were so many species\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of Always? Your bare hands\non the pale backs\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of my thighs, printing bruise,\nand if you said\u00a0Flowers, said\u00a0Always and we\ncould erect a forever\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of something like sheets\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and breakfast and an ordinary\nday, my eyes would\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 always slide across the table toward\nyou,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0to warm their twin marbles in your palm,\nmy face would flower\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 for you daily, so that when we\ndie, roses might petal\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 themselves out our throats.\n", "title": "Flowers, Always", "id": 58821, "author": "Cate Marvin"}
{"poem": "Roofers scrape the scaly lid\nof an auto shop beside the house\nwhere I live. Where I live\nshirtless men tear at the black\n\nscabs of a roof's old flesh, toss\nscraps into the back of a truck\nparked in the lot next to a house\nwhere I live. Where I live\n\na tarp rattles at night, plastic\nrustles, and trash is kicked along\npavement by wind. Roofers\ncurse and shell the tire shop's\n\npeeling lid beside the house\nwhere I live. Where I live\na tarp shakes all night; cans\nland on pavement, tossed from\n\nwindows of cars that blur by\nwhere I live. Where I live\nwindows are ladled red with\nlight your sun leaves me with.\n\nRepairs are made to roofs which \nwill never cover me. As I read\nthe road between us, tire tracks\nunscroll their tawdry calligraphy.\n\nAny day now you shall arrive, roar\ninto my eye with your mountainside.\nWhere I live when I live where\nlandscape cannot survive you.\n", "title": "Landscape Without You", "id": 58814, "author": "Cate Marvin"}
{"poem": "Before I go let me thank the man who mugs you,\n\r taking your last paycheck, thank the boss who steals\n\r your tips, thank the women who may break you.\n\n\r I thank the pens that run out on you midsentence,\n\r the flame that singes your hair, the ticket you can't\n\r use because it's torn. Let me thank the stars\n\n\r that remind you the eyes that were stars are now\n\r holes. Let me thank the lake that drowns you, the sun\n\r that makes your face old. And thank the street your car\n\n\r dies in. And thank the brother you find unconcious\n\r with bloody arms, thank the needle that assists in\n\r doing him in\u2014so much a part of you. No thanks\n\n\r to the skin forgetting the hands it welcomed, your\n\r hands refusing to recall what they happened upon.\n\r How blessed is the body you move in\u2014how gone.\n", "title": "On Parting", "id": 58813, "author": "Cate Marvin"}
{"poem": "I rode him through the village, smiling.\nHe tossed his tasseled mane in distress.\nThe villagers took his gesture as vanity,\nand made no attempt to rein him back.\nCamped at night by stream and fire,\n\nhe seemed to think stories were in order.\nThe ghoulish tales twisting out his mouth\nno longer frightened me. On leaving,\nI'd taken on a certain complacency. Later,\nhe'd characterize my silence as merely\n\nmean. But what is mean about a mouth\nthat, having no stories, claims it can provide\nno flower for the ear, no wine for the wind?\nI tried: I told the tale of him, which he\n(the version being mine) was not much\n\ninterested in. But all of us, the fattening\nmoon, the yewey trees, the sharp-toothed\nstars who combed their glowing backs against\nthe sky like cats: we laughed. And now\nthat I had left, where would I take him?\n\nHe was vehicle and, as such, responsibility.\nHe was deadening, tiresome, and necessary.\nI made ourselves a home and kept him gently\nas a pet. Visitors often wonder aloud,\nHow do you manage to keep such a creature\n\ninside? The floors are stained with his keep.\nI tell them my heart is huge and its doors\nare small. Once I took him in he grew. Now\nI cannot remove him without killing him,\nwhich, frankly, I have never wanted to do.\n", "title": "The Pet", "id": 58818, "author": "Cate Marvin"}
{"poem": "Someone else\u2019s child, not you, is running and running \ndown the beach. Both feet dig into the burning sand. \nTwo others heave one yellow bucket full of sugar-brown \n\nseaweed, their twin suits flowering\nseaweed, their twin suits flowering\na conflation of pink over blue behind the water. So\nlandmark cactus and landmine rock battlefield uphill toward\nthe early moon\u2019s white horse head and each wave collapses to your\nright, unsettles, shouting every half minute: have me, shhhh, \nhave me, shhhh, halve me, shhhh\u00a0... its rising fulcrum swell roar\nlabors\u2009\u2014\u2009up, down, there, gone, up, down,\u2009\u2014\u2009\ninterrogates the island body island floating\n\u00a0 \u00a0this ghost-wardrobe-ocean.\n\u00a0 \u00a0this ghost-wardrobe-ocean.\nThere are ways one can look, squint into the idyll light, see\nnothing exists between its shimmering fractions.\nNot even you. Especially not you, the daughter. Your tulip-gasp face \nrising from the heat, turned sideways, looking\nfor her amidst too many bodies, calling for her,\n\u201cMom,\u201d \u201cMom!\u201d \u201cMother,\u201d \u201cMother!\u201d \u201cMom!\u201d all other\nbodies thrown and going on without you, the bodies a testimony\nto being bodies relative to desire on the decomposing sand, or laid\nout on the table in the room, marked out on the glass atlas, \nlaid out under the god sun where \u201cMarcia!\u201d is the only \nname above ground she would recognize.\nname above ground she would recognize.", "title": "After a While, You Win: Death Pastoral", "id": 58796, "author": "Elena Karina Byrne"}
{"poem": "At the end of the story,\nWhen the plague has arrived,\nThe performance can begin.\n\nDisplacing flimsy heaven\nAnd its contraptions, now\nCome practical urgencies:\n\nGetting the price of salvation,\nDivined from the guts of birds\nOr from cruciform insects. Like\n\nThe savior Oedipus, kittens \nAre histrionic: defiant swagger\nThen ritual flight in terror. \n\n\u201cThe soul of the cat is the form \nOf its body.\u201d In Christendom,\nCivic mourners were hired\n\nTo walk the stricken city ways\nChanting: \u201cI am sick, I must\nDie\u2009\u2014\u2009Lord have mercy on us.\u201d\n", "title": "Ceremony", "id": 58798, "author": "Robert Pinsky"}
{"poem": "in the first grade i asked my mother permission\nto go by frances at school. at seven years old,\n\ni already knew the exhaustion of hearing my name\nbutchered by hammerhead tongues. already knew\n\nto let my salty gook name drag behind me \nin the sand, safely out of sight. in fourth grade \n\ni wanted to be a writer & worried \nabout how to escape my surname\u2009\u2014\u2009choi\n\nis nothing if not korean, if not garlic breath,\nif not seaweed & sesame & food stamps\n\nduring the lean years\u2009\u2014\u2009could i go by f.j.c.? could i be\npaper thin & raceless? dust jacket & coffee stain,\n\nboneless rumor smoldering behind the curtain\n& speaking through an ink-stained puppet?\n\nmy father ran through all his possible rechristenings\u2009\u2014\u2009\nian, isaac, ivan\u2009\u2014\u2009and we laughed at each one,\n\nknowing his accent would always give him away.\nyou can hear the pride in my mother\u2019s voice\n\nwhen she answers the phone this is grace, & it is \nsome kind of strange grace she\u2019s spun herself,\n\nsome lightning made of chain mail. grace is not \nher pseudonym, though everyone in my family is a poet.\n\nthese are the shields for the names we speak in the dark\nto remember our darkness. savage death rites \n\nwe still practice in the new world. myths we whisper\nto each other to keep warm. my korean name\n\nis the star my mother cooks into the jjigae\nto follow home when i am lost, which is always\n\nin this gray country, this violent foster home\nwhose streets are paved with shame, this factory yard\n\nriddled with bullies ready to steal your skin\n& sell it back to your mother for profit,\n\nland where they stuff our throats with soil\n& accuse us of gluttony when we learn to swallow it.\n\ni confess. i am greedy. i think i deserve to be seen\nfor what i am: a boundless, burning wick. \n\na minor chord. i confess: if someone has looked\nat my crooked spine and called it elmwood,\n\ni\u2019ve accepted. if someone has loved me more\nfor my gook name, for my saint name,\n\nfor my good vocabulary & bad joints,\ni\u2019ve welcomed them into this house. \n\ni\u2019ve cooked them each a meal with a star singing\nat the bottom of the bowl, a secret ingredient\n\nto follow home when we are lost: \nsunflower oil, blood sausage, a name\n\ngiven by your dead grandfather who eventually\nforgot everything he\u2019d touched. i promise: \n\ni\u2019ll never stop stealing back what\u2019s mine.\ni promise: i won\u2019t forget again.\n", "title": "Choi Jeong Min", "id": 58784, "author": "Franny Choi"}
{"poem": "To fish from a cloud in the sky\nYou must find a comfortable spot,\nSpend a day looking down\nPatiently, clear-sighted.\n\nPeer at your ceiling:\nWhere a light dangles, hook & line\nCould be slipping through.\n\nUnder the hull of a boat\nA fish will see things this way,\n\nLooking up while swimming by\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nA wavering pole\u2019s refraction\nCatching its eye.\n\nWhat will you catch?\nWith what sort of bait?\nTake care or you\u2019ll catch yourself,\n\nA fish might say,\nAs inescapable skeins of shadow\nScatter a net\nOver the face of the deep.\n", "title": "Cloud Fishing", "id": 58780, "author": "Phillis Levin"}
{"poem": "Onward the fairweather spleen.\nOnward the season of vent and caprice.\n\nGioved\u00ec Grasso flies the meat,\ntrees still larded with winter grease\u2009\u2014\u2009\nice, the Dead Time, the Flensing Time.\n\nFlirt fattened Thursday of December\u2019s gorge.\nThe twelve pigs of the zodiac stew the zeal,\nslow simmering giddy fizzling squeals.\n\nUncloister the close-air surgical theater.\nUngristle the knife-jester\u2019s grip.\n\nLet the butcher carnival begin!\n", "title": "Cold Zodiac and Butchered Pig", "id": 58769, "author": "Sylvia Legris"}
{"poem": "Bernadette: O sweet delightful house\nwhy do so many things get lost in you?\n\nHouse: Maybe you just dream you lose them.\n\nB: How do you know what dreams are?\n\nH: I pride myself on knowing everything you know.\n\nB: Oh, so you know we\u2019re getting you new windows?\n\nH: I have trouble with no & know. With knew & new too.\nWhy do people do that?\n\nB: I don\u2019t know; I don\u2019t mean I don\u2019t no.\n\nH: See, you make it hard for a house. Anyway I don\u2019t\nusually speak.\n\nB: Do you write poetry?\n\nH: I dabble. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s poetry or prose though.\n\nB: It\u2019s prose\u2009\u2014\u2009it\u2019s shaped like you.\n\nH: What about my roof?\n\nB: That would be a concrete poem.\n\nH: Even the time the tree fell through it?\n\nB: That would be a different genre, perhaps\nconceptual art.\n\nH: I\u2019d like to climb mountains. You can leave me\nwhenever you want but I\u2019m stuck with you.\n\nB: What was it like when people prayed in you?\n\nH: It was kind of creepy. I liked the Jewish people\nbetter\u2009\u2014\u2009more love of life. People can do anything they\nwant to me, I\u2019d like to be more proactive. I\u2019m just\nstuck here. Even a cult could move in.\n\nB: I\u2019ve never been a therapist for a house. How was\nyour childhood? Were you born?\n\nH: I was made of mostly local stuff. Don\u2019t set me\nme on fire. I tremble every time you light that wood stove.\n\nB: There was no heat when we moved into you; there\nwere also 24 doors.\n\nH: Don\u2019t blame me, I didn\u2019t do it.\n\nB: You didn\u2019t do anything but be here like an immobile\ntree, but you provided shelter. Can houses tremble?\nDo you have a sex life?\n\nH: None of your business. The sex life of houses isn\u2019t\nknown to humans, nor will it ever be.\n\nB: You seem to have mastered grammar but not homonyms.\n\nH: I liked it when I was unoccupied, full of birds\u2019 nests\non the porch & ghosts inside, I felt fulfilled.\n\nB: How did you like the Hebrew books?\n\nH: They reminded me of my bat mitzvah.\n\nB: You never told me you were Jewish.\n\nH: I thought you\u2019d never ask.\n", "title": "Conversation with the Tsatsawassa House", "id": 58771, "author": "Bernadette Mayer"}
{"poem": "A levitating anvil. Omen of seagull\nblown inland. Ranch gate said Riverstyx,\nbut it was the woodland that looked lethal:\n\nno place to put down your foot. Bucolics\ndemand boustrophedon. The by-the-book.\n\u201cThe male cicadas thrummed their stomachs\n\nwhile a dragonfly eyed us from a pole hook.\nRipening grapefruit. Us just under.\nShoulder to shoulder. Tree-shook.\u201d\n\nMilky skies belied the baffled thunder ...\u00a0\nThey left, not footsteps, trails in uncut grass.\n\u201cLike parallel snakes. No wonder.\u201d\n\nEurydice should have thought moccasins,\naka cottonmouths, apropos\nstealth. Distilled to systole-diastole. Assassins.\n\nAnd everywhere sharp palmettos\nclacked their tongues in homage to language\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\u201cI should have rhymed them with stilettos.\u201d\n\nWhy would E. shed her red wedge\nwith its Mary Jane band,\nwetland mosquito and midge\n\ncircling ankle (punctuated, understand,\nby the awl, to mimic ellipses ... )? \u201cBecause\u201d\n\u2009\u2014\u2009O.\u2009\u2014\u2009\u201cshe mimicked the shy strand\n\nof epiphyte\u2009\u2014\u2009Spanish moss\u2009\u2014\u2009\ngoose-pimpling the languid pond\nwith its dependent clause.\u201d\n", "title": "Cottonmouth", "id": 58789, "author": "Ange Mlinko"}
{"poem": "In the likely event of galactic calamity\u2009\u2014\u2009\nour sun\u2019s hydrogen reserves fused through,\nthe star-turned-red-giant bloating\nas do our corpses\u2009\u2014\u2009you will require flames.\nBetween the solar shockwave and Earth\u2019s\nrattling\u2009\u2014\u2009an opaque interval\u2009\u2014\u2009you must\nstare, but we people prior will have left\nno crude fluid for ignition, for light,\nhaving tapped this rock to gorge\nour bellies to petroleum ache.\nPerhaps you will have evolved\u2009\u2014\u2009blood\nsupplemented with Edison and Tesla\u2019s\ncurrents, half your body fed by generators\nthat slow-cure your biomass or waste.\nMaybe you will be self-luminous.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 But if you are still\u2009\u2014\u2009like we,\nlike me\u2009\u2014\u2009a mere meat-pod fated to watch\nMercury and Venus engulfed, surely\nyou hold designs for an interplanetary ark.\nAnticipate humanity\u2019s years spent\nadrift in the dark liquor of space\u2009\u2014\u2009lost\nwithin hibernation and missing mother-\nplanet, further estranged from all\nrevelation of how we came to be.\n\nFrom this unproven vantage point (inside\nour history with no solid alpha), I claim to pity\nyour inherited task\u2009\u2014\u2009to catalog the last\ntelluric pulse, close the case of man as now\nknown. But beneath my softened hide,\nI\u2019m envious. All of our missteps as shepherds,\nall the graffiti eclipsing our souls, all of it\nwill cinder and you will view this erasure\nfrom your Mars-bound barge. You will know\nthe phenomenon that is judgment, see it real-time\nas prophets allegedly witnessed. Man will never\nhave beheld a clearer beacon to be reborn\u2009\u2014\n", "title": "Dear Echo", "id": 58801, "author": "Kyle Dargan"}
{"poem": "I have my father\u2019s hair. Not much of a gift,\nchick, but can\u2019t say I\u2019m not generous.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Thick cloud blasting out of my head,\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0fat as baleen. The word, his tongue slugs\nagainst the roof of his mouth, is adsorbant,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 and he insists on the prefix in a coda of clicks:\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0ad-\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0ad- \u00a0 \u00a0 ad\u2019yer see?\u00a0like a whale, spearing\nits noise into the dark. Grows like bone,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 does hair, strengthens against stress, all our\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0violences legible in horn, hoof, feather,\nthe warm ocher of his thumbnail as he turns\n\u00a0 \u00a0 the beak over. I am naked, watching the plug\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0braid a borehole, my fragrant grief: tobacco, lanolin,\nbacon spit, grease. And he is starting to plait my wet hair,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 passing forward fresh streams to dark slick\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0over my shoulders and asking me to guess the weight\nof disaster. Absently, I count a kink from flu, a thickening\n\u00a0 \u00a0 for love, golden crown and here, at the root, a length of gray.\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0You tell by the color of the waves, he shrugs, walks\nto his bookshelf on the landing, holds out a finger, divines\n\u00a0 \u00a0 red, black, hardback, glaucous, yellow spine torn, a gap:\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0here, between books, he leaves the kittiwake beak\nafter dabbing it like a glass pipette at my cheek.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 Abacinate. Abscess. Abyss. Ab ovo. At Macondo, he reads\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0people sent sponges, lambs\u2019 wool, soil, books, anything\nat all bibulous to save them. In the end, they shaved\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the little girls, bagged their hair to make a gluey boom,\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0suck it up, the spoils. He starts to towel me down, tells me\nthat\u2019s what happens to naughty children, guides my feet\n\u00a0 \u00a0 into my socks and the kittiwake beak, his grim memento,\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0watches through nostrils, observes our wincing fractures.\nMy hair dries, keratin core still recording a damaged archive\n\u00a0 \u00a0 of \u200ahim, katabatic debris, red algae, bad blood cut\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0in cross sections of arctic ice. But they didn\u2019t\nuse any of it. They used their own ends to end the spill:\n\u00a0 \u00a0 propylene sacks sent to drink its own kin. Ad absurdum. Ad fin.\nAd creep. Adagio. Adam. I asked him what happened to all the hair,\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0but he said that\u2019s not the point of the story.\n", "title": "Deepwater", "id": 58799, "author": "Holly Corfield Carr"}
{"poem": "... only the new growth grass was wet behind her head and back.\nShe could feel it and she could smell the grass rising up around her,\nsaw the whole sky and saw the sky in its de facto language \neven though she was only seven. The year held out\na bird skull in its opened hand, whole.\nOther birds were singing in a French film with no subtitles.\nIt was black and white. But the sky was definitely blue, an invention\nof blue. A vector and hinge and rung of only\n\nblue already there, no matter where you looked.\nblue already there, no matter where you looked.\nIt took a long time. She looked a long time and in lockstep\npressed the tips of her fingers into the mole-black dirt \nbetween grass blades. Only, this is\nthe wrong story: she did not doom or injure\nany animals but she was restless then, and she was \nglad she was not safe.", "title": "During the Vietnam War", "id": 58794, "author": "Elena Karina Byrne"}
{"poem": "O put a hand on her hand\nOn Exterior Street\nThe day was full of day\nOn Exterior Street\nMoths drank tears from sleeping birds\nOn Exterior Street\nYou could think and look\nOn Exterior Street\nThe balls of the sycamore were swinging\nOn Exterior Street\nStoring the definitions loading the differences\nWhy did I still want to give it away\nWhy not wait and write about that beautiful green sweater\nI was a virgin and learnt all about cells from Penelope\nEven the private road is exterior\nAs one said all breasts are beautiful\nThe Flower this flower is falling over\nIt will never be more exalting \nIt will always be more exalting\nOn Exterior Street\n", "title": "Exterior Street", "id": 58777, "author": "David Shapiro"}
{"poem": "Listen first for anyone. Fill your pockets.\nMeasure the ditch with a wad of gum. Listen.\nStay still. Break open the gate with your fist.\na backseat to torch. Ditch it. You will need\nsomeone, still. but later. from a pay phone. for\nthe rope. Empty your pockets. Check for wild fur\nand the pant. who wad seats. or possums who hiss\nunder wild shrub. Sharp shooters check the wind.\nSo measure your mouth. the curve of howl. drool\nand its drop against the wooden tiles. Possum\nunder salt and pine. Screech it. Score the rope\nwith your teeth. Collect the drool in tin.\nCheck for rust. Pull out the nails. Wait\nfor the wood to sag of blood. to good and stalled.\nMount the mouth. slip down. Slide under\nsludge, until the caves open and break. and\nsalt your wounds. and play the black cricket.\nand nail on the stars. Run low to ground.\nuntil your hairs unseat. and your cheek\nfull of shotgun howls. and sags. and,\nand touches its own blood to light.\n", "title": "first, take a fistful of hair", "id": 58803, "author": "francine j. harris"}
{"poem": "From the weathered boards knots pop\nlike the eyes of potatoes. From brick\nsalients not a clink of a pupil in a loop-\nhole. Cannon, yes, but without their kick.\n\nIronically or entirely appropriately,\nwho can say, the Fort will not admit us.\nThe reenactors are going home; we see\nthem retreat, backs x\u2019d with sus-\n\npenders, toward the forest housecleaned\ninto state park. Ocean beyond the ramparts\nsuggests that stem-celled seconds fiend-\nishly agglomerate with fits and starts\n\ninto unprecedented forms. And so\nwho cares that a fort\u2019s built on a sand bar,\nthat we don\u2019t make it in, and go\nonly so far round the perimeter.\n", "title": "The Fort", "id": 58788, "author": "Ange Mlinko"}
{"poem": "Over an edge of cloud the naked angel\nblasts his long horn downward and they rise, \nor try to, skeletons, half-skeletons, \nthe still-fleshed bodies of the newly dead, \nrising and pushing up the stone lids, heaving\nthe crypt doors open, clambering over one \nanother, dumbstruck, frightened, warily peeking\nout from inside tombs, or out of ditches,\ntheir eye holes blacker than the black they peek from\nwhile some reach out of habit for a robe \nto hide a nakedness they have no longer, \na phantom shame that must be all the bones\nremember of the living flesh they were,\n\nand all of them worn away to nearly nothing,\nmore wisp of form than form, more wraith than wisp,\nas if before your eyes they\u2019re sinking into \nwhat they\u2019re rising out of, coming into view\nby fading from it, there and gone, as if \nthe very stone, unsure of what it holds,\ncan neither cling to nor relinquish now\nthe dream of something in it more than stone,\nother than hard or heavy, as over the face \nof it the air of a wished-for morning ripples \nthe robes to water while it washes through\nthe skulls and half-skulls tilted back to see \njust what the noise is that won\u2019t let them sleep.\n", "title": "Frieze", "id": 58785, "author": "Alan R. Shapiro"}
{"poem": "\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "title": "From \u201cGovernors Island\u201d", "id": 58783, "author": "Todd Colby"}
{"poem": "Three, no, four, that I know, married women\n of means and brains. One grew moss on her tongue, waking from dreams that smelled\n of mildew or hoary socks on a smothering train.\n One turned to falconry and the construction of seed bombs to be dropped from three-\n story\u00a0houses. One burned her burka upon being released\n from prison for the fourth time shamed so down deep in her molested self, washed\n henceforth in formal darkness, another burned\n her wedding dress in a fire pot while house finches splashed in the birdbath. [how one\nmoment touches on another moment and a thought flickers on and off ]\n One poet, obsessed with vulvae, son of a butcher,\n displayed a large bezoar on his coffee table, and slept in the bear nests in the d\u2019Ard\u00e8che,\n obsessed. One poet, adopted shortly after birth\n by a levee builder on the St. Francis, shot himself with a target pistol on a beautiful\n afternoon in early June. One lay across the tracks\n on the brink of the Tiananmen uprising. One picked up her manuscript, a block of ash,\n from the embers of her Oakland home. Bakhtin, as we know,\n smoked his very best pages in prison. The poems of Radn\u00f3ti were found by his widow in\n his overcoat, in a mass grave. One scribbled until his last\n conscious breath in an apartment in Waltham, brimmed over with hellish fury and\n dysfunctional passion. One was imprisoned on a ship\n in Valparaiso during the military coup, but lived with his \u201ciron bad health\u201d to carve a\n poem 3.5 kilometers long in the Atacama Desert,\n and another in the skies over Brooklyn; to cover thousands of pages with anguish and\n light. One is fascinated with lichens and other symbionts.\n One with fungi and other entheogens. [how the divine is elusive and pelf is conspicuous]\n One spent the better part of this life\n writing in the dirt with a stick, crossing out with his foot, that his entire tribe could decipher\n the mystery inscribed. [Another surrendered\nhis youth and gladness with lines of despondency and madness.] One broke faith with the word\n before the word could break faith with her, and built\n a mountain of detergent in her garage. One made a record of night-flying birds on a scroll\n longer than the roll of post-Katrina homicides\n in Orleans Parish. One does not like white flowers and has never\n shown her poems to a single solitary living soul. Another built a pair of metal wings to be\n worn once and then pressed between the covers\n of a golden book. One joined the Int\u2019l Concatenated Order of the Hoo-Hoo but\n absconded for Europe where he lives large\n as an unaffiliated psychedelic narcissist. Some just want the big life. Others suffer\n into the night at the thought of what\n they should have said, un autre esprit d\u2019escalier. One was able to buy his first car\n after a settlement from being bit by a pit bull.\n One resolved to trim her hair once she began to sit upon it.\n One walked alone from Savannah to Santa Monica. The perfect time to read\n the Bible and Gravity\u2019s Rainbow. One posed under a tortuosa beech at Arnold\n Arboretum when her picture was taken; wrote\n longhand crossing the Gulf, got a job statuing in New Orleans. One of the venerated\n continues to write though his sight has abandoned\n him and his garden is returning to wilderness. One snores and never locks her doors.\n One has lamellar ichthyosis and did not shed her collodion\n membrane. Rare relief springs from poetry and lying flat, cloud-searching on the grass.\n [how a glass ear is fashioned from words]\n One poet goes silent as fishes; one stands in a lightning field and slowly begins to move.\n [as a fugue composed in an open boat]\n One writes again every thousand+ days and plants all things magenta, so named\n for the Italian town of that name.\n One, as a lock against beggary and death, writes only elegies; was advised by a mild elder:\n It is all right to be depressed just as long\n as you don\u2019t let it get you down. [how wisteria can bring down a house/likewise cat\u2019s claw]\n One dreamed of leaving her colicky son\n under the bleachers. One survived multiple tumors in his brain decades after a year-long\n tour in Vietnam. Another walked off\n the uranium fields, survived melanoma and many more unkind cuts, torn awake.\n How here: [The story has a skip in it. Listen, Se\u00f1or, I have been used\nby my own ignorance, self-disgust, my instinct for failure. Pray for me.]\n Seen in this light (this damnable dingy light),\n Brothers and Sisters, Se\u00f1ors y Se\u00f1oras, I tell you how it is that we live, and what it is that\n we do, we get ourselves up, off our much abused sofas,\n Hermanos, Hermanas, to the old intolerable sound of hollow spoons in hollow bowls,\n to insure that our love has not left the world or else\n", "title": "From\u00a0\u201cThe Obscure Lives of Poets\u201d", "id": 58806, "author": "C. D. Wright"}
{"poem": "As though the overcast might tweak\n\nan airman\u2019s maps, his foretelling\u2009\u2014\u2009\nan airman\u2019s maps, his foretelling\u2009\u2014\u2009\nas though in chains of stop-start\nischaemia, I count myself unstressed,\nI walked along the human promontory\nrough-tongued as sugar paper,\nwalked from the metal-bashers\u2019 shop,\nvinegar and cayenne\nvinegar and cayenne\nsprinkled, spiked my glass of milk.\nWell-set icing blistered.Ice set into cat\u2019s-eyes.\nWell-set icing blistered.\nIce set into cat\u2019s-eyes.\nI walked through the empty lot\nthe enormous empty lot\nthe enormous empty lot\ntowards the store beckoning me, soon I\nturned my back\nturned my back\non every now forgotten unit. Get yours\nI said. Get yours.\nAnd I kept mine in ghost capital.\n\nSuch was our material ease that year in\nplenteousness, in full flush.\nSumptuous but interfusing, basking\nall the while June\nall the while June\nwas leaching sweetly,\nbite like molasses.\nbite like molasses.\nThe block the far side of the apron\nsquatted with capacity.\nHappy to take things as seen\nI browsed, I window-sloped,\nI browsed, I window-sloped,\nhoney lanyards brushed my lips.\nThen I too was stopped by the incident,\nthe episode, the voice that spake,lushness hit the doldrums.\nthe episode, the voice that spake,\nlushness hit the doldrums.\nFrigate birds collapsed on ice,\nwings like stick pyramids.\nwings like stick pyramids.\nI stood dangling my bunch of keys.\nSaw in the lake\u2019s heaped frozen\nwaves a new car\nwaves a new car\nexhibition, restaurant, luxury housing.\n\nThis then was the block whose feed I\nhung upon,\nhung upon,\nsuckling on the live stream so generous\nI could overflow,\ncreeping to within earshot,\nstealthily advancing within reach,\nthis then was the sourcemarooned in transitivity,\nthis then was the source\nmarooned in transitivity,\nflushed pink where sky spins and grips\nor tries but soaked it slithers off,\nits dazzle-shroud sagged\nsopping with new storylines,\nsopping with new storylines,\nslid down in folds, pleats, bales of\nepisodes.\nLines aspired to mottoes, mottoes\nLines aspired to mottoes, mottoes\nto a motionlessness\ntethered to reflections on void lagoons\nwhere intermittent light spelt\u00a0far less:\nblemished forms of love\nloving fault must needs be filled\nbut the field is made of faltering,\nbut the field is made of faltering,\nwe walk on thin ice,\nimages that relay genital parts.\nLook, each of us knows\nwhat we could do with any of these.\n\nA peasant with his crippled back and\nupright broom\nupright broom\ndusting off the sun-gilded runway,\na banker\u2019s shouting ontic features\ncrabbed and tentacular,\ncrabbed and tentacular.\ncrabbed and tentacular.\nLike everyone turns in on himself\nI saw the gathered looped and spooking\nout their children, these too\nstretched in their fire cavern,\nstretched in their fire cavern,\ntalk would shift about the board\ngrinding thick lines of violence.\nActivity lights\nActivity lights\nflashed, cycles juddered to a pit reprieve\nbehind star-blasted rock\npooling oil.\nStill within a smoke scarf\nStill within a smoke scarf\nthree sit and talk and think to send a call\nthrough wintery clearances.\nAcross the asphalt my bone vibrates.\n\nTap Tap. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Buzz.\nCalendar beetles\nCalendar beetles\ntap inside false ceilings,\nfailing brands\nfailing brands\ncollapse into the flickering of a hearth.\nClear light annuls\nClear light annuls\nred crackle, time-stamps every flash\nexpiring assets show in.\nLook, to make my callI found my mouth,\nLook, to make my call\nI found my mouth,\nlicked the barrier streaked with fuchsine,\nnibbled at the pith\nnibbled at the pith\nbetween the tree and bark. Red daddy,\naren\u2019t I big enough to walk,\npick up my legs, my pace\nLook, I hack at overgrowth,\nLook, I hack at overgrowth,\ntoo grown up, well-fed for\njelly mould cars and download junket.\nMagenta freights a weary sky,heaved limbs abdicate.\nMagenta freights a weary sky,\nheaved limbs abdicate.\nWho hankers to walk grass and thrift.\nAnkles pricked by gorse and heather.\nWho walks on creases now shale\npockmarked with spots of tar.\npockmarked with spots of tar.\nMy ghost is trying its weight\non stepping stones, look, it\u2019s peeling off,\nweaned into the asphalt river.\nweaned into the asphalt river.\n\nAhead I see this huge container.", "title": "Fuchsine", "id": 58782, "author": "John Wilkinson"}
{"poem": "Nothing rhymes in English with an orange.\nIt stands alone, with luster in a far tinge.\nIt stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe.\n\nOn Saturday it\u2019s blue like an orange\nOr like a surrealist sight rhyme in a garage.\nNothing rhymes in English with an orange.\n\nBut rime riche is rich enough for an orange.\nStill my doorman sings, Put it away in storage!\nIt stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe.\n\nOrange replies: I\u2019m drunk from my last bar-binge\nHalf-rhymes like hangovers suddenly impinge.\nBut nothing rhymes in English with an orange.\n\nWhile my wife in French eats one in her nude linge\nPlaywrights Synge and Inge flap forward on a car-hinge.\nIt stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe.\n\nPronounce it orange and then expunge.\nSo ends the story of the very violet orange.\nNothing rhymes in English with an orange.\nIt stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe.\n", "title": "Gratuitous Oranges", "id": 58778, "author": "David Shapiro"}
{"poem": "She wants to set the house on fire,\ngas in both hands, gas on the wall. \n\nIt\u2019d be like the sea torched from its floor. She\u2019d run like light\n\nfrom basement windows. or maybe \nsuck all arms to room ablaze, so housed\n\nin gut piping. the copper hollowed, reaching to a\nheated black rot at bottom. Like ants; maybe she crawl in the dark.\n\nlow on the belly maybe she thug out late, lay low\nand ink eight walls. lay low like cold, she might\n\nstrip bare, black glass. sometimes strut, sometimes\nhide late. she runs from house to ember, \n\na sum of sink. She breathes through flame\na room of spoons. one\n\nbar brick, one black-eyed room splatter, one torch\nspent for each arm, from coal to alley, she heaves\n\nhue of concrete into each limb. A house of blue-ring flames\nto mimic; someone better run.\n", "title": "gravity furnace", "id": 58802, "author": "francine j. harris"}
{"poem": "My friend was in a coma, so I dove\nDeep into his brain to word him back. I tried \n\nTo sing Hallelujah, I Just Love Her So in\nRay Charles\u2019s voice. Of course the silence grew.\n\nI couldn\u2019t sing the alphabet song. My voice\nCouldn\u2019t say words I knew: Because I Could \nNot Stop for Death, He Kindly Stopped for Me. \n\nI couldn\u2019t remember the Dodgers and the Giants.\n\nI tried to tell the stories that he and I \nStudied when we were young. It was confused,\nThe Invisible Man was laughing at how a man \nFelt History jump out of his thick fair head\nAnd beat him half to death, as being the nightmare\nOut of which Isaac Babel tried to awake.\n\nThe quiet. Next time won\u2019t you sing with me.\nThose great diminished chords: A girl I know.\n\nThe cold of the coma, lightless. The ocean floor.\n\nI struggled to tell things back from decades gone.\nThe mournful American soldier testifying\nAbout My Lai: I shot the older lady.\n\nViola Liuzzo, Spiro Agnew, Jim Jones.\n\nAnd by the time I count from one to four\nI hear her knocking. Quiet of the deep,\nOur mouths are open but we cannot sing.\n", "title": "In the Coma", "id": 58797, "author": "Robert Pinsky"}
{"poem": "The one who pulled the trigger with his toe,\nspread-eagled on his girlfriend\u2019s parents\u2019 bed,\nand split his face in halves above his nose,\nso that one eye looked east, the other west;\n\nsometimes that sad boy\u2019s bifurcation seems\nto replicate the math of love and grief\u2009\u2014\u2009\nthat zero sum of holding on and letting go\nby which we split the differences with those\n\nwith whom we occupy the present moment.\nSometimes I see that poor corpse as a token\nof doubt\u2019s sure twin and double-mindedness,\nof certainty, the countervailing guess,\n\nthe swithering, the dither, righteousness,\nlike Libra\u2019s starry arms outstretched in love\nor supplication or, at last, surrender\nto the scales forever tipped in the cold sky.\n", "title": "Libra", "id": 58790, "author": "Thomas P. Lynch"}
{"poem": "I take the penny from father\u2019s hardwood drawer.\nI take the penny from father\u2019s hardwood drawer.\nI turn the standing upright penny, its copper head cold, turn\nand turn till a small whorl-well of a circle bores into the center\nof the brick laid in our fireplace. Brick dust cradle. Thumb place. \nThis fireplace is wingless and cold. The penny multiplies in swarms. \nNine cloud coffins full of pennies are open and floating as bees float,\nlooking for my ears. Lynne\u2019s car washed violently down off\nthe cliff. I am too young to drive. Today, all memory ruins\ndownstream to the bee-swarm, becomes a plea from then till \nnow and grows reason\u2019s garden pulled out at the roots.\nThere\u2019s an ocean treading its own water\nThere\u2019s an ocean treading its own water\nto the waist of the coastline, water-skin flexing. I am standing\nupright: absent-me in a house full of grief and thievery. Above\nthe thumb place. I was a child there once, both boy and girl, standing\nupright. I turned the penny over on the desert brick, in the fire,\nstepped into the cold downstream ruin of \u200abees swarming\nin the hard rain\u2019s garden. I did not know what I was doing.\nIt was all made of the same shape and sound down there.", "title": "Lynne\u2019s Car Washed Violently Down, Off the Cliff", "id": 58795, "author": "Elena Karina Byrne"}
{"poem": "And the plane bobs\n\nback & forth likea boat at Kennedy\nback & forth like\na boat at Kennedy\nasphalt Space Station\nglass buildings,\nglass buildings,\nTaking off from Earth, to fly\nthe day after Stevenson did die\nheart attacked on GrosvenorSquare\u2019s July sunsetleafy calm.\nheart attacked on Grosvenor\nSquare\u2019s July sunset\nleafy calm.\n\nAnd I\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\u2018Om Om Om\u2019 etc\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\u2018Om Om Om\u2019 etc\u2009\u2014\u2009\nrepeat my prayers\nafter devouring the NY Post\n\u00a0 \u00a0 in tears\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\u00a0 \u00a0 in tears\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nThe radars revolve in their Solitude\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nOnce more o\u2019er these states\nScanning the cities and fields\nOnce more for the Rockies, to lookdown on my own spermy history\u2009\u2014\u2009\nOnce more for the Rockies, to look\ndown on my own spermy history\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nOnce more the roar of Life Insurance\nmurmuring in the empty plane5 hrs 20 min glimpse\nmurmuring in the empty plane\n5 hrs 20 min glimpse\nThe most beautiful Mantra, \u2018Hari\nOm Namo Shivaye\u2009\u2014\u2009\u2019\nOm Namo Shivaye\u2009\u2014\u2009\u2019\nAnd the vibration of Shiva\nin my belly mergeswith the groan of machineflying into milky sky\u2009\u2014\u2009\nin my belly merges\nwith the groan of machine\nflying into milky sky\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nIf we should crash the flops of bloody\nSkin won\u2019t be singingthat sweet song\u2009\u2014\u2009\nSkin won\u2019t be singing\nthat sweet song\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nOnce more the green puddles of\nmoss in the messy grey bay\nmoss in the messy grey bay\nonce more wingtip lifting to the sun\n& whine of dynamos in thestunned ear,and shafts of light on the pagein the airplane cabin\u2009\u2014\u2009\n& whine of dynamos in the\nstunned ear,\nand shafts of light on the page\nin the airplane cabin\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nOnce more the cities of cloud\nadvancing over New York\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nadvancing over New York\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nOnce more the houses parked like used\ncars in myriad row lots\u2009\u2014\u2009\ncars in myriad row lots\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nI plug in the Jetarama Theater\nsterilized Earphones\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00adit\u2019s wagner!\nsterilized Earphones\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nit\u2019s wagner!\nthe ride of the valkyries!\nWe\u2019re above the clouds! The\nSunlight flashes on a giantbay!Earth is below! The horns ofSiegfried sound gigantic inmy ear\u2009\u2014\u2009\nSunlight flashes on a giant\nbay!\nEarth is below! The horns of\nSiegfried sound gigantic in\nmy ear\u2009\u2014\u2009\nThe banks of silver clouds like mountain\nranges\nranges\nI spread my giant green map\non the air-table\u2009\u2014\u2009\non the air-table\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nThe Hudson curved below to the\r floor-drop of the World,\nfloor-drop of the World,\n\nMountain range after mountain range,\nThunder after thunder,Cumulus above cumulus,World after world reborn,in the ears with the RhineJourney brasses\u2009\u2014\u2009Spacey Sublimecharges of Aether and DrumbeatAscending & Descendingthe Empty Aeternitas, free\u2009\u2014\u2009\nThunder after thunder,\nCumulus above cumulus,\nWorld after world reborn,\nin the ears with the Rhine\nJourney brasses\u2009\u2014\u2009\nSpacey Sublime\ncharges of Aether and Drumbeat\nAscending & Descending\nthe Empty Aeternitas, free\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nClick! over upper NY State\na witty guitar bumps withpianos & drums\u2009\u2014\u2009oops!announcer! oops Peter Sellerssounds breathing in ye ear\u2018The Fleshpots! The Muckrakers!\u2019\na witty guitar bumps with\npianos & drums\u2009\u2014\u2009oops!\nannouncer! oops Peter Sellers\nsounds breathing in ye ear\n\u2018The Fleshpots! The Muckrakers!\u2019\n\nThe little silver cow clouds flow\neastward under the wing,the horizon\u2019s a blue mug, there\u2019sgreen furze of forest naked &unpioneered with littlestrings of highway & housesbrown pendant\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\neastward under the wing,\nthe horizon\u2019s a blue mug, there\u2019s\ngreen furze of forest naked &\nunpioneered with little\nstrings of highway & houses\nbrown pendant\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nLakes with little bungalows\u2009\u2014\u2009\nOnce more it\u2019s summer and the folks at\nease by their pastoral garagesreading the\u00a0Journal AmericanHeadline screams\nease by their pastoral garages\nreading the\u00a0Journal American\nHeadline screams\n\n100,000 more U S Troops to Vietnam\nAdlai Flopped Dead Of Heart Attack On Sidewalk\n\nand a cloverleaf to transport the family\n\u00a0 \u00a0 past the Electronic Gasworks\u2009\u2014\u2009\u2019Tis the LSD in the balmy upstateBreeze seeping from UndergroundFactory bank\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\u00a0 \u00a0 past the Electronic Gasworks\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\u2019Tis the LSD in the balmy upstate\nBreeze seeping from Underground\nFactory bank\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nSwitch the channel!\nSurf music, oolee!Plunk of Hawaii, I can feelthe moons, all seven of themrising over the Mauna Loasof my Grammar School Decade\u2009\u2014\u2009\nSurf music, oolee!\nPlunk of Hawaii, I can feel\nthe moons, all seven of them\nrising over the Mauna Loas\nof my Grammar School Decade\u2009\u2014\u2009\nOrange moons, green moons,\nblue moons, purple moons,white moons sinking under wan waves,Black moons over the lowerEast SideRed moons over China\u2009\u2014\u2009\nblue moons, purple moons,\nwhite moons sinking under wan waves,\nBlack moons over the lower\nEast Side\nRed moons over China\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nSkipping along one by one,\nbouncing over the cragged horizonof Jupiter thru theclip clop ethereal violin stringsand the violas running thru mysolar plexus,they\u2019re skipping down the\nbouncing over the cragged horizon\nof Jupiter thru the\nclip clop ethereal violin strings\nand the violas running thru my\nsolar plexus,\nthey\u2019re skipping down the\n\nHollywood streets in duck pantsand 1940s nylon skirts\u2009\u2014\u2009\nHollywood streets in duck pants\nand 1940s nylon skirts\u2009\u2014\u2009\nIt\u2019s total Idiocy! a new song\nfrom the tragic Fiji Islandlove affair, a 30 year oldteenager weeping into her brassiere,her boyfriend\u2019s just sailed offfor Korea and left hersobbing with orgasmsfrom the Bowery in W W I.\nfrom the tragic Fiji Island\nlove affair, a 30 year old\nteenager weeping into her brassiere,\nher boyfriend\u2019s just sailed off\nfor Korea and left her\nsobbing with orgasms\nfrom the Bowery in W W I.\n\nThem plunked guitars and\ndescending Melachrino\u2014\u2009Ugh!\ndescending Melachrino\n\u2014\u2009Ugh!\nIn certain moods it cd / be\nseductive, over the\nseductive, over the\nwingtip it\u2019s a Mediterranean\nBlue approaching Cleveland (?)hung with puffclouds &Hawaiian guitars shining inthe sunlight\u2009\u2014\u2009\nBlue approaching Cleveland (?)\nhung with puffclouds &\nHawaiian guitars shining in\nthe sunlight\u2009\u2014\u2009\nA children\u2019s show! over the\r low Catskills! Speaking ina monstrous little voice,Pyramus & Thisbe\u2009\u2014\u2009Up here?\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00adThe Lion\u2019s part, \u2018you may doit extempore for it is nothing butroaring\u2009\u2014\u2009\u2019Distracted from her \u2018wide bodyin the rain\u2019\u2009\u2014\u2009I gotta smokesome Hashish in the bathroom.\nlow Catskills! Speaking in\na monstrous little voice,\nPyramus & Thisbe\u2009\u2014\u2009Up here?\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nThe Lion\u2019s part, \u2018you may do\nit extempore for it is nothing but\nroaring\u2009\u2014\u2009\u2019\nDistracted from her \u2018wide body\nin the rain\u2019\u2009\u2014\u2009I gotta smoke\nsome Hashish in the bathroom.\n\n\u2018With impish glee, changes the\nhead of Bottom into a donkey\u2019\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nhead of Bottom into a donkey\u2019\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nand the bottom hills are garden\ngreen stretched all wayswith scratch-brown patchyvalley runnels\u2009\u2014\u2009\ngreen stretched all ways\nwith scratch-brown patchy\nvalley runnels\u2009\u2014\u2009\nAppears a tray with Old Fashioned!\nI\u2019ll be drunk before this idiocy\u2019s over!\n\nFinished the salad and daydreamed of war\nand entered the air above checkered farmlands\nto Lake Erie\u2009\u2014\u2009\nto Lake Erie\u2009\u2014\u2009\nI disappeared in a cloud of smoke\nin the plastic lavatory,flushing my breath\u00a0 \u00a0down the maelstrom in the toilet\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nin the plastic lavatory,\nflushing my breath\n\u00a0 \u00a0down the maelstrom in the toilet\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nhours and hours to go o\u2019er America\nand beef being served above the white\ncarpet-clouds\u2009\u2014\u2009\ncarpet-clouds\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nA fucking police state! I\nfeel at bay, in mid-air!\u2018Breaking\u2019 the \u2018Law\u2019\u2009\u2014\u2009dreadin the breast guilt inthe head, as I punched theodorous green soap spigot to perfumethe washbowl & drownthe sweet Eastern smellI carried\u2009\u2014\u2009\nfeel at bay, in mid-air!\n\u2018Breaking\u2019 the \u2018Law\u2019\u2009\u2014\u2009dread\nin the breast guilt in\nthe head, as I punched the\nodorous green soap spigot to perfume\nthe washbowl & drown\nthe sweet Eastern smell\nI carried\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nNow I\u2019ll make that thornful pilgrimage\non feet of meat & bone across that\nland I see stripped& ruled below mymagic carpeted-cabin.Another sip of old fashioned!I\u2019ll go to jail down there, heartbeating wildly! Notbecause love\u2019s in my hands,buttocks kissed in the Rockies,but because this dreamy muzakedliquored luxurious air-ride\u2019sEuphoria\u2019s no heaven\nland I see stripped\n& ruled below my\nmagic carpeted-cabin.\nAnother sip of old fashioned!\nI\u2019ll go to jail down there, heart\nbeating wildly! Not\nbecause love\u2019s in my hands,\nbuttocks kissed in the Rockies,\nbut because this dreamy muzaked\nliquored luxurious air-ride\u2019s\nEuphoria\u2019s no heaven\nIf it costs blood-flaps on the smooth\r hairless skin of high cheekedVietnamese teenagers.Everybody forgets who\u2019s bodysuffers the physical pain of Orders\nhairless skin of high cheeked\nVietnamese teenagers.\nEverybody forgets who\u2019s body\nsuffers the physical pain of Orders\nundreamt in these High Air\r Conditioned modern Powers.\nConditioned modern Powers.\n\nBam! Brahms brasses bang bright bombs\ndown over Ohio\u2019s highways\nI eat meat and a pea\nI eat meat and a pea\nKlemperer changes to Dance of\nthe Seven Veils, the Head\nthe Seven Veils, the Head\nof John America cut off\nwill be presented: Coffee\u2009\u2014\u2009\nwill be presented: Coffee\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nAnd other Channels\nKeep pushing Rock & RollBottom on Shakespeare, HallelujahWaikiki, Bedtime Story,Decline of the West Frug,They\u2019ll even begin the movieThe Satan Bug after\u00a0 \u00a0I finish my cheesecake\u2009\u2014\u2009\nKeep pushing Rock & Roll\nBottom on Shakespeare, Hallelujah\nWaikiki, Bedtime Story,\nDecline of the West Frug,\nThey\u2019ll even begin the movie\nThe Satan Bug after\n\u00a0 \u00a0I finish my cheesecake\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nAnything to keep me from looking down\non that innocent vastitude\non that innocent vastitude\nBottomed with Earth speckled\nwith townships houses likewhite dots, park centers,\nwith townships houses like\nwhite dots, park centers,\n\nMan has overtaken his universe,\nsays the music, and picturesof Mars are expected whenI set my sneakers on Land\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nsays the music, and pictures\nof Mars are expected when\nI set my sneakers on Land\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nBeethoven proclaims ethereal Joy!\nStrauss is sadder by 2 centuries\r and still the longing strainScreams in my ears frommiddleeurope Concert Halls\nand still the longing strain\nScreams in my ears from\nmiddleeurope Concert Halls\n\nI do declare that I am God!\nI do declare by my beard & fame\nthat I will die!\nthat I will die!\nI do declare war on Satan!\nI do declare I am willing to\ntake the glory death onmy hideous stomach\ntake the glory death on\nmy hideous stomach\nand sing my Prophesy before\nthe Nations!\u2009\u2014\u2009\nthe Nations!\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nHark! ye murderers! Hark\nye stuffed with vengeance!\nye stuffed with vengeance!\nHark ye Angel Recordings! Hark\nye Joel Sebastian!\nye Joel Sebastian!\nMay I ask ye Sir Army, whom\nye hope to Kill?\nye hope to Kill?\n\nHark ye Chicago, the time for\nEarth\u2019s Revolution\u2019s here!\nEarth\u2019s Revolution\u2019s here!\n\nHark ye hopeless lovers, thine own\nsweet will be done!\nsweet will be done!\nAs Huncke came despairing Eastward\nfrom this blue vast lake,\nfrom this blue vast lake,\n\nWhat misery has been created\nto drown the joyful chantof all our souls?\nto drown the joyful chant\nof all our souls?\n\nOh great bend of shore, the men\non thee too many,Chicago flowing with\u00a0 \u00a0red smoke\non thee too many,\nChicago flowing with\n\u00a0 \u00a0red smoke\n\nPouring out hatred of Communism\n\nIt\u2019s you angry Hell Hounds\nwho have created Stalin andhis 15,000,000 murderedSlavic hysterics\u2009\u2014\u2009\nwho have created Stalin and\nhis 15,000,000 murdered\nSlavic hysterics\u2009\u2014\u2009\nIt\u2019s your Capitalism\nand your weak suited newsmen\nand your Hearst Bank Mind\nand your Hearst Bank Mind\nthat has pushed the Communist\nparty to murderyour own asshole!\nparty to murder\nyour own asshole!\nIt\u2019s your bombs over Korea, it\nis your fire in Vietnam, itis your shooed diplomatacross his desk that has liedlike a Communist bureaucratwhen the order came to cease thepenetration of the flesh withsharp instruments\u2009\u2014\u2009\nis your fire in Vietnam, it\nis your shooed diplomat\nacross his desk that has lied\nlike a Communist bureaucrat\nwhen the order came to cease the\npenetration of the flesh with\nsharp instruments\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nWagner rides again! Hark\nYe, Ministers of Power andye Presidents of AmericaYe Premiers of vast Chinaand ye Dalai Lamas ofTibet\u2009\u2014\u2009Hark ye balding soldiersreading Mainlineron the jetplane speedingthru the Wagner Doomsabove these blueatomic waters andScratched terrainabove Chicago\u2019s tinyTowers\u2009\u2014\u2009\nYe, Ministers of Power and\nye Presidents of America\nYe Premiers of vast China\nand ye Dalai Lamas of\nTibet\u2009\u2014\u2009\nHark ye balding soldiers\nreading Mainliner\non the jetplane speeding\n\n\nthru the Wagner Dooms\nabove these blue\natomic waters and\nScratched terrain\nabove Chicago\u2019s tiny\nTowers\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nAt this moment there is a skeletal\nman lying on the leafshit cobblesof Dasawamedh Ghat,\nman lying on the leafshit cobbles\nof Dasawamedh Ghat,\nAt this moment by our will a\nchild is beaten in the balls bya mad communist lieutenantin an Albanian Phnom-penh\u2009\u2014\u2009\nchild is beaten in the balls by\na mad communist lieutenant\nin an Albanian Phnom-penh\u2009\u2014\u2009\nAt this moment Joe Christ Screams\nand falls raving on theneck of a homosexual in Hu\u1ebf\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00adHe bites his neck, he kisses,he sucks the blood of the corpse\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nand falls raving on the\nneck of a homosexual in Hu\u1ebf\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nHe bites his neck, he kisses,\nhe sucks the blood of the corpse\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nAt this moment a symphony of screams\narises in Uruguay as the riotis \u2018quelled\u2019 by teeth-bash,\narises in Uruguay as the riot\nis \u2018quelled\u2019 by teeth-bash,\nAt this moment bombs on Barcelona burst\nAt this moment the charming children\nof Joliet cower in Detention,planning raids on weak villageswhere Me-Kong hath sprouted\u2009\u2014\u2009\nof Joliet cower in Detention,\nplanning raids on weak villages\nwhere Me-Kong hath sprouted\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nI prophesy thee death, Rock Island\r lined with white bungalows\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00adfor thy mean farm\u2019s televisiononly communication to Saigon\u2009\u2014\nlined with white bungalows\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nfor thy mean farm\u2019s television\nonly communication to Saigon\u2009\u2014\nA bank of white cloud advances\nas I advance on the Xylophones\u2009\u2014\u2009\nas I advance on the Xylophones\u2009\u2014\u2009\nBongo Rock! Nigeria advances\nwith clouds! Earth isHidden in white fleeceas the drums batter in Mechanic invisibility\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nwith clouds! Earth is\nHidden in white fleece\nas the drums batter in Mechanic invisibility\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nWe\u2019re all out west, the squares\nof perfect farmland, introducedby Thelonious Monk Off Minor\u2009\u2014\u2009\nof perfect farmland, introduced\nby Thelonious Monk Off Minor\u2009\u2014\u2009\nwhich penetrates these grouped hives\nof suburbia diminutive on the Planet\u2009\u2014\u2009\nof suburbia diminutive on the Planet\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nThat Classical channel always\nresounds thru hemispheres ofEmpty Becoming,\nresounds thru hemispheres of\nEmpty Becoming,\nBeing filled with drumbeats and total\norchestra shaking AscensionsCrane\u2019d\u2019ve come to ForeverIf he could\u2009\u2014\u2009Over Indiana, the flutes\u2009\u2014\u2009Over Iowa and Omaha\norchestra shaking Ascensions\nCrane\u2019d\u2019ve come to Forever\nIf he could\u2009\u2014\u2009\nOver Indiana, the flutes\u2009\u2014\u2009\nOver Iowa and Omaha\nA technicolor picture begins\non channel one\u2009\u2014\u2009Electronic Bee music.The great steel safe doorcrashes shut.\non channel one\u2009\u2014\u2009Elec\ntronic Bee music.\nThe great steel safe door\ncrashes shut.\nThe buzzing sciencefiction\nlights & gauges ascend likeBrahms didn\u2019t\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00adA new man is born\u2009\u2014\u2009The police answer the telephone\u2009\u2014\u2009CIA looks at its wristwatch\u2009\u2014\u2009\nlights & gauges ascend like\nBrahms didn\u2019t\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nA new man is born\u2009\u2014\u2009\nThe police answer the telephone\u2009\u2014\u2009\nCIA looks at its wristwatch\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nThey leave the atomic testing area\nGoodnight Doctor!\u2009\u2014\u2009\nGoodnight Doctor!\u2009\u2014\u2009\nThe glass door \u00a0 \u00a0opens automatically,\na wolf runs round the barbed\nwire, it\u2019s not state prison,it\u2019s a scientific laboratory.\nwire, it\u2019s not state prison,\nit\u2019s a scientific laboratory.\nPaid for by Hollywood US Govt.\nYour own taxes Dearie, it\u2019s\n\nY O U\nY O U\n\nMr Electronics Nightclub\ntotally disconnected on yon farmhouse\nin mid afternoon amid thepeaceful buzzing of the cows\u2009\u2014\nin mid afternoon amid the\npeaceful buzzing of the cows\u2009\u2014\nthat created this faraway red bongo\nmusic issuing from tank eyeson the screen\u2009\u2014\u2009your desireby the boathouse.\nmusic issuing from tank eyes\non the screen\u2009\u2014\u2009your desire\nby the boathouse.\nA yacht on the screen in color\nwith a gangster spy conversation\n\n\u2018outspoken on the immorality of war\u2019\u2018superb loan operator\u2019 ...\u00a0\n\u2018outspoken on the immorality of war\u2019\n\u2018superb loan operator\u2019 ...\u00a0\nActually on this screen a confrontation\na pacifist (who\u2019ll turn outto be a murderous spiderman?)\na pacifist (who\u2019ll turn out\nto be a murderous spiderman?)\n\u2018about the most secret chemical\nwarfare station on this hemisphere.\u2019\nwarfare station on this hemisphere.\u2019\n\n\u2018Reagan has been murdered andDr. Baxter has vanished\u2019\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\u2018Reagan has been murdered and\nDr. Baxter has vanished\u2019\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nSo it\u2019s not my paranoia\nas I ride over these peaceful green\nsilent squares of \u00a0 \u00a0 AnonymousStevenson birthstate\u2009\u2014\u2009\nsilent squares of \u00a0 \u00a0 Anonymous\nStevenson birthstate\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nThe movie on this airplane is projecting\nthe same angst as my hashishbathroom\u2009\u2014\u2009\nthe same angst as my hashish\nbathroom\u2009\u2014\u2009\nSo I share in this vast fantasy\nwhich rises like poison gas\nfrom the man-wormed farmlands\napproaching Missouri River\u2009\u2014\u2009\napproaching Missouri River\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\u2018There\u2019s something beyond the Botulinus\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nIndestructible,\u2019our fantasies\u2019 guineapig doom\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00adThe germ of Death loosedon Earth\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00a0 \u00a0The sacred drawer opened\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The Satan Bug\u00a0 \u00a0Disappeared!\nIndestructible,\u2019\nour fantasies\u2019 guineapig doom\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nThe germ of Death loosed\non Earth\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\u00a0 \u00a0The sacred drawer opened\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The Satan Bug\n\u00a0 \u00a0Disappeared!\n\nOh heaven what have we come to\r up here looking down onourselves,man\u2019s consciousness is splitout of his self\u2009\u2014\u2009\u2018Have theytold youjust whatthis newViruswill do?\u2019\nup here looking down on\nourselves,\nman\u2019s consciousness is split\nout of his self\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\u2018Have they\ntold you\njust what\nthis new\nVirus\nwill do?\u2019\n\n\u2018Paranoids ... they\u2019re very\nbrilliant the most of them\u2014\u2009my choice a Messiah\u2019as the \u2018obey or else\u2019culprit who stole theSatan Bug.\nbrilliant the most of them\n\u2014\u2009my choice a Messiah\u2019\nas the \u2018obey or else\u2019\nculprit who stole the\nSatan Bug.\n\nShit the movie\u2019s attacking\nus Messiahs.\nus Messiahs.\n\nNot in this consciousness can I\nresolve the confusion of Syntax.Thin veil above the land,the dotted grid of planet smoke\u2009\u2014\u2009\nresolve the confusion of Syntax.\n\n\nThin veil above the land,\nthe dotted grid of planet smoke\u2009\u2014\u2009\nabove the rills\u2019 erosions on\nbrown ploughlands\u2009\u2014\u2009\nbrown ploughlands\u2009\u2014\u2009\n(I\u2019m smoking Cancers)\n\nThis hashi is depressing,\nThis hashi is depressing,\nOr else the mind I\u2019m in,\nor else the plane I sit within,\nor else the movie croaking in\nthe loudspeaker,\nthe loudspeaker,\nor else America itself\nthat made the mind movie airplanenational Paranoia.\nthat made the mind movie airplane\nnational Paranoia.\n\u2018Who is this? Who is this!\u2019 on\nthe telephone.\u2018We have to get\nthe telephone.\n\u2018We have to get\neveryman in the country to find him!\u2019\n\nAnd westerly the land\u2019s become\nDry brown\u2009\u2014\u2009and mottledwith Glacier tracks streamingSouth\u2009\u2014\u2009Epochs of\nDry brown\u2009\u2014\u2009and mottled\nwith Glacier tracks streaming\nSouth\u2009\u2014\u2009Epochs of\nParanoia have come & gone,\nThe Great White Ice skidded\nits wayrippling the terrain likewind over Summer water,the bemedalled soldier lightsanother cigarette\u2009\u2014\u2009\nits way\nrippling the terrain like\nwind over Summer water,\nthe bemedalled soldier lights\nanother cigarette\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nand now it\u2019s flat land and exact\nSquares of Arnold\u2019s fishing property\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nInvisible police networks are set\nup in the movie,always complaining, always compleyntsViolins piercing the ears\u2009\u2014\u2009The Glacial skidsruining the land for farming1\u200a/2 million years later\u2009\u2014\u2009\nup in the movie,\nalways complaining, always compleynts\nViolins piercing the ears\u2009\u2014\u2009\nThe Glacial skids\nruining the land for farming\n1\u200a/2 million years later\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nAnd the clouds\u2019ve covered the entirevisible earth;\u2014\u2009that was the Platte Isaw before, streaked with Neal;now great Rockies streakedwith snow\u2009\u2014\u2009\nAnd the clouds\u2019ve covered the entire\nvisible earth;\n\u2014\u2009that was the Platte I\nsaw before, streaked with Neal;\nnow great Rockies streaked\nwith snow\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nRemove the earphones at the\nclimax, undivided attentionto thepatches of summer snow onthe razor hills\u2009\u2014 agreen valley & its brown roadsettled in betweenblack shoulders\u2009\u2014\u2009waves of mountains slantan inch above the oldhuman hummingbird hills\u2009\u2014\u2009glacier patches & dust powderhollows filled with white cold\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00admisted over by small vastfog\u2009\u2014\u2009\nclimax, undivided attention\nto the\npatches of summer snow on\nthe razor hills\u2009\u2014 a\ngreen valley & its brown road\nsettled in between\nblack shoulders\u2009\u2014\u2009\nwaves of mountains slant\nan inch above the old\nhuman hummingbird hills\u2009\u2014\u2009\nglacier patches & dust powder\nhollows filled with white cold\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nmisted over by small vast\nfog\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nSo I turn back to the\nSatan Bug movie\u2009\u2014\u2009they\u2019re\nSatan Bug movie\u2009\u2014\u2009they\u2019re\nin a green Ford riding thru desert Utah\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nAs we pass the sunny Wasatch\nglittering blue south\u2009\u2014\u2009\nglittering blue south\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nHelp police! invading a baseball\ndiamondto find the DoomsdayBomb in Los Angeles\u2018Power for its own sake!\u2019\ndiamond\nto find the Doomsday\nBomb in Los Angeles\n\u2018Power for its own sake!\u2019\nOver a grand canyon.\n\nShake Baby Shake!\n\u2018You\u2019ve got every reason onEarth to be mad.\u2019\n\u2018You\u2019ve got every reason on\nEarth to be mad.\u2019\nAnd of course the Beatles\nswinging into a Sea of Clouds\u2018What this loven man can do,\u2019\nswinging into a Sea of Clouds\n\u2018What this loven man can do,\u2019\n\nTyphoid Mary! We\u2019re\nall hypocrites, tell me WhyThe Beatles shouldn\u2019t spill the beansSecret which mightLand them in Bedlam,or Yevtuchenko in Lubyankainstead of Spoleto ifhe spoke without450 corrections.\nall hypocrites, tell me Why\nThe Beatles shouldn\u2019t spill the beans\nSecret which might\nLand them in Bedlam,\nor Yevtuchenko in Lubyanka\ninstead of Spoleto if\nhe spoke without\n450 corrections.\n\nAnd if I opened my mouth I\u2019d\nbe accused of treason in every\ndirection, high teacup Jazz,Marxist, Demorep, Castroite, Maoist\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\ndirection, high teacup Jazz,\nMarxist, Demorep, Castroite, Maoist\u2009\u2014\u2009\u00ad\nOne\u2019d be fallen on and torn to\npieces by Chinese teeth,\nAmerican knives, Scouse\nbicycle chains, Vedadocops hairy hands,\nbicycle chains, Vedado\ncops hairy hands,\nDemolished by the Dept. of Social\nUndermining, thrownin Ft Leavenworth, sentto Siberia, reeducated inArchangel,sent to work on a Communein the fields beneaththe Potala.Meanwhile flying over a reddesert,\u2009\u2014\u2009\nUndermining, thrown\nin Ft Leavenworth, sent\nto Siberia, reeducated in\nArchangel,\nsent to work on a Commune\nin the fields beneath\nthe Potala.\nMeanwhile flying over a red\ndesert,\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nIs civilization going to\nBlow up?\nBlow up?\n\nIn ten years I\u2019ve climbed over\nthis sunny windowsill John Wieners\nthis sunny windowsill John Wieners\nNow from Olympian Heights I look\nDownon the rough giant earth blackStreaks of snow on foreign hillsthe vast cloudmass walledover the South, abovethe Impenetrable Blue Spaceskied upwardas Brahms crash swirlsround my eardrums,\nDown\non the rough giant earth black\nStreaks of snow on foreign hills\nthe vast cloudmass walled\nover the South, above\nthe Impenetrable Blue Space\nskied upward\nas Brahms crash swirls\nround my eardrums,\nand what should I prophesy,\r Messiah?\nMessiah?\n\nThe wing tip pierces thru\nmist white Brahms\u2009\u2014\u2009\nmist white Brahms\u2009\u2014\u2009\nI must come back to my body.\n\nNo more question but the force\nof wingtip lifting upwardto reveal the heaven-roof\nof wingtip lifting upward\nto reveal the heaven-roof\nas music burst\nthru the Stereophonicgrey tipped earphonesVast as the visibleUniverse\u2009\u2014\u2009\nthru the Stereophonic\ngrey tipped earphones\nVast as the visible\nUniverse\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nOur desires pounding on,\nour desire mounting, past Mars,\nour hearts beating a million years,\nOtto Klemperer enraged on\nthe podium,\nthe podium,\nSalome dancing again in\nthe airplane cabin,\nthe airplane cabin,\n\nDemands of the Beethovenian fist\nin the Lightningstorm!\nin the Lightningstorm!\n\nI am that I am,\nrenewed week after week,\nrenewed week after week,\n\u00a0 \u00a0planeride after planeride,\nDespair after streetcornerheadache despair.\nDespair after streetcorner\nheadache despair.\nJoyfully flying to death,\n\ntill the atom cellularconsciousness invadeswith its cancerous stabs and\u00a0 \u00a0 flashes of electric chair.\ntill the atom cellular\nconsciousness invades\nwith its cancerous stabs and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 flashes of electric chair.\nAll so solid it can\u2019t even be a\ndream\ndream\nTho the phantom orgasm\nof paraplegics proves\nof paraplegics proves\nyou can come in pure\nConsciousness\nConsciousness\n\u00a0 \u00a0& spurt your semen all over\n\u00a0 a dreamwall bordello\u00a0 painted blue in Lima\u00a0 \u00a0while the groin\u2019s deadlimp & wrinkled underthe transparent cellophanesheets of Experiment.\n\u00a0 a dreamwall bordello\n\u00a0 painted blue in Lima\n\u00a0 \u00a0while the groin\u2019s dead\nlimp & wrinkled under\nthe transparent cellophane\nsheets of Experiment.\n\nIt\u2019s too sad! It\u2019s too happy!\nIt\u2019s here, unfolding like\na giant rose,\na giant rose,\nIt changes slow as eternity\nshifts, it flies in triumphthru the western clouds,\nshifts, it flies in triumph\nthru the western clouds,\nit approaches its old\nmemory city to findits loves grown old & saneand its own body middleaged\nmemory city to find\nits loves grown old & sane\nand its own body middleaged\nIt flies toward old wrinkled faces,\nIt\u2019s inexplicable, it rises\nTriumphant above the VeryEarth and Screamsin Delightoverthe cumulus clouds.\nTriumphant above the Very\nEarth and Screams\nin Delight\nover\nthe cumulus clouds.\nFasten your seatbelts in\nthe Mist!The violins are ascending inevery direction!\nthe Mist!\nThe violins are ascending in\nevery direction!\n\n\u2018We have climbed to 35,000 feet!\u2019\nThe desert flows like a river\nthru the mountain passes,wrinkled like our own facesabove the smooth sand.\nthru the mountain passes,\nwrinkled like our own faces\nabove the smooth sand.\n\nNevada\u2019s rough belly\nbreathless below!\nbreathless below!\n\nI\u2019ll get drunk & give no shit,\n& not be a Messiah.and have long talks goofinwith Wieners in Belvedereby a stinky pond,\u00a0 \u00a0drinking Dorian Gray martinis.And \u2019twixt earnest & jokeEnjoyed the Ladeye, John.We\u2019re stuck in our\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Selves.And who else to be stuck in?A courteous Astronaut comedown from the Horizon\u00a0 to gaze in our eyes with patience,\u00a0 take our hand, and lift it\u00a0 trembling, to his khaki breast\u2009\u2014\u2009\n& not be a Messiah.\nand have long talks goofin\nwith Wieners in Belvedere\nby a stinky pond,\n\u00a0 \u00a0drinking Dorian Gray martinis.\nAnd \u2019twixt earnest & joke\nEnjoyed the Ladeye, John.\nWe\u2019re stuck in our\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Selves.\nAnd who else to be stuck in?\nA courteous Astronaut come\ndown from the Horizon\n\u00a0 to gaze in our eyes with patience,\n\u00a0 take our hand, and lift it\n\u00a0 trembling, to his khaki breast\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nHalf the visible universeexcluded from this fantasybut who\u2019s counting?Mama? God? Dear widowered\u00a0 \u00a0Olson? Creeleystumbling over his pecker?\nHalf the visible universe\nexcluded from this fantasy\nbut who\u2019s counting?\nMama? God? Dear widowered\n\u00a0 \u00a0Olson? Creeley\nstumbling over his pecker?\nMe, murmuring, what a beautiful\nbig pecker you got to apimply 16 year old boywith his pants down on\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 my pallet,\nbig pecker you got to a\npimply 16 year old boy\nwith his pants down on\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 my pallet,\nwho talked all night about his\nintellectual disorders\nintellectual disorders\ntill my belly softened & I kissed\nhim on his shirt?\nhim on his shirt?\n\nBeethovenian Climaxes Impossible?\nWagnerian Valkyrie rides\nImmaterial?\nImmaterial?\nSalome dances too Incredible?\nWhat\u2019re we groveling in but the\nmost magnificent Aluminum Heaven?complete with transcontinentalcloudcities\u2009\u2014\u2009Complete with million horsepowerJetroar astounding to anypre war Daedalus\u2009\u2014\u2009\nmost magnificent Aluminum Heaven?\ncomplete with transcontinental\ncloudcities\u2009\u2014\u2009\nComplete with million horsepower\nJetroar astounding to any\npre war Daedalus\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nClouds racing eastward, the\r plane lowering slowly thruthe veils, over theflat Sacramento valley,Down\nplane lowering slowly thru\nthe veils, over the\nflat Sacramento valley,\nDown\n\ninto the inhabited shores,\nthe myriad minute boxes stacked\nin rows, curved in clustersplanted like vast letters inthe giant flats\nin rows, curved in clusters\nplanted like vast letters in\nthe giant flats\nabove the empty silent Space\u00ad\nhangar in South Peninsula\u2009\u2014\u2009\nhangar in South Peninsula\u2009\u2014\u2009\nOver the Bay, pointing toward\nGolden Gate & Tamalpais\nGolden Gate & Tamalpais\nHome,\nto the weak sad destinyof aging companion selves\nto the weak sad destiny\nof aging companion selves\ntrembling above the red broadcasting\ntowers,\ntowers,\nDown to the brown rippled\nwater, past yacht basin parks past\nwater, past yacht basin parks past\noutdoor movies empty\nsunlight glaring off thewhite billboards,\nsunlight glaring off the\nwhite billboards,\n\nOM, Down to the\nground roar tremble\nalong the white lineJetbrakes roaring,Brahms screamingSymphony concludingas we taxi slowlydown the runwayto the metalvoicedTerminal,\u00a0 United.\nalong the white line\nJetbrakes roaring,\nBrahms screaming\nSymphony concluding\nas we taxi slowly\ndown the runway\nto the metalvoiced\nTerminal,\n\u00a0 United.", "title": "New York to San Fran", "id": 58768, "author": "Allen Ginsberg"}
{"poem": "Why waste away in a box\nwhen you could be a nurse tree?\nThat\u2019s what they call dead logs:\nmushroomeries of the woods.\n\nYour living room\u2019s a wood\nof couches, books, and chairs.\nYou\u2019re dead not at all, but\ncould you be preparing\n\nfor things to grow inside\nthe chest of the log\nyou plan to become:\ncherished compost heap\n\nwhere heat turns the brown\nmess of feelings, sorry,\nthat\u2019s peelings, into comp-o-\nsition? For we who love\n\nour hands in dirt, a leaf skirt\ndecomposing seems an ideal\nstation between this life and\nnext: I visit your room \n\nas on a forest walk. Passing\na fallen log\u2009\u2014\u2009is that you?\u2009\u2014\u2009\nI see a scarlet fungus cap\npop up from friable bark.\n", "title": "The Nurse Tree", "id": 58804, "author": "Molly Peacock"}
{"poem": "Across from the gorgeous dog park,\nmen dream against poodle-pissed trees\u2009\u2014\u2009\ntheir pillows made from breath captured\nin milk cartons. Only arid, temperate\nclimate offers respite. Let us suppose\nthey have tales, here in this city\nwhere filmed stories turn a mint.\nAll around, one wide screen\u2009\u2014\u2009the dark hills\ndue north pixel-pocked with villa lights.\nBelow, streets hemmed with haggard\nbrown men\u2009\u2014\u2009jack-in-the-box bodies\never unfolding. Who is pitching\nthis script? Title: \u201cThe Child of 1968.\u201d\nVoiceover: After the Integration Apocalypse,\none man must find his way in a land\nwhere the sole survivors who look or speak\nlike him are those rendered disturbed\nand indigent. Assume the Motion Picture\nAssociation eager to levy a \u201cRated R,\u201d\nthen remember that those who judge\nviolence never shared your definition\nof savagery. A culling is all your eyes\ndecipher\u2009\u2014\u2009your herd thinned. No urban\nwildlife anywhere to be found,\nyet hunger for a hunt remains.\nTagline: A hero must choose\u2009\u2014\u2009\nbetween starving or bartering one\u2019s own\nskin. Plot: Amidst the solar famine, bio-\nelectric studies revealed melanin\u2019s subtle\ncharge\u2009\u2014\u2009the brown population gone\nmad from being sapped like CopperTops.\nImagine The Matrix without the extra-\nterrestrial machines. Imagine that among us\nthere have lived men churning statistics,\ndevising a human harvest, a brutal method\nto subsist off fellow men and leave their bones\nfor the gnawing of next century\u2019s mutts.\n", "title": "Olympic Drive", "id": 58800, "author": "Kyle Dargan"}
{"poem": "Or is it\na poor trait\n\nI am a\nparasite\n\nI lift off\nthe wings\n\nof others\n", "title": "Portrait", "id": 58787, "author": "John Yau"}
{"poem": "There is a man\nwho circles the perimeter\nwith a baby in his arms\nunmoving.\nLocusts burn\nwith the silhouettes\nof saints at dusk.\nSaints are in the cloud.\nWe are in a dry storm.\nThe man extends his circles\npulling the baby through\nthe cactus scrub.\nLook at his melting trainers\nin the heat,\nthey aren\u2019t what he asked for.\nThere are black leather skids\non the dry stone wall.\nPeople in black cloaks run\nout of the corner of your eye.\nA pig turns on a spit.\nThe prairie is a terrarium for the blaze\nbut the edge is dry of fire.\nIt is the height of one season,\nbushes burn.\nA burnt five-year-old\nwithout eyelids\nturns quick cartwheels\nthrough the heat wave\nunder the big pale sky,\nblack and blue.\n", "title": "Prairie Burning", "id": 58779, "author": "Rachael Allen"}
{"poem": "1. brett returns my mother to the wilderness\n\nI slipped them into my friend\u2019s palm\u2009\u2014\u2009\nthe tiny crucifix, and dove,\nfrom off my mother\u2019s pendant watch\u2009\u2014\u2009\nand I asked her to walk them up through the brush\ntoward timberline, and find a place \nto hurl them, for safekeeping. Now,\nshe writes, \u201cI walked up the canyon at dusk,\nwarm, with a touch of fall blowing down the canyon,\ncame to an outcrop, above a steep\ndrop\u2009\u2014\u2009far below, a seasonal\ncreek, green willows. I stood on a boulder\nand held out my hand. I wished your mother all the\nlove in the world, and I sent the talismans\nflying off the cliff. They were so small,\nand the wind was blowing, so I never saw or\nheard them land.\u201d My mother is where\nI cannot find her, she is gone beyond\nrecall, she lies in her sterling shapes\nlight as the most weightless bone in the body, her\nstirrup bone, which was ground up \nand sown into the sea. I do not know\nwhat a soul is, I think of it \nas the smallest, the core, civil right. And she\nis wild now with it, she touches and is\ntouched by no one knows\u2009\u2014\u2009down, or\ndroppings of a common nighthawk,\nroot of bird\u2019s foot fern, antenna of\nHairstreak or Echo Azure, or stepped on by the\nhuge translucent Jerusalem cricket. There was\nsomething deeply right about \nthe physical elements\u2009\u2014\u2009atoms, and cells,\nand marrow\u2009\u2014\u2009of my mother\u2019s body,\nwhen I was young, and now her delicate\ninsignias receive the direct\ntouch of the sun, and scatter it,\nunseen, all over her home.\n\n\n\n2. cross and dove\n2. cross and dove\n\n I had not wanted them, and I hadn\u2019t known\n what to do with them, the minuscule\n symbols of my mother\u2019s religion,\n I looked for a crack in the stone floor of the\n cathedral but could not find one. Then I thought\n of the wilderness near Desolation,\n and asked my friend to carry them up\n to a peak of granite, and let the wind take them. Since\n then, it has been as if my mother\u2019s\n spirit matter has been returned\n into the great bank of matter,\n as her marrow had been sifted down into\n the ocean. It doesn\u2019t matter, now, if I\n ever wanted to disassemble\n my mother. The sixteenth-of-an-inch-\n across cross, and the silver line drawing\n of a dove are cached, somewhere, that is nowhere\n to be found. Now I think of the nature of metal, and how\n long the soul-dolls of her trust will last in their\n spider-egg-sac of roots, needles,\n quartz, feathers, dust, snow, shed\n claw. Her belief she would have an eternal\n life was absolute, I think.\n It would not be good to think of my mother\n without her God \u2014 like a hermit howling in the\n moonscape of a desert. Once, when she was old \u2014 like an\n exquisite child playing a crone\n in the school play \u2014 we talked about heaven.\n She wasn\u2019t sure exactly how, but she\n knew her father would be there, and her elder\n brother, and her second husband \u2014\n maybe it was a heaven for four,\n the three men and her. It was so\n easy to make my mother happy\n in her last years, to tell her that I\n could just see her, as a kitten, in God\u2019s\n lap, being petted. Her eyes sparkled with more\n beams than any other eyes I have seen.\n I have sent the tokens of her everlasting being\n into the high altitude.\n They will shine long after I can sing her \u2014 sing what I\n perceived through the distorted prisms of my vision.\n I don\u2019t know if I saw my mother\n or did not see her. Day and night,\n her charms will gleam in the brush or stream, will\n reflect the mountain light in little\n pieces of unreadable language.", "title": "The Relics", "id": 58773, "author": "Sharon Olds"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Sissieretta Jones", "id": 58786, "author": "Tyehimba Jess"}
{"poem": "three times the snake appeared before me & like a gun said follow when you hear fire keep your body close to the ground the snake said point blank I am here for your protection I don\u2019t have a trigger but I have a tongue to your neck to your ear to your temple follow me down the barrel three shots to steady ready the gray-\u00adeyed snake spit warming its body along the crack you can\u2019t go back from where you are unarmed handle the snake the way you handle a gun at your belt with a glove spirit guide the gun away from the body follow each bone as it moves up & down the back", "title": "spirit animal", "id": 58776, "author": "Beth Bachmann"}
{"poem": "Spoon of O, spoon of nothing,\n\nspoon of ankh, spoon of poonss,\n\nspoon of the lady at the dressing table,\n\nspoon of \u00a0, spoon of female,\n\nspoon of \u00a0 , spoon of war,\n\nspoon of the world, spoon of War of the \n\nWorlds, spoon of stick figure,\n\nspoon of \u00a0 girl, spoon of \u00a0\u00a0boy,\n\nspoon of \u00a0\u00a0spear thrower, spoon of fire,\n\nspoon of egg, spoon of egg race,\n\nspoon of dish, spoon of ran away with,\n\nspoon of ran away with and came back, spoon of never came back,\n\nspoon of silver, spoon of gold,\n\nspoon of milk, spoon of Saturn,\n\nspoon of vulva, spoon of vagina,\n\nspoon of Ant, spoon of Bee,\n\nspoon of Venus, spoon of Serena,\n\nspoon of vugg, spoon of vum,\n\nspoon of spider, spoon of sun,\n\nspoon of fee, fie, foe, fum.\n\nSpoon of everyone. Spoon\n\nof the belly. Spoon of the empty belly.\n\nSpoon of the full one. Spoon of no one\n\nhungry. Spoon for everyone.\n", "title": "Spoon Ode", "id": 58774, "author": "Sharon Olds"}
{"poem": "Whitman is a foot-long sub\nof grass-fed beef,\nFalstaff, a fat onion ring,\nOphelia, a wailing wine.\nJudas Iscariot\u2019s kiss\nturns my lips against themselves.\nEmily D makes my tongue\nwant to fly a kite.\nThe tongues of angels,\nI cannot swallow.\n", "title": "Tasting Braille", "id": 58791, "author": "Kathi Wolfe"}
{"poem": "Some see a dove\nAnd think Pigeon\nOthers see pigeons\nAnd think Dove\n\nSome know that all pigeons are doves\nSome angry as if pigeons were not doves\n\nBut the city lover knows \nAnd I try to reconstruct\nThe tattoo on one of your many branches\n\nThe more arms the more power\nI think of you, O pale tattoo\nAll pigeons, all doves\nYou friendly cliff-dwellers\n", "title": "Tattoo for Gina", "id": 58775, "author": "David Shapiro"}
{"poem": "I think first of two sparrows I met when walking home, \nlate night years ago, in another city, not unlike this\u2009\u2014\u2009the one\n\nbird frantic, attacking I thought, the way she swooped\ndown, circled my head, and flailed her wings in my face; \n\nhow she seemed to scream each time I swung; how she\ndashed back and forth between me and a blood-red Corolla\n\nparked near the opposite curb; how, finally, I understood:\nI spied another bird, also calling, its foot inexplicably\n\ncaught in the car\u2019s closed door, beating its whole bird\nbody against it. Trying, it appeared, to bang himself free.\n\nAnd who knows how long he\u2019d been there, wailing. Who\nknows\u2009\u2014\u2009he and the other I mistook, at first, for a bat.\n\nThey called to me\u2009\u2014\u2009something between squawk and chirp,\nsomething between song and prayer\u2009\u2014\u2009to do something, \n\nanything. And, like any good god, I disappeared. Not \nindifferent, exactly. But with things to do. And, most likely, \n\non my way home from another heartbreak. Call it 1997,\nand say I\u2019m several thousand miles from home. By which\n\nI mean those were the days I made of everyone a love song.\nBy which I mean I was lonely and unrequited. But that\u2019s\n\nnot quite it either. Truth is, I did manage to find a few\nto love me, but couldn\u2019t always love them back. The Rasta\n\nlaw professor. The firefighter\u2019s wife. The burlesque dancer\nwhose daughter blackened drawings with ms to mean\n\nthe sky was full of birds the day her daddy died. I think\nhis widow said he drowned one morning on a fishing trip.\n\nAnyway, I\u2019m digressing. But if you asked that night\u2009\u2014\u2009\ndid I mention it was night?\u2009\u2014\u2009why I didn\u2019t even try\n\nto jimmy the lock to spring the sparrow, I couldn\u2019t say,\ntruthfully, that it had anything to do with envy, with wanting\n\na woman to plead as deeply for me as these sparrows did, \none for the other. No. I\u2019d have said something, instead,\n\nabout the neighborhood itself, the car thief shot a block\nand a half east the week before. Or about the men\n\nI came across nights prior, sweat-slicked and shirtless,\ngrappling in the middle of the street, the larger one\u2019s chest\n\npressed to the back of the smaller, bruised and bleeding\nboth. I know you thought this was about birds, \n\nbut stay with me. I left them both in the street\u2009\u2014\u2009\nthe same street where I\u2019d leave the sparrows\u2009\u2014\u2009the men\n\nembracing and, for all one knows (especially one not\nfrom around there), they could have been lovers\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nthe one whispering an old, old tune into the ear \nof the other\u2009\u2014\u2009Baby, baby, don\u2019t leave me this way. I left\n\nthe men where I\u2019d leave the sparrows and their song.\nAnd as I walked away, I heard one of the men call to me,\n\nplease or help or brother or some such. And I didn\u2019t break\nstride, not one bit. It\u2019s how I\u2019ve learned to save myself.\n\nLet me try this another way. Call it 1977. And say\nI\u2019m back west, South Central Los Angeles. My mother\n\nand father at it again. But this time in the street,\nbroad daylight, and all the neighbors watching. One,\n\nI think his name was Sonny, runs out from his duplex\nto pull my father off. You see where I\u2019m going with this? \n\nMy mother crying out, fragile as a sparrow. Sonny\nfighting my father, fragile as a sparrow. And me,\n\nyears later, trying to get it all down. As much for you\u2009\u2014\u2009\nI\u2019m saying\u2009\u2014\u2009as for me. Sonny catches a left, lies flat\n\non his back, blood starting to pool and his own\nwife wailing. My mother wailing, and traffic backed,\n\nnow, half a block. Horns, whistles, and soon sirens. \n1977. Summer. And all the trees full of birds. Hundreds,\n\nI swear. And since I\u2019m the one writing it, I\u2019ll tell you\nthey were crying. Which brings me back to Dolphy\n\nand his transcribing. The jazzman, I think, wanted only\nto get it down pure. To get it down exact\u2009\u2014\u2009the animal\n\nracking itself against a car\u2019s steel door, the animals\nin the trees reporting, the animals we make of ourselves\n\nand one another. Stay with me now. Don\u2019t leave me.\nDays after the dustup, my parents took me to the park.\n\nAnd in this park was a pond, and in this pond were birds.\nNot sparrows, but swans. And my father spread a blanket\n\nand brought from a basket some apples and a paring knife.\nSummertime. My mother wore sunglasses. And long sleeves.\n\nMy father, now sober, cursed himself for leaving the radio.\nBut my mother forgave him, and said, as she caressed\n\nthe back of his hand, that we could just listen to the swans.\nAnd we listened. And I watched. Two birds coupling,\n\none beating its wings as it mounted the other. Summer,\n1977. I listened. And watched. When my parents made love\n\nlate into that night, I covered my ears in the next room,\nscanning the encyclopedia for swans. It meant nothing to me\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nthen, at least\u2009\u2014\u2009but did you know the collective noun\nfor swans is a lamentation? And is a lamentation not\n\nits own species of song? What a woman wails, punch drunk\nin the street? Or what a widow might sing, learning her man\n\nwas drowned by swans? A lamentation of them? Imagine\nthe capsized boat, the panicked man, struck about the eyes,\n\nnose, and mouth each time he comes up for air. Imagine\nthe birds coasting away and the waters suddenly calm.\n\nEither trumpet swans or mutes. The dead man\u2019s wife\nrunning for help, crying to any who\u2019d listen. A lamentation.\n\nAnd a city busy saving itself. I\u2019m digressing, sure. But \ndid you know that to digress means to stray from the flock?\n\nWhen I left my parents\u2019 house, I never looked back. By which\nI mean I made like a god and disappeared. As when I left\n\nthe sparrows. And the copulating swans. As when someday\nI\u2019ll leave this city. Its every flailing, its every animal song.\n", "title": "Upon Reading That Eric Dolphy Transcribed Even the Calls of Certain Species of Birds,", "id": 58805, "author": "John Murillo"}
{"poem": "A monstrosity in the alley.\nA many-bodied movement grouped\nfor terror, their flights\u2019 brief shadows\non the kitchen curtains, on the street\u2019s\nreliquaries of loose squares and hustle.\nSome minds are groomed for defiance. The youngest\ncalls out his territory with muscular vowels\nwhere street light spills peculiar, his hand\na chorus of heat and recoil. \u201cCould have been\na doctor\u201d say those who knew and did not\nknow him, though he never wanted to know\nwhat gargles endlessly in a body\u2009\u2014\u2009wet hives,\nplanets unspooled from their throbbing shapes.\nThere are many ways to look at this.\nHe got what he wished against. He got\nwings on his shoes for a sacrifice. The postulate\nthat stars turn a blind eye to the cobalt corners\nof rooms is incorrect. Light only helps or ruins sight.\nDaylight does cruel things to a boy\u2019s face.\n", "title": "Vision in Which the Final Blackbird Disappears", "id": 58793, "author": "Phillip B. Williams"}
{"poem": "Now that the theoretical physicist slash cosmologist\nhas explained to me, has laid out in clean\neven rows of logic\n\nhow every atom in my body\narrived from a star, a star\nthat blasted apart,\n\nand the atoms of my left hand\nand the atoms of my left hand\n\noriginated from a different sun\nthan my right,\n\nI can shine. I can go dark\n\nrecalling how my grandfather made\nthe vertical blinds rattle\nwhen he shoved\nmy grandmother into them.\nmy grandmother into them.\n\nStartled in the yard, I turned to that sound,\nfrom the flower bed my eyes were held by\n\nthe swaying blinds. It took a while for each\nto line up\n\nperfectly straight again, to tell myself\nperfectly straight again, to tell myself\nshe slipped. Only then could I\n\nreturn to stalking the butterflies.\nMy right hand was quick: reach and pinch.\nI had so many soft wings that summer\n\nbetween my thumb and index, so many of them\nskewered on cactus needles.\n\nI was a kid. I was cruel slash gentle.\nHe was cruel slash gentle.\nHe had witnessed my destroying\nand I saw\nand I saw\nacross his creased face\nempathy for them.\n\nAfter his scolding I placed one dead one\ninside the white envelope of a flower.\n\nUnder the sun it glowed. Under the moon,\nmore glowing.", "title": "We\u2019re This and We\u2019re That, Aren\u2019t We?", "id": 58781, "author": "David Hernandez"}
{"poem": "abide with me\ndon\u2019t ever abide\ngimme anytime a pile\nof leaf-hay across\nthe field underneath\nthe bright new blue\ntractor pulling the tedder\nwhich is the waffler or fluffer\n", "title": "Windrowing", "id": 58772, "author": "Bernadette Mayer"}
{"poem": "a mass of moth-eaten cloud\nthreadbare and spun across \na bullish moon\n\n\n\n\n an animal wakes\n when I walk in winter,\n\n wrapped against\n a withering wind,\n\n solitary,\n\n on a Solway flat\n\n\u00a0\n \u00a0\n \u00a0\n winter migrants gather\n in long black lines\n\n along a silver sleek\n\n heads held back,\n throats\n\nthrust toward\nthrust toward\n an onshore rush\n\n occasionally cruciform,\nstatic\nstatic\n in a flying wind\n\n as though\n in obeisance\nto the sea\r \u00a0\nto the sea\n \u00a0\n\n\n\u00a0\n retracing steps\nwashed out\nwashed out\n by whimpering silt\n\n each tide a season\n in the pecking mall\n \u00a0\n\n\u00a0\n \u00a0\n they call as I approach,\nan upright spelk\nan upright spelk\n on their shelf,\n\ngathering my notes\ngathering my notes\n and theirs\n\n we scavenge\nahead of our shadows\nahead of our shadows\n\n waiting for what\n\n the tide brings in\n or leaves out\n \u00a0\n\n\u00a0\n \u00a0\n purple,\nhedged cloud\nhedged cloud\n edged gold\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 hung\n on silver slates\nof sand\nof sand\n\n diverted\nleaps of light\nleaps of light\n surrender water\n\n risen\nfrom rivulets\nfrom rivulets\n roughed\nfrom rage\nfrom rage\n\n repealing waves\nrepeat\nrepeat\n\n a curlew\u2019s\nestuary echo\nestuary echo\n\n who,\nbut you\nbut you\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and the wind\u2019s\n wake?", "title": "winter migrants", "id": 58792, "author": "Tom Pickard"}
{"poem": "It was the week of asking. Asking \nto watch her eat. Asking if she understood \nthe doctors\u2019 questions. Asking her \nto explain the difference between \nwanting to die right now, and dying later. \nThe tumor making certain answers \nunquestionable. I watched her point \nto the incense dish from which \nsomeone swept all the ashes up. Asking \nif she recognized us. Because that \nis what the living want: thinking \nit is a sign we have been loved. \nBut the answer was a summer drive, \na mountain, piles of leaves beneath which \na wolf slept, suckling her cubs. \nSome deaths are good \nand it makes them hard to grieve. \nShe was, at times, in great pain. We wanted her\nto die, too. That was important. But first\nwe wanted her to remember. \nFrom the bed, a finger pressed \ninto a pile of leaves. Gray haunch, \nunmovable ashes. I didn\u2019t want to disturb \ntheir tableau, she told us. And drifted off. And\nwe did not know the meaning behind this. \nThe wolves must have looked so comfortable \nto her: wordless and in this wordlessness\nperfect. Did she want to go there, too. \nI could point to the image and say, my father \nmust be in there, my uncle. Or: \nthe wolf is you, you are still the mother, \nas if necessary to name that self \nat the end of its world. An animal cry,\nmemory. That was our selfishness.\nAs death was hers. She insisted upon it.\nAnd why not. It was good for me \nto get a chance to know you,\nshe said, who had known me\nmy entire life. Then the pills, a small \nhandful, crushed into juice.\nShe was happy then. We all were. Or\nsaid we were. What \nis the difference now.\n", "title": "The Wolves", "id": 58770, "author": "Paisley Rekdal"}
{"poem": "may the tide\nthat is entering even now\nthe lip of our understanding\ncarry you out\nbeyond the face of fear\nmay you kiss\nthe wind then turn from it\ncertain that it will\nlove your back \u00a0 \u00a0 may you\nopen your eyes to water\nwater waving forever\nand may you in your innocence\nsail through this to that\n", "title": "blessing the boats", "id": 58816, "author": "Lucille Clifton"}
{"poem": "Traveler, your footprints\nare the only road, nothing else.\nTraveler, there is no road;\nyou make your own path as you walk.\nAs you walk, you make your own road,\nand when you look back\nyou see the path\nyou will never travel again.\nTraveler, there is no road;\nonly a ship's wake on the sea.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\n\n\n", "title": "[Traveler, your footprints]", "id": 58815, "author": "Antonio Machado"}
{"poem": "A network of branches crazes\n\r the sky like cracks in the glaze\n\r of a Chinese cup. Dawn, a poised\n\r dropper. History poised also. A man\n\r on the steet corner waves his sign:\n\r Germany 1934. So cold, elbows of trees\n\r creak when something flaps by\u2014\n\r the\u00a0craw craw craw\u2014\n\n\r Would I be able to recognize places\u00a0\n\r in Latvia by my father's absence\u2014\n\r farmyard littered with dented milk cans,\n\r mattresses leaking straw, table set\n\r for a meal that never happened?\n\n\r Every morning I look out a window\n\r at a scene he wouldn't recognize,\n\r blue tide of sunrise spreading west\n\r obliterating tracks of satellites,\n\r gray tide of inlet shoring up\n\r the wrack-line.\n\n\r My father steps through his window.\n\r He's put on his SS uniform.\n\r He stands on a dirt road, staring toward\n\r the vanishing point where the past is rectified.\n\r The first thing I heard this morning\u2014three\n\r harsh cries\u2014was the black crow veering\n\r past his head.\u00a0History,\nwelcome back, it said. I watch to see\n\r what he does next.\n\r \u00a0\n\u201412.8.2012\n\u201412.8.2012", "title": "Prayer 11", "id": 58810, "author": "Eva Saulitis"}
{"poem": "No one wants another paean to a rosy dawn,\nso it's good this one's bluish, baby-shade\nat the horizon, bleeding up into midnight like\na botched dye job.\n\nAnd having enough of the old world\u2014larks,\ncrakes, nightingales, storks\u2014this space\nis populated by one fly crabbing\nacross a notebook page. He seems, like me,\n\nhoney-slowed by winter's shortest days, clumsy\nand isolated. My love bought a black-and-white\nphoto once, close-up of a birch trunk,\nfly crawling up\n\nthe curled paper bark, marring the purity\nof the image. You don't notice the fly\nuntil you do, and then you can't stop.\nNo one wants a fly in art,\n\nbut there it is, elegantly framed.\nAnd we're over the epic, so here, first thing\nthis morning, a pedestrian quarrel. Years ago, I flew\nacross a mountain range in black coat\n\nand black boots to secretly meet him\nin the city. How many dawns did it take to arrive\nat this particular? At 9:30 the sky flares\nnot like flame\u2014a paper fan\n\nyou buy in Chinatown for a dollar.\nA sudden breeze sways the Tibetan flags strung along\nthe eaves. I never noticed how thin\nthe fabric. You can see right through the printed prayers\n\nto the thermometer\u2014\nfive degrees\u2014and beyond, birches leaning\nall to windward. Sun bleaches out\nthe last mysterious. Now we pray to the real.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201411.29.2012\n", "title": "Prayer 2", "id": 58812, "author": "Eva Saulitis"}
{"poem": "In predawn dark, a rat falling from a rafter is a dollop,\nwind a whir, and suddenly I'm remembering my mother\u00a0\nteaching me to bake her hot water sponge cake.\n\nHow we whipped the egg whites with the electric mixer\nuntil stiff peaks formed. How she warned me not to allow\na single thread of yolk to taint the white, or the cake\n\nwould fail. To fold white into yolk-sugar-flour was slow,\u00a0\npatient. She let me carve a wedge with the rubber spatula,\ndrop it to the batter's surface, then lift from the bowl's bottom\n\nup and over the dollop, turning it in. Warned me\nnever to beat or mix or even stir\u2014the cake would fall.\u00a0\nOnce, dinking around, I stuck a wooden spoon into\n\nthe still-whirring beaters, bent the metal, splintered\nthe spoon into the batter. Once I cut her grandmother's precious\nlace for a doll's clothes, and she cried, the savaged pieces\n\ndraped across her wrists. So many times I tried to shove\nmy peasant feet into her dainty pumps, hand into her evening\ngloves. One spoon at a time, that first thin layer drawn across\n\nthe airy white forming a little hill. Folding only\njust enough. The batter growing lighter by increments.\nIt was mostly space we folded in, taming down\n\nthe cloy. It was never so good as then, licked off\nthe finer, the cake itself, to me, disappointing, layers\nsmeared with homemade jam, topped with a stiff merengue.\n\nNever so good as then, her instructing, trying to domesticate\nmy impertinence, teach me a little grace, me resisting,\nthe sweet on my tongue dissolving so easily\n\nin that state of matter. Never so good as straight from\u00a0\nthe Pyrex bowl. Never so gentle as the slide of batter\ninto an angel food pan. The rest up to her, what she\n\ncreated from the baked version, brown on top and bottom.\u00a0\nHere I am, decades later sitting uner the halogen\nof a full moon, and that moment, which was many\n\nfolded into one, is so pure and specific, the sugar sharp\non my tongue, the spatula pushing as if through\u00a0\nan undertow. My mother taught me to fold. Never so\n\nsweet as now. We were incorporating lightness\ninto a deep bowl. As some bird\u2014probably an owl\nout hunting\u2014chacks its was across the lawn,\n\nsounding like a key chain, and now the garden sprinkler\ncomes on, so I know it's 6:00 a.m. There's the first hint\nof dawn slow-dissolving one more night. This is a fifty-\n\nyear-old love. It's heavy, so I fold in moonlight, the sound\nof water spattered on leaves. Dim stars, bright moon\u2014\nour lives. The cake imperfect, but finished.\u00a0\n\n\n\u201412.17.2013\n\u201412.17.2013", "title": "Prayer 48", "id": 58811, "author": "Eva Saulitis"}
{"poem": "Hugging you takes some practice.\nSo I'll start out with a cactus.\n", "title": "Porcupines", "id": 58809, "author": "Marilyn Singer"}
{"poem": "Or is it on account of my radiant eye\nI have lived so long?\u2014I never slept\n\nin the study hall, or called anyone\nby an improper name. I never urinated in\n\na desolate synagogue. I never ate or drank\nin a desolate synagogue or picked my teeth.\n\nI did not walk into a desolate synagogue\nin the summer just because of the heat,\n\nnor in winter just because of cold rain.\nAlso, I know one may not deliver a eulogy\n\nfor an individual inside a desolate synagogue.\nBut you can read scripture inside a desolate\n\nsynagogue, or you can teach in a desolate\nsynagogue, or deliver eulogies for the community.\n\nWhen synagogues are deserted they are\nto be left alone and weeds allowed to grow.\n\nOne should not pick the weeds, lest there be\nanguish that the synagogue is in ruins.\n\nWhen are the synagogues to be swept\nso that weeds do not grow inside them?\n\nWhen they are in use.\u2014When synagogues are\nin ruins, weeds are not to be picked there.\n\nBecause I know these things I was approved,\nalthough unworthy, after a three-day oral\n\nexamination before the king of Sicily\nto whom by custom the power of approval\n\nis entrusted. Thereafter, I have worn the\nlaurel crown\u2014my eye radiant to this day.\n", "title": "My Radiant Eye", "id": 58808, "author": "Allen Grossman"}
{"poem": "Drowned together in his car in Lake Chippewa. \nIt was a bright cold starry night on Lake Chippewa.\nLake Chippewa was a \u201cliving\u201d lake then,\nthough soon afterward it would choke and die.\n\nIn the bright cold morning after we could spy\nthem only through a patch of ice brushed clear of snow.\nScarcely three feet below,\nthey were oblivious of us.\n\n Together beneath the ice in each other\u2019s arms.\n Jean-Marie\u2019s head rested on Troy\u2019s shoulder.\n Their hair had floated up and was frozen.\n Their eyes were open in the perfect lucidity of death.\n\n Calmly they sat upright. Not a breath!\n It was 1967, there were no seat belts\n to keep them apart. Beautiful\n as mannequins in Slater Brothers\u2019 window.\n Faces flawless, not a blemish.\n Yet\u2014you could believe\n they might be breath-\n ing, for some trick\n of scintillate light revealed\n tiny bubbles in the ice,\n and a motion like a smile\n in Jean-Marie\u2019s perfect face.\n\nHow far Troy\u2019d driven the car onto Lake Chippewa\n before the ice creaked, and cracked, and opened\n like the parting of giant jaws\u2014at least fifty feet!\n This was a feat like his 7-foot-3.8-inch high jump.\n\nIn the briny snow you could see the car tracks\n along the shore where in summer sand\n we\u2019d sprawl and soak up sun\n in defiance of skin carcinomas to come. And you could see\n how deftly he\u2019d turned the wheel onto the ice\n at just the right place.\n And on the ice you could see\n how he\u2019d made the tires spin and grab\n and Jean-Marie clutching his hand Oh oh oh!\n\nThe sinking would be silent, and slow.\n\nEastern edge of Lake Chippewa, shallower\n than most of the lake but deep enough at twelve feet\n to suck down Mr. Dupuy\u2019s Chevy\n so all that was visible from shore\n was the gaping ice wound.\n And then in the starry night\n a drop to -5 degrees Fahrenheit\n and ice freezing over the sunken car.\n Who would have guessed it, of Lake Chippewa!\n\nNow in the morning through the swept ice\n there\u2019s a shocking intimacy just below.\n With our mittens we brush away powder snow.\n With our boots we kick away ice chunks.\n Lie flat and stare through the ice\n Seeing Jean-Marie Schuter and Troy Dupuy\n as we\u2019d never seen them in life.\n Our breaths steam in Sunday-morning light.\n\nIt will be something we must live with\u2014\n the couple do not care about our astonishment.\n Perfect in love, and needing no one to applaud\n as they\u2019d been oblivious of our applause\n at the Herkimer Junior High prom where they were\n crowned Queen and King three years before.\n (In Herkimer County, New York, you grew up fast.\n The body matured, the brain lagged behind,\n like the slowest runner on the track team\n we\u2019d applaud with affection mistaken for teen mockery.)\n\nNo one wanted to summon help just yet.\n It was a dreamy silence above ice as below.\n And the ice a shifting hue\u2014silvery, ghost-gray, pale\n blue\u2014as the sky shifts overhead\n like a frowning parent. What!\n Lake Chippewa was where some of us went ice-fishing\n with our grandfathers. Sometimes, we skated.\n Summers there were speedboats, canoes. There\u2019d been\n drownings in Lake Chippewa we\u2019d heard\n but no one of ours.\n\nPolice, fire-truck, ambulance sirens would rend the air.\n Strangers would shout at one another.\n We\u2019d be ordered back\u2014off the ice of Lake Chippewa\n that shone with beauty and onto the littered shore.\n By harsh daylight made to see\n Mr. Dupuy\u2019s 1963 Chevy\n hooked like a great doomed fish.\n All that privacy yanked upward pitiless\n and streaming icy rivulets!\n We knew it was wrong to disturb the frozen lovers\n and make of them mere bodies.\n\nSweet-lethal embrace of Lake Chippewa\n But no embrace can survive thawing.\n\nOne of us, Gordy Garrison, would write a song,\n \u201cToo Young to Marry But Not Too Young to Die\u201d\n (echo of Bill Monroe\u2019s \u201cI Traced Her Little Footprints\n in the Snow\u201d), which he\u2019d sing with his band the Raiders,\n accompanying himself on the Little Martin guitar\n he\u2019d bought from his cousin Art Garrison\n when Art enlisted in the U.S. Navy and for a while\n it was all you\u2019d hear at Herkimer High, where the Raiders\n played for Friday-night dances in the gym, but then\n we graduated and things changed and nothing more\n came of Gordy\u2019s song or of the Raiders.\n\n\u201cTOO YOUNG TO MARRY BUT NOT TOO YOUNG TO DIE\u201d\n was the headline in the Herkimer Packet.\n We scissored out the front-page article, kept it for decades in a\n bedroom drawer.\n (No one ever moves in Herkimer except\n those who move away, and never come back.)\n The clipping is yellowed, deeply creased,\n and beginning to tear. When some of us stare\n at the photos our hearts cease beating\u2014oh, just a beat!\n\nIt was something we\u2019d learned to live with\u2014\n there\u2019d been no boy desperate to die with any of us.\n We\u2019d have accepted, probably\u2014yes.\n Deep breath, shuttered eyes\u2014yes, Troy.\n Secret kept yellowed and creased in the drawer,\n though if you ask, laughingly we\u2019d deny it.\n \u00a0\n We see Gordy sometimes, and his wife, June. Our grand-\n children are friends. Hum Gordy\u2019s old song\n to make Gordy blush a fierce apricot hue\n but it seems cruel, we\u2019re all on blood\n thinners now.\n", "title": "Too Young to Marry but Not Too Young to Die", "id": 58807, "author": "Joyce Carol Oates"}
{"poem": "Inside the night, this hospital, asylum,\nthis party for those undone by desire, forever\nunslaked, inside a house inside the night,\nI'm inside\n\nthis house with eight beams and moonlight\npulling on the past through skylights, this house\nof white noise, wind and dry heat, lonely\nhouse on a ridge line, house of ordinary\nshame,\n\nmy sister's house with corrals and outbuildings\naround it, and beyond that, the dog\npatrolling, and beyond that, skirts and folds\nof the mountain rising in rumpled geologic\nscrolls into the range.\n\nAt the center\nbeneath the moon's silence that nothing\never changes, muffled in blankets with fear\nbeside me on my little bench of sleep,\nI can hear their voices,\n\ncould be three or twenty-three,\nunhinged saints gabbling to their shadows,\nor panty-sniffers, drug-trippers in all flavors\npast vanilla, could be Birnam wood\non the move, the shriek of its roots thirsty\nand air-brushed, or a pack of lunatics\ncrooning norte\u00f1o songs.\n\nWhat is certain is advent.\nThey're coming down,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0coming towards\nthe heart beneath the feathers,\ncoming for\nwhat can't be protected,\non a beam of dread,\nriding that ray.\n\nI'm listening, my eyes snapped-open\ninside darkness, other people in other rooms\nwho know how to sleep through a night\nlike this night, thrown against the roundness\nof the world which is desire.\n\nThe old bitch guards this night on the ranch,\nhalf shepherd, half other, this is her watch,\nshe gallops the perimeter, anxious to sound like\nmore than one dog, though she's going arthritic\nand her paws strike the hard\u00a0ground.\n\nNow they quiet, penitents, lunatics,\nmarauders and ragpickers, quiet.\nOnly one left behind and the moon\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0is his hieroglyph,\none creature padding\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 down the mountain,\ncoming closer.\n\nCoyote knows a good joke,\nhe only wants to let her in on it.\nHe can't stop laughing, can't stop\ncrying, can't stop licking the crevices\nclean, licking safety and duty\nuntil they're empty.\n\nI hear the dog listening, ears lifted.\nCoyote's tongue slides into night\nair, pressing narcotic vowels through\nwonder, through longing\nand longing and wonder awaken. She's close\nto that edge, that border in the night\nwhere one thing becomes another and even\nan old dog who's worked a ranch eleven years\nfeels the urge to let loose, blow this little\nsettlement, go wild.\n\nClouds loose and blue in the arms\nof the moon, slant light on this mountain raking\nus, the dog and I, we feel the pull. Imagine\na woman trying to come between\ncoyote and the female he's after\nwhen she knows\n\nwhat is dark and offers itself and vanishes\nhas come for her at last? The body wants\nwhat it can't have, to follow the path\nof thirst through the rent in the wire\nbeyond the corral.\n\nThe dog doesn't move, but who knows\nbetter than she the small outpost\ndeath has set up in her, maybe she's all\ndesire now to slip under the moon\nand chase down that lure.\n\nCoyote wheedles and croons another minute\nor two, then lopes off, calling over his shoulder\nin a language even I can understand,\nthe right names for things\nnot kept in heaven.\n\n\n", "title": "Coyote Song", "id": 58745, "author": "Marsha De La O"}
{"poem": "1. Santa Fe\n\n\"The walls are old,\" he says.\nI turn in the plaza and nod to Weldon Kees,\nhis face as dark as the cool shadows\nthat surround us, walls keeping him\nsafe, honoring his silence, though\nhe comes to me to be led away.\n\n\"The mountains out there are not old,\"\nhe claims and slips his hands into his coat.\nWe cross the street, each Indian blanket\non the ground holding jewelry I would love\nto touch, but Kees and the Navajo man\nselling his crafts are whispering to the ground.\n\nKees surprises me by entering the Museum of Arts.\nI follow him, the stone floor ringing with\nour footsteps, empty arches blending above.\nKees stops and turns to me.\n\"One can see only so much,\" he says.\n\nHe leads me to the twisted dwarf,\nthe tangles form of faith and death,\narrows bristling from its muscled body,\na sacrifice of the ugly encased in glass,\nKees staring at the sculpture as if\nhe knows why we really can't see it.\nHe points to the deepest arrow\nand places a hand on my shoulder.\n\"When you believe this, you are home,\"\nhe tells me and walks out.\n\n2. Albuquerque\n\nThe Sangre de Cristo mountains are old\nand he is driving my car to the highest ridge,\nthe valley below avoiding the bright moon,\nthe same white light in the bay Kees wanted\nto touch before he left.\n\n\"Mist and clouds are a lie,\" he claims.\n\"Look down there. Men are running away.\"\nHe drives slowly to the top and we get out,\nthe autumn sun burning terraces into scrub\ncedars and pi\u00f1on pines he wrote about\nwhen he crossed here long ago,\nstanding on the edge of the cliff\nas if this is the only way for him to go.\n\n\"Look past what you want to see,\"\nhe sighs as the wind takes his slick hair\nand makes him into someone\nI have seen before, the streets of\nAlbuquerque down there as dusty\nas his closed eyes.\n\nWe stand on the edge and I wait\nat this elevation with Kees who wrote\nthat the towns we will not visit are\nplaces where home truly lies.\n\"I must go,\" he decides.\n\"Where to?\" I ask.\n\"Anyplace you haven't seen,\" he says,\nand walks down the mountain.\n\n3. Tyuonyi\n\nKees and I are happy when the sun\nsplits the tree for a moment because\nyesterday controlled this mountain dawn,\nburning mud deeper into the adobe.\nCottonwoods catch fire here, give\nthe people time to hide inside turtle shells,\nthough they come out to watch us.\n\nI stop as the drawings come to life\nunder the arches, symbols familiar\nto those who sleep by crossing\nthe street each night.\nAs I stare, I realize a man who\ndiappears wants to understand\nand not hide, yet the designs\ntempt me to walk in the wrong\ndirection and leave him behind.\nTo go farther up would mean\na canyon where I have been.\n\nA dirt street inside another path,\ntiny houses falling back,\nletting me pass beyond their\nlocked doors, as if the smoking\nwindows know where I must go.\nWhen I enter the placita, the old\nwoman is not there because this\nis about bringing Kees back.\nThe dirt street opens to the last\nscorched tree breaking out of walls\nto shade what can't be blessed, its\nbranches confusing until their cracks\nenter the ground in search of peace.\n\n4. Santa Maria\n\nWater disappears to settle as clear glass\nthat contains memories of thirst,\n\nthe ancient hole found in the ruins,\nKees' hand keeping the others from skimming\n\nthe surface of the still water, reaching\nto be alone under the mountain wall,\n\nthough eyes that watch have seen this before,\nmen entering and never coming out.\n\nOne hand keeps the other from touching the surface.\nPulling back allows the echo of falling rocks,\n\nthe deep swimmer breaking through walls\nto emerge on the other side of the well\n\nwhere the first figures to emerge in centuries are\nsitting and rubbing sand over their wet, shivering bodies.\n\n5. Fort Selden\n\nKees is getting tired in the desert heat\nand sits on a historic slab of western settlement,\n\nthis old fort a museum where thirsty men\ncome to drink from the bitter well.\n\nKees smokes too many cigarettes\nand shakes his head at me,\n\n\"Look at the moth and the deep iris in your garden\nbecause the equation I found in San Francisco\n\nis an eclipse drawn on paper\nby my trembling hands.\"\n\nHe pauses and takes a drag, my head bathed\nin sweat and confusion as he coughs this,\n\n\"It is too late because jazz has gone away.\nI placed a stone deity of a bird next to an eggplant\n\non my desk, its smooth purple skin as significant\nas the gathering of birds in your head,\n\ntheir chirping coming from sorrow,\neven from the bay where I never told a lie,\n\nthough the grand steps lead to the burned church\nwhere the musicians used to trace my forehead.\"\n\nI stare at him and he tosses smoke on the ground\nbecause we are close to home.\n\n6. El Paso\n\nKees waits at the bus station\nin my hometown.\nWe cannot go farther because\nthe border here is out there and as violent\nas the reasons he disappeared\nin San Francisco a long time ago.\nI want to tell him who I think he is,\nbut I grew up here and must hide\nhow things have really been,\ndrawing the light off the mountains\nas if the doubters of history are simply\nstarving boys offering to shine Kees'\nshoes on the corner of Paisano Street.\n\nMy hometown has a bridge,\nbut Kees won't go near it because\nhe says to cross it would be\nto admit there is something wrong\non the other side of my family's house.\nHe can never cross because\nwe have found our way here,\nEl Paso dreaming its population\nof mute men must keep growing\nbecause the border keeps taking\ntoo many of them away.\n\nKees looks at the bus schedule,\nruns out of cigarettes\nand everything is closed.\nHe nods at nothing and waits\non the bench with someone\nhe swears looks like me.\n\n\n", "title": "Crossing New Mexico with Weldon Kees", "id": 58743, "author": "Ray Gonzalez"}
{"poem": "When I was a boy, he says, the sky began burning,\n& someone ran knocking on our door\none night. The house became birds\nin the eaves too low for a boy's ears.\n\nI heard a girl talking, but they weren't words.\nI knew one good thing: a girl\nwas somewhere in our house,\nspeaking slow as a sailor's parrot.\n\nI glimpsed Alice in Wonderland.\nHer voice smelled like an orange,\nthough I'd never peeled an orange.\nI knocked on the walls, in a circle.\n\nThe voice was almost America.\nMy ears plucked a word out of the air.\nShe said, Friend. I eased open the door\nhidden behind overcoats in a closet.\n\nThe young woman was smiling at me.\nShe was teaching herself a language\nto take her far, far away,\n& she taught me a word each day to keep secret.\n\nBut one night I woke to other voices in the house.\nA commotion downstairs & a pleading.\nThere are promises made at night\nthat turn into stones at daybreak.\n\nFrom my window, I saw the stars\nburning in the river brighter than a big\ncelebration. I waited for her return,\nwith my hands over my mouth.\n\nI can't say her name, because it was\ndangerous in our house so close to the water.\nWas she a boy's make-believe friend\nor a beehive breathing inside the walls?\n\nYears later my aunts said two German soldiers\nshot the girl one night beside the Vistula.\nThis is how I learned your language.\nIt was long ago. It was springtime.\n", "title": "English", "id": 58747, "author": "Yusef Komunyakaa"}
{"poem": "I've come to this one grassy hill\nin Ramallah, off Tokyo Street,\nto a place a few red anemones\n& a sheaf of wheat on Darwish's grave.\nA borrowed line transported me beneath\na Babylonian moon & I found myself\nlucky to have the shadow of a coat\nas warmth, listening to a poet's song\nof Jerusalem, the hum of a red string\nCaesar stole off Gilgamesh's lute.\nI know a prison of sunlight on the skin.\nThe land I come from they also dreamt\nbefore they arrived in towering ships\nbattered by the hard Atlantic winds.\nCrows followed me from my home.\nMy coyote heart is an old runagate\nredskin, a noble savage, still Lakota,\n& I knew the bow before the arch.\nI feel the wildflowers, all the grasses\n& insects singing to me. My sacred dead\nis the dust of restless plains I come from,\n& I love when it gets into my eyes & mouth\ntelling me of the roads behind & ahead.\nI go back to broken treaties & smallpox,\nthe irony of barbed wire. Your envoy\ncould be a reprobate whose inheritance\nis no more than a swig of firewater.\nThe sun made a temple of the bones\nof my tribe. I know a dried-up riverbed\n& extinct animals live in your nightmares\nsharp as shark teeth from my mountains\nstrung into this brave necklace around\nmy neck. I hear Chief Standing Bear\nsaying to Judge Dundy, \"I am a man,\"\n& now I know why I'd rather die a poet\nthan a warrior, tattoo & tomahawk.\n\n\n", "title": "Envoy to Palestine", "id": 58752, "author": "Yusef Komunyakaa"}
{"poem": "No, sweetheart, I said courtly love.\nI was thinking of John Donne's\n\"Yet this enjoys before it woo,\"\nbut my big hands were dreaming\nPinetop's boogie-woogie piano\ntaking the ubiquitous night apart.\nNot Courtney. I know \"inflated tear\"\nmeans worlds approaching pain\n& colliding, or a heavenly body\ncalling to darkness, & that shame\nhas never been my truest garment,\nbecause I was born afraid of needles.\nBut I've been shoved up against\nfrayed ropes too, & I had to learn\nto bob & weave, to duck & hook,\ntill I could jab my way out of\na foregone conclusion, till blues\nreddened a room. All I know is,\nsometimes a man wants only a hug\nwhen something two-steps him\ntoward a little makeshift stage.\nSomehow, between hellhounds\n& a guitar solo made of gutstring\n& wood, I outlived a stormy night\nwith snow on my eyelids.\n", "title": "Grunge", "id": 58748, "author": "Yusef Komunyakaa"}
{"poem": "If I am not Ulysses, I am\u00a0\nhis dear, ruthless half brother.\nStrap me to the mast\u00a0\nso I may endure night sirens\nsinging my birth when water\nbroke into a thousand blossoms\nin a landlocked town of the South,\nbefore my name was heard\nin the womb-shaped world\nof deep sonorous waters.\nStorms ran my ship to the brink,\n& I wasn't myself in a kingdom\nof unnamed animals & totem trees,\nbut never wished to unsay my vows.\nFrom the salt-crusted timbers\nI could only raise a battering ram\nor cross, where I learned God\nis rhythm & spores. If I am\nUlysses, made of his words\n& deeds, I swam with sea cows\n& mermaids in a lost season,\nate oysters & poison berries\nto approach the idea of death\ntangled in the lifeline's slack\non that rolling barrel of a ship,\nthen come home to more than just\nthe smell of apples, the heavy oars\ncreaking the same music as our bed.\n", "title": "Latitudes", "id": 58750, "author": "Yusef Komunyakaa"}
{"poem": "We had to imagine you even then, Ramon, your star lost,\na glimpse to die for,\nall the kids galloping to Westside Park\nwhere your gang was supposed to meet in open warfare\nthose bitter skinny boys from Toonerville,\nwell-armed, Lupe said.\nAnd when we got there, nothing, no armies, no chucos\nwith long tails and zip guns, just the grass\nwith its stunned look, as though it never really wanted all that light.\nCity grass doesn't want much of anything,\nit's not out there trembling with desire,\nminds its own business, leeching slowly upward from busted pipe.\nAnd now nobody knows what you really wanted, Ramon,\nwhen the needle spun true north,\nor why that final rush of light, flat stare of lawn\nas you staggered by, seared your own throat shut.\nTonight, I'm getting to the smallest place I know,\ndusk coming on slow,\nthe moon half full of shade,\nso still it almost doesn't want to move,\nwhispers a phrase to particles of blue.\nSame moon you knew with its white mind watching,\nsame moon you walked beneath and were gone.\n", "title": "Nobody Knows", "id": 58744, "author": "Marsha De La O"}
{"poem": "When the trees were guilty, hugged up\nto history & locked in a cross-brace\nwith Whitman's Louisiana live oak,\nyou went into that mossy weather.\n\nDid you witness the shotguns at Angola\nriding on horseback through the tall sway\nof sugarcane, the glint of blue steel\nin the bloodred strawberry fields?\n\nSilence was backed up in the cypress,\nbut you could hear the birds of woe\nsinging praise where the almost broken-\nthrough sorrow rose from the deep woods\n\n& walked out into moonshine as the brave\nones. You went among those who had half\na voice, whose ancestors mastered quicksand\nby disappearing. Maybe our paths crossed\n\nghosts hogtied in the wounded night,\nbut it is only now I say this: Galway,\nthanks for going down into our fierce hush\nat the crossroads to look fear in the eye.\n\n\n", "title": "Praise Be", "id": 58751, "author": "Yusef Komunyakaa"}
{"poem": "The river stones are listening\nbecause we have something to say.\nThe trees lean closer today.\nThe singing in the electrical woods\nhas gone dumb. It looks like rain\nbecause it is too warm to snow.\nGuardian angels, wherever you're hiding,\nwe know you can't be everywhere at once.\nHave you corralled all the pretty wild\nhorses? The memory of ants asleep\nin daylilies, roses, holly, & larkspur.\nThe magpies gaze at us, still\nwaiting. River stones are listening.\nBut all we can say now is,\nMercy, please, rock me.\n", "title": "Rock Me, Mercy", "id": 58749, "author": "Yusef Komunyakaa"}
{"poem": "Not rain, but fine mist\nfalls from my lemon tree,\na balm of droplets in green shadow.\n\nSix years now my mother gone to earth.\nThis dew, light as footsteps of the dead.\nShe often walked out here, craned her neck,\nconsidered the fruit, hundreds of globes\nin their leathery hides, figuring on\ncustard and pudding, meringue and\nhollandaise.\n\nBut her plans didn't work out.\n\nThe tree goes on unceasingly\u2014lemons fall\nand fold into earth and begin again\u2014\nme, I come here as a salve against heat,\ncome to languish, to let the soft bursts\u2014\nessence of citrus, summer's distillate\u2014\ndrift into my face and settle. Water and gold\nbrew in the quiet deeps at the far end\nof the season. Leaves swallow the body\nof light and the breath of water brims over.\n\nMy hands cup each other the way hers did.\n", "title": "Under the Lemon Tree", "id": 58746, "author": "Marsha De La O"}
{"poem": "The volcano in my grandmother's Mexican village\nsmothered the town, though the girl escaped because\nthe axis of revolution sent her family into exile,\n\nblack clouds covering their journey to the north.\nThe axis of the earth is a skeletal bone extending\nfrom pole to pole, the arm of someone holding on.\n\nThe Japanese earthquake shifted the axis of the earth,\nmoving Japan twelve feet closer to North America,\neach day shortened by one second.\n\nWhen a poet said the past never happens because\nit is always present, the other one proclaimed the past\nis in the future, the axis bending to allow these words\n\nto skip the water like stones thrown by a boy in\nsearch of his father, the axis of yesterday sinking\nthe stones the boy hurled across the pond.\n\n\n", "title": "Axis", "id": 58740, "author": "Ray Gonzalez"}
{"poem": "Awake in the desert to the sound of calling.\nMust be the mountain, I thought.\n\nThe violent border, I assumed, though the boundary\nline between the living and the dead was erased years ago.\n\nAwake in the sand, I feared, old shoes decorated with\nrazor wire, a heaven of light on the peaks.\n\nMust be time to get up, I assumed. Parked outside,\nBorder Patrol vehicles, I had to choose.\n\nAwake to follow immigration shadows vanishing inside\nAmerican walls, river drownings counted as they cross,\n\nMaria Salinas' body dragged out, her mud costume\npasted with plastic bottles and crushed beer cans,\n\nblack water flowing to bless her in her sleep.\nMust be the roar of illegal death, I decided,\n\na way out of the current, though satellite maps never\nshow the brown veins of the concrete channel.\n\nAwake in the arroyo of a mushroom cloud, I choke,\n1945 explosion in the sand, eternal radioactive wind,\n\nthe end of one war mutating the border into another\nthat also requires fatal skills of young men because few\n\ndream the atomic bomb gave birth in the Jornado,\nhistoric trail behind the mountain realigned, then cut\n\noff from El Paso, the town surrounded with barbed\nwire, the new century kissing car bombs, drug cartels,\n\nmassacres across the river, hundreds shot in ambushes\nand neighborhood soccer games that always score.\n\nWake up, I thought, look south to the last cathedral\nin Juarez before its exploding bricks hurtle this way.\n\nMake the sign of the cross, open your eyes to one town,\ntwo cities, five centuries of praying in the beautiful dust.\n\n\n", "title": "One El Paso, Two El Paso", "id": 58742, "author": "Ray Gonzalez"}
{"poem": "On the road to Taos, in the town of Alcalde, the bronze statue\nof Juan de O\u00f1ate, the conquistador, kept vigil from his horse.\nLate one night a chainsaw sliced off his right foot, stuttering\nthrough the ball of his ankle, as O\u00f1ate's spirit scratched\nand howled like a dog trapped within the bronze body.\n\nFour centuries ago, after his cannon fire burst to burn hundreds\nof bodies and blacken the adobe walls of the Acoma Pueblo,\nO\u00f1ate wheeled on his startled horse and spoke the decree:\nall Acoma males above the age of twenty-five would be punished\nby amputation of the right foot. Spanish knives sawed through ankles;\nSpanish hands tossed feet into piles like fish at the marketplace.\nThere was prayer and wailing in a language O\u00f1ate did not speak.\n\nNow, at the airport in El Paso, across from Ju\u00e1rez,\nanother bronze statue of O\u00f1ate rises on a horse frozen in fury.\nThe city fathers smash champagne bottles across the horse's legs\nto christen the statue, and O\u00f1ate's spirit remembers the chainsaw\ncarving through the ball of his ankle. The Acoma Pueblo still stands.\nThousands of brown feet walk across the border, the desert\nof Chihuaha, the shallow places of the R\u00edo Grande, the bridges\nfrom Ju\u00e1rez to El Paso. O\u00f1ate keeps watch, high on horseback\nabove the R\u00edo Grande, the law of the conquistador rolled\nin his hand, helpless as a man with an amputated foot,\nspirit scratching and howling like a dog within the bronze body.\n", "title": "The Right Foot of Juan De O\u00f1ate", "id": 58739, "author": "Mart\u00edn Espada"}
{"poem": "They call the mountain Carlos because\nit is brown, though its purple slopes\nat dusk suggest other names.\nThose who name it have to brand\nthe earth with something they know\u2014\n\na name, a face, even the heat that says\n\"I know Carlos and he is the mountain.\nI am going to cover his eyes in light.\"\nThey call its peak Carlos because\nit is the sharpest feature on the face\nthat stares south, watching people\ncross the border, pausing to catch\ntheir breath and meet the cliffs of\nCarlos because he is there.\n\nWhen they ascend the canyons inside\nthe face, Carlos shifts and the climbers\ndiscover what he has done.\nThe moving earth changes everything\nand they are forced to stop playing\nthe game of naming a mountain\nthat keeps touching the sun.\n", "title": "They Call the Mountain Carlos", "id": 58741, "author": "Ray Gonzalez"}
{"poem": "I. The Red Flag\n\nThe newspapers said the strikers would hoist\nthe red flag of anarchy over the silk mills\nof Paterson. At the strike meeting, a dyers' helper\nfrom Naples rose as if from the steam of his labor,\nlifted up \u00a0his hand and said here is the red flag:\nbrightly stained with dye for the silk of bow ties\nand scarves, the skin and fingernails boiled away\nfor six dollars a week in the dye house.\n\nHe sat down without another word, sank back\ninto the fumes, name and face rubbed off\nby oblivion's thumb like a Roman coin\nfrom the earth of his birthplace dug up\nafter a thousand years, as the strikers\nshouted the only praise he would ever hear.\u00a0\n\nII. The River Floods the Avenue\n\nHe was the other Valentino, not the romantic sheik\nand bullfighter of silent movie palaces who died too young,\nbut the Valentino standing on his stoop to watch detectives\nhired by the company bully strikebreakers onto a trolley\nand a chorus of strikers bellowing the banned word scab.\nHe was not a striker or a scab, but the bullet fired to scatter\nthe crowd pulled the cork in the wine barrel of Valentino's back.\nHis body, pale as the wings of a moth, lay beside his big-bellied wife.\n\nTwo white-veiled horses pulled the carriage to the cemetery.\nTwenty thousand strikers walked behind the hearse, flooding\nthe avenue like the river that lit up the mills, surging around\nthe tombstones. Blood for blood, cried Tresca: at this signal,\nthousands of hands dropped red carnations and ribbons\ninto the grave, till the coffin evaporated in a red sea.\n\nIII. The Insects in the Soup\n\nReed was a Harvard man. He wrote for the New York magazines.\nBig Bill, the organizer, fixed his good eye on Reed and told him\nof the strike. He stood on a tenement porch across from the mill\nto escape the rain and listen to the weavers. The bluecoats\ntold him to move on. The Harvard man asked for a name to go\nwith the number on the badge, and the cops tried to unscrew\nhis arms from their sockets. When the judge asked his business,\nReed said: Poet. The judge said: Twenty days in the county jail.\n\nReed was a Harvard man. He taught the strikers Harvard songs,\nthe tunes to sing with rebel words at the gates of the mill. The strikers\ntaught him how to spot the insects in the soup, speaking in tongues\nthe gospel of One Big Union and the eight-hour day, cramming the jail\ntill the weary jailers had to unlock the doors. Reed would write:\nThere's war in Paterson. After it was over, he rode with Pancho Villa.\n\nIV. The Little Agitator\n\nThe cops on horseback charged into the picket line.\nThe weavers raised their hands across their faces,\nhands that knew the loom as their fathers' hands\nknew the loom, and the billy clubs broke their fingers.\nHannah was seventeen, the captain of the picket line,\nthe Joan of Arc of the Silk Strike. The prosecutor called her\na little agitator. Shame, said the judge; if she picketed again,\nhe would ship her to the State Home for Girls in Trenton.\n\nHannah left the courthouse to picket the mill. She chased\na strikebreaker down the street, yelling in Yidish the word\nfor shame. Back in court, she hissed at the judge's sentence\nof another striker. Hannah got twenty days in jail for hissing.\nShe sang all the way to jail. After the strike came the blacklist,\nthe counter at her husband's candy store, the words for shame.\n\nV. Vivas to Those Who Have Failed\n\nStrikers without shoes lose strikes. Twenty years after the weavers\nand dyers' helpers returned hollow-eyed to the loom and the steam,\nMazziotti led the other silk mill workers marching down the avenue\nin Paterson, singing the old union songs for five cents more an hour.\nOnce again the nightsticks cracked cheekbones like teacups.\nMazziotti pressed both hands to his head, squeezing red ribbons\nfrom his scalp. There would be no buffalo nickel for an hour's work\nat the mill, for the silk of bow ties and scarves. Skull remembered wood.\n\nThe brain thrown against the wall of the skull remembered too:\nthe Sons of Italy, the Workmen's Circle, Local 152, Industrial\nWorkers of the World, one-eyed Big Bill and Flynn the Rebel Girl\nspeaking in tongues to thousands the prophecy of an eight-hour day.\nMazziotti's son would become a doctor, his daughter a poet.\nVivas to those who have failed: for they become the river.\n\n", "title": "Vivas To Those Who Have Failed: The Paterson Silk Strike, 1913", "id": 58738, "author": "Mart\u00edn Espada"}
{"poem": "He walked to the window\nstared down twenty stories to the street\ngaseous and dizzy as a swamp\nnot visible at this height\nbut there had been a street down there\nand he knew\n\nIt came with the apartment\nand the guarded foyers and halls\nand the doorman\nholstered\nbeneath the uniform\nthe television split-screening\nfront and rear entrances\n\nHe knew it was all there\nand he was here twenty stories above\nthe unsetteled swamp-mist\nhe knew the trucks bound for the bridge\nwere still passing near\nhe could feel them rumbling\nin the soles of his feet\nso he knew\n\nthe floor he walked on\nwas someone's ceiling\nand it was all normal tonight\nand countable\na two-year lease because\na desirable\nwith full view of\nriver-\na five-by-three balcony through the door is\n$200 deposit\nfully carpeted\nself-defrosting refriger-\nthe balcony door is stuck but\nHe can stare twenty stories down\nfrom the windowsill\nwatching the swamp smokes curl and thin\nand the swamp lapping at the base\nand the unpaid-for miracle\none inch at a time\n", "title": "An Age of Miracles", "id": 58727, "author": "Joyce Carol Oates"}
{"poem": "I love. Wouldn't we all like to start\na poem with \"I love . . .\"? I would.\nI mean, I love the fact there are parallel lines\nin the word \"parallel,\" love how\n\nwords sometimes mirror what they mean.\nI love mirrors and that stupid tale\nabout Narcissus. I suppose\nthere is some Narcissism in that.\n\nYou know, Narcissism, what you\nremind me to avoid almost all the time.\u00a0\nYeah, I love Narcissism. I do.\u00a0\nBut what I really love is ice cream.\u00a0\n\nRemember howI told you\nno amount of ice cream can survive\na week in my freezer. You didn't believe me,\ndid you? No, you didn't. But you know now\n\nhow true that is. I love\nthat you know my Achilles heel\nis non other than ice cream\u2014\nso chilly, so common.\n\nAnd I love fountain pens. I mean\nI just love them. Cleaning them,\u00a0\nfilling them with ink, fills me\nwith a kind of joy, even if joy\u00a0\n\nis so 1950. I know, no one talks about\njoy anymore. It is even more taboo\u00a0\nthan love. And so, of course, I love joy.\u00a0\nI love the way joy sounds as it exits\n\nyour mouth. You know, the\u00a0word joy.\nHow joyous is that. It makes me think\nof bubbles, chandeliers, dandelions.\nI love the way the mind runs\n\nthat pathway from bubbles to dandelions.\nYes, I love a lot. And right here,\nwalking down this street,\u00a0\nI love the way we make\n\na bridge, a suspension bridge\n\u2014almost as beautiful as the\nGolden Gate Bridge\u2014swaying\nas we walk hand in hand.\u00a0\n\n\n", "title": "The Bridge", "id": 58763, "author": "C. Dale Young"}
{"poem": "Already his abdomen was sculpted, and already\nthe thin trail descending from beneath his belly button.\nEven now it is difficult to explain it. I was, after all,\u00a0\nonly 7; I didn't even know what Turkish meant.\n\nIn the dead of winter, which only meant\ncertain flowers had ceased blooming on the island,\nwe had driven up into the mountains\nto \"take the waters,\" as our parents put it.\n\nOur parents' instructions were simple: they would be\nin one room, our sister in another, my brother\nand I in yet another. Down the dark hallways\nas dark as tunnels, down through the strong smell\n\nof minerals and seawater, the attendants led us\nto our rooms. What was that smell? Sulfur?\nAluminum? There was the smell of salt, but it\nwas not the salt of the earth, not the sea itself.\n\nThe old man told us not to sit in the water for more\nthan fifteen minutes at a time, to drink lots of cold water,\nto scrub the salts into our skin, to take care of each other.\u00a0\nAnd then, he left us. We took off our clothes, did it\n\nwithout thinking. \"You get in first,\" is all he said, his voice\nsounding more like my father's, his voice having changed\u00a0\nalmost a year ago. His body had changed, too.\u00a0\nSitting in the pool, my thoughts began to swim\n\nin the vapors, the steam, I felt nauseated.\u00a0\nI wanted not to look at him. I wanted to look at the tile:\nblue and blue-white with the depiction of a terrible vine\ntwisting and creeping around the tops of the walls.\n\nWhen he got out and lay on the tile next to the pool,\nhis abdomen was already sculpted, and the thin trail . . .\nHe knew I watched him, and he loved the admiration.\nWhen I finally got out, my head dizzy, my heart racing\n\nfrom the heat, I lay myself down next to him. He scrubbed\nmy back with a rough sponge, pulled me against his chest\nas he scrubbed behind my ears and under my arms. There,\nin the steam, I was cleaner than I would ever be again.\n", "title": "Clean", "id": 58764, "author": "C. Dale Young"}
{"poem": "If I told you Earl, the toughest kid\non my block in North Philadelphia,\nbow-legged and ominous, could beat\nany man or woman in ten moves playing white,\nor that he traveled to Yugoslavia to frustrate the bearded\nmasters at the Belgrade Chess Association,\nyou'd think I was given to hyperbole,\nand if, at dinnertime, I took you\ninto the faint light of his Section 8 home\nreeking of onions, liver, and gravy,\nhis six little brothers fighting on a broken love-seat\nfor room in front of a cracked flat-screen,\none whose diaper sags it's a wonder\nit hasn't fallen to his ankles,\nthe walls behind doors exposing the sheetrock\nthe perfect O of a handle, and the slats\nof stairs missing where Baby-boy gets stuck\ntrying to ascend to a dominion foreign to you and me\nwith its loud timbales and drums blasting down\nfrom the closed room of his cousin whose mother\nstands on a corner on the other side of town\nall times of day and night, except when her relief\ncheck arrives at the beginning of the month,\nyou'd get a better picture of Earl's ferocity\nafter-school on the board in Mr. Sherman's class,\nbut not necessarily when he stands near you\nat a downtown bus-stop in a jacket a size too\nsmall, hunching his shoulders around his ears,\nas you imagine the checkered squares of his poverty\nand anger, and pray he does not turn his precise gaze\u00a0\ntoo long in your direction for fear he blames\nyou and proceeds to take your Queen.\n\n\n", "title": "Mighty Pawns", "id": 58737, "author": "Major Jackson"}
{"poem": "Somewhere outside Kyoto's line, she said,\nthey stumbled across the famous garden of moss,\nthe smallish sign so plain it could have been\u00a0\noverlooked. No temple, only moss.\u00a0\nSo they entered the walkway with little expectation,\nthe silence creeping in, much like expectation.\n\nInstead of leading them to the garden directly,\ntwo monks had led them to a different task,\nrequested they copy three hundred characters,\nthe ink and paper set down for the task.\nAnd this, too, was a practiced form of prayer,\u00a0\nleft behind for those who had forgotten prayer.\u00a0\n\nThe monks left brushes, ink, and bowls of water.\u00a0\nThey asked the seekers to write, to pray. But prayer,\u00a0\nany prayer, wasn't easy. The brush and ink,\nthe doubting hand, made not for simple prayer.\nAnd even as I write this, I do not want to pray.\nThis story changes nothing; I do not want to pray.\n", "title": "The Moss Garden", "id": 58765, "author": "C. Dale Young"}
{"poem": "\u201cIf God is Art, then what do we make \nof Jasper Johns?\u201d One never knows \nwhat sort of question a patient will pose, \n\n or how exactly one should answer. \nOutside the window, snow on snow \n began to answer the ground below \n\n with nothing more than foolish questions. \nWe were no different. I asked again: \n\u201cProfessor, have we eased the pain?\u201d \n\n Eventually, he\u2019d answer me with: \n \u201cTell me, young man, whom do you love?\u201d \n\u201cE,\" I\u2019d say, \u201cNone of the Above,\" \n\n and laugh for lack of something more \nto add. For days he had played that game, \nand day after day I avoided your name \n\n by instinct. I never told him how \nwe often wear each other\u2019s clothes\u2014 \nwe aren\u2019t what many presuppose. \n\n Call it an act of omission, my love. \nTonight, while walking to the car, \nI said your name to the evening star, \n\n clearly pronouncing the syllables \nto see your name dissipate \nin the air, evaporate. \n\n Only the night air carries your words \nup to the dead (the ancients wrote): \nI watched them rise, become remote.\n", "title": "Night Air", "id": 58766, "author": "C. Dale Young"}
{"poem": "the blood-smear across the knuckles:\npainless, inexplicable.\nonce you discover it pain will begin,\nin miniature.\nnever will you learn what caused it.\nyou forget it.\n\nthe telephone answered on the twelfth ring:\nsilence without breath, cunning, stark.\nand then he hangs up.\nand you stand there, alone.\nthen you forget.\n\nand your father's inexplicable visit:\ntwo days' notice, a ten-hour reckless drive.\nrains, 80 mph winds, bad luck all the way,\ntraffic backed up, a broken windshield wiper,\nand no stopping him.\n\nclumsy handshakes.\nHow are\u2014?\nYou seem\u2014!\nHow good to \u2014!\nHow long will\u2014?\nhe must leave in the morning,\nmust get back.\na gas station two blocks away repairs the wiper.\n\ndid he sense death,\nand so he raced to us?\ndid he already guess at his death\nbehind those nervous fond smiles,\nthe tumult of memories he had to bear?\n\nnothing we know can explain his visit,\nor the new, strange way he moved among us\u2014\ntouching us, squeezing our arms, smiling.\nthe visit was an excuse.\nthe words that surrounded our touching were an excuse.\ninexplicable, that the language we invent may be a means\nto get us closer, to allow us to touch one another,\nand then to back away.\n\n\n", "title": "Occult", "id": 58728, "author": "Joyce Carol Oates"}
{"poem": "I have not disappeared.\nThe boulevard is full of my steps. The sky is\nfull of my thinking. An archbishop\nprays for my soul, even though\nwe met only once, and even then, he was\nbusy waving at a congregation.\nThe ticking clocks in Vermont sway\n\nback and forth as though sweeping\nup my eyes and my tattoos and my metaphors,\nand what comes up are the great paragraphs\nof dust, which also carry motes\nof my existence. I have not disappeared.\nMy wife quivers inside a kiss.\nMy pulse was given to her many times,\n\nin many countries. The chunks of bread we dip\nin olive oil is communion with our ancestors,\nwho also have not disappeared. Their delicate songs\nI wear on my eyelids. Their smiles have\ngiven me freedom which is a crater\nI keep falling in. When I bite into the two halves\nof an orange whose cross-section resembles my lungs,\n\na delta of juices burst down my chin, and like magic,\nmakes me appear to those who think I've\ndisappeared. It's too bad war makes people\ndisappear like chess pieces, and that prisons\nturn prisoners into movie endings. When I fade\ninto the mountains on a forest trail,\nI still have not disappeared, even though its green fa\u00e7ade\nturns my arms and legs into branches of oak.\nIt is then I belong to a southerly wind,\nwhich by now you have mistaken as me nodding back\nand forth like a Hasid in prayer or a mother who has just\nlost her son to gunfire in Detroit. I have not disappeared.\n\nIn my children, I see my bulging face\npressing further into the mysteries.\n\nIn a library in Tucson, on a plane above\nBuenos Aires, on a field where nearby burns\na controlled fire, I am held by a professor,\na general, and a photographer.\nOne burns a finely wrapped cigar, then sniffs\nthe scented pages of my books, scouring\nfor the bitter smell of control.\nI hold him in my mind like a chalice.\nI have not disappeared. I swish the amber\nhue of lager on my tongue and ponder the drilling\nrigs in the Gulf of Alaska and all the oil-painted plovers.\n\nWhen we talk about limits, we disappear.\nIn Jasper, TX you can disappear on a strip of gravel.\n\nI am a life in sacred language.\nTermites toil over a grave,\nand my mind is a ravine of yesterdays.\nAt a glance from across the room, I wear\nSeptember on my face,\nwhich is eternal, and does not disappear\neven if you close your eyes once and for all\nsimultaneously like two coffins.\n", "title": "On Disappearing", "id": 58736, "author": "Major Jackson"}
{"poem": "As though undreaming the mountain\nfrom the sea or tweezering hands from\na watch, a quick-fix change of regimes:\na democracy lost to a monarchy, an empty sudden\nvillage, and elsewhere the wedding party lining up\nlike a lost tribe of refugees. As though a reverse\nwhisper of vows into a pageant of elegant ears\nwhen the heat in the O cooled its \"till death do us\"\nand the storm inside seething below\nthe flowers, gowns, and cake, its own Institution.\n", "title": "On Removing the Wedding Band", "id": 58733, "author": "Major Jackson"}
{"poem": "didn't thank\ndidn't wave goodbye\ndidn't flutter the air with kisses\na mound of gifts unwrapped\nbed unmade\nno appetite\n\nalways elsewhere\n\nthough it was raining elsewhere\nthough strangers peopled the streets\nthough we at home slaved and\nbaked and wept and\nhung ornaments\nand perfumed the dark\ndid he marvel\ndid he thank\n\nwas he grateful \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0did he know\nwas he human\nwas he there\n\nalways elsewhere:\ndidn't thank\ndidn't kiss\ntoothbrush stiffened with unuse\npuppy whining in the hall\ncar battery dead\nsweaters unraveled\n\nwas that human?\n\nWent where?\n", "title": "The Suicide", "id": 58726, "author": "Joyce Carol Oates"}
{"poem": "This downpour of bad reasoning, this age-old swarm,\nthis buzzing about town, this kick and stomp\nthrough gardens, this snag on the way to the mall,\nthis heap and toss of fabric and strewn shoes, this tangled\nbeauty, this I came here not knowing, here\nto be torched, this fumbling\u00a0ecstasy, this ecstasy of fumbling,\nthis spray of lips and fingers, this scrape of bone, this raid\nof private grounds, this heaving and rocking, this scream\nand push, this sightless hunger, this tattered perishing,\nthis rhythmic teeth knocking, this unbearable\nmusic, this motionless grip, grimace, and groan.\n\n\n", "title": "Superfluities", "id": 58734, "author": "Major Jackson"}
{"poem": "\nIt is not the chambers of the heart that hold him \ncaptive, but the hallways of the mind. Why\nhis image burning green and blue persists\n\u2014the face, the eyes questioning, the shape\nof his head\u2014is beyond anything I can understand.\u00a0\n\n\n\nWhat lessons must be learned to overcome\nthe final act of longing? This morning, sunlight\u00a0\ngrasped at everything, but the wind swept\u00a0\nthrough the streets taking things with it,\neven the soul. Sometimes the curtain does not\u00a0\n\n\n\ncompletely fall, and the play, barely visible,\ncontinues. This much I know. This much\u00a0\nthe textbooks have taught us. The blind man\u00a0\nCervantes built continued to see and saw far\u00a0\ntoo much, could not accept the utter purity\n\n\n\nof Abstraction. But is that not our essential fault?\nA tree frog croaks against the backdrop of memory,\u00a0\nand the cold sheets and darkened room return,\u00a0\nbut you are not here to whisper me to sleep.\nThe ocean\u2019s long-windedness offers no replacement\n\n\n\nfor your voice, anxious the way it could be at night.\u00a0\nWhat is there to understand? Not the heart, certainly\nnot the heart that is so easily trained to forget.\nNight after night, like the tree frog, I remind myself\u00a0\nwho I am, voicing what I cannot voice during the day.\n\u00a0", "title": "The Tree Frog", "id": 58767, "author": "C. Dale Young"}
{"poem": "My neighbor is velvety and kicks serious game.\nSo sweet garlic refuses to hang tight\nin his mouth. He pulls women to his wide chest\neach time as if he's won the Lotto. He rocks\nthem gently and gentler. My neighbor\nis a master spooner. He knows not of desire, but only\nthe rules of engagement. He says, I miss\nhaving Skype on all night so I can listen\nto your breathing. He floats in his museum,\nof gams, drifting from frame to frame.\n", "title": "Tremble", "id": 58732, "author": "Major Jackson"}
{"poem": "La Barraca Blues Suite/i.\n\nBeneath canopies of green, unionists marched doggedly\noutside The Embassy. Their din was no match\nfor light lancing through leaves of madrone trees\nlining the Paseo then flashing off glossy black Maybachs\nskidding round a plaza like a monarch fleeing the paparazzi.\nYour voice skipped and paused like a pencil.\nLayers of morning pastries flaked gingerly\nthen fell, soft as vowels, on a china plate. One learns\nto cherish the wizened reserve of old world manners,\ntwo blotched hands making wings of a daily paper\nbeside us between sips of caf\u00e9 con leche, a demeanor\nin short gentle as grand edifaces along this boulevard.\nYet Guernica\u00a0is down the street, and some windshields\nwear a sinister face, sometimes two. Think Goya. Just south\nof here, on the lower slopes of the Sierras, fields\nof olive groves braid the land like a Moorish head, but\nthose sultans were kicked out long ago. In the lobby\nof the Hotel Urban, I wait for a cab, my obedient rolling bag\nlike a pet beside me. I have loved again another city\nbut Madrid is yours: her caped ol\u00e9s, her bullish flag,\nher glass pavilions and outdoor tables like a festival\nof unbroken laughter, our dark harbors, finding level.\n\nii.\nSalobre\u00f1a\n\nThat stretch of mountains features white windmill\nblades whose slow turns are rifles aiming, for I cannot\nhelp but think of Lorca's killing between here and the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 village\nAlfa\u00e7ar, and the firing squad's gun pops are that Flamencan\ndancer's heel stomps. I bring back, too, her brisk hand claps\nand the cantor's Andalusian moans like dried sticks,\nor bones crumbling in his throat. Only souvenir shops\nand steep winding streets accrete in this region's stacked\nbrochures. \u00a0 Her dress spills across the restaurant's floor\nlike a red shadow, darker than billboards of black bulls\nhigh above roadways, motionless but seeming to gallop\nlike Franco's brigades. All seeing is an act of war.\nTanks and artillery or Spanish castles and mosques?\nI choose to lose, and beneath a watercolorist's sky\nstudy Didi's splendor, nude against the unruffled backdrop\nof the Alboran Sea whose waves match my sighs\nand bomb this beach, launching sprays of white duds.\n\niii.\nC\u00f3rdoba, Mezquita\n\nEven if he'd pulled over to study Andalusia's road signs,\nafter one thousand and one nights, he still could\nnot make out its calligraphic script, its vertical lines,\nits dots, marks like smoke stilled from incense, its curled\nsand soft Arabic, but this city's voice has coffins\nand carnations, and its hoarse singing shoots through him\nlike twelve bars of earthen road that lengthens\ninto a labyrinth of knowing blood beneath black skin.\nMore echoes: the Alhambra sent him back to the seraglio\nof his youth where a Moorish guard stood in a museum,\nunfazed by a harem's rising laughter behind palace doors.\nHere are pillars and banded arches to once again\nimagine the body passing through like a key into infinity.\nWas this the answer to his ghetto past? But why travel\nso far? Since a child, even in sleep, he voyaged and broke free,\ntossing dice in dreams, once below deck on a caravel\nnext to grains of paradise. He's collecting a thousand faces.\nHe's moving beneath eyelids, turning time into flesh.\nDon't judge him. The courtyard's orange trees where once\nhe washed like a morisco are teaching his tongue the craft.\n\n\n\n", "title": "Urban Renewal XXII Spain", "id": 58735, "author": "Major Jackson"}
{"poem": "Mid-morning Monday she is staring\npeaceful as the rain in that shallow back yard\nshe wears flannel bedroom slippers\nshe is sipping coffee\nshe is thinking\u2014\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014gazing at the weedy bumpy yard\nat the faces beginning to take shape\nin the wavy mud\nin the linoleum\nwhere floorboards assert themselves\n\nWomen whose lives are food\nbreaking eggs with care\nscraping garbage from the plates\nunpacking groceries hand over hand\n\nWednesday evening: he takes the cans out front\ntough plastic with detachable lids\nThursday morning: the garbage truck whining at 7\nFriday the shopping mall open till 9\nbags of groceries unpacked\nhand over certain hand\n\nMen whose lives are money\ntime-and-a-half Saturdays\nthe lunchbag folded with care and brought back home\nunfolded Monday morning\n\nWomen whose lives are food\nbecause they are not punch-carded\nbecause they are unclocked\nsighing glad to be alone\nstaring into the yard, mid-morning\nmid-week\nby mid-afternoon everything is forgotten\n\nThere are long evenings\npanel discussions on abortions, fashions, meaningful work\nthere are love scenes where people mouth passions\nsprightly, handsome, silly, manic\nin close-ups revealed ageless\nthe women whose lives are food\nthe men whose lives are money\nfidget as these strangers embrace and weep and mis-\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 understand and forgive and die and weep and embrace\nand the viewers stare and fidget and sigh and\nbegin yawning around 10:30\nnever made it past midnight, even on Saturdays,\nwatching their braven selves perform\n\nWhere are the promised revelations?\nWhy have they been shown so many times?\nLong-limbed children a thousand miles to the west\nhitch-hiking in spring, burnt bronze in summer\nthumbs nagging\neyes pleading\nGive us a ride, huh? Give us a ride?\n\nand when they return nothing is changed\nthe linoleum looks older\nthe Hawaiian Chicken is new\nthe girls wash their hair more often\nthe boys skip over the puddles\nin the GM parking lot\nno one eyes them with envy\n\ntheir mothers stoop\nthe oven doors settle with a thump\nthe dishes are rinsed and stacked and\nby mid-morning the house is quiet\nit is raining out back\nor not raining\nthe relief of emptiness rains\nsimple, terrible, routine\nat peace\n\n\n", "title": "Women Whose Lives are Food, Men Whose Lives are Money", "id": 58725, "author": "Joyce Carol Oates"}
{"poem": "I would figure out all the right answers\nfirst, then gently mark a few of them wrong.\nIf a quiz had ten problems, I'd cancel\nout one. When it had twenty, I'd bite my tongue\n\nthen leave at least two questions blank: _____ _____.\nA\u00a0B was good, but an\u00a0A was too good.\nThey'd kick your ass, call your big sister\nslow, then stare over your desk, as if you'd\u00a0\n\nsnaked out of a different hole. Knowing\ntaught me\u2014quickly\u2014to spell\u00a0community\nmore honestly:\u00a0l-o-n-e-l-y.\nDuring Arts and Crafts, when Miss Larson allowed\n\nthe scissors out, I'd sneak a pair, then cut\nmy hair to stop me from growing too long.\n", "title": "Art & Craft", "id": 58759, "author": "Robin Coste Lewis"}
{"poem": "Friends, will you bear with me today,\nfor I have awakened\nfrom a dream in which a robin\nmade with its shabby wings a kind of veil\nbehind which it shimmied and stomped something from the south\nof Spain, its breast aflare,\nlooking me dead in the eye\nfrom the branch that grew into my window,\ncoochie-cooing my chin,\nthe bird shuffling its little talons left, then right,\nwhile the leaves bristled\nagainst the plaster wall, two of them drifting\nonto my blanket while the bird\nopened and closed its wings like a matador\ngiving up on murder,\njutting its beak, turning a circle,\nand flashing, again,\nthe ruddy bombast of its breast\u00a0\nby which I knew upon waking\nit was telling me\nin no uncertain terms\nto bellow forth the tubas and sousaphones,\nthe whole rusty brass band of gratitude\nnot quite dormant in my belly\u2014\nit said so in a human voice,\n\u201cBellow forth\u201d\u2014\nand who among us could ignore such odd\nand precise counsel?\n\nHear ye! hear ye! I am here\nto holler that I have hauled tons\u2014by which I don\u2019t mean lots,\nI mean\u00a0tons\u00a0\u2014 of cowshit\nand stood ankle deep in swales of maggots\nswirling the spent beer grains\nthe brewery man was good enough to dump off\nholding his nose, for they smell very bad,\nbut make the compost writhe giddy and lick its lips,\ntwirling dung with my pitchfork\nagain and again\nwith hundreds and hundreds of other people,\nwe dreamt an orchard this way,\nfurrowing our brows,\nand hauling our wheelbarrows,\nand sweating through our shirts,\nand two years later there was a party\nat which trees were sunk into the well-fed earth,\none of which, a liberty apple, after being watered in\nwas tamped by a baby barefoot\nwith a bow hanging in her hair\nbiting her lip in her joyous work\nand friends this is the realest place I know,\nit makes me squirm like a worm I am so grateful,\nyou could ride your bike there\nor roller skate or catch the bus\nthere is a fence and a gate twisted by hand,\nthere is a fig tree taller than you in Indiana,\nit will make you gasp.\nIt might make you want to stay alive even, thank you;\n\nand thank you\nfor not taking my pal when the engine\nof his mind dragged him\nto swig fistfuls of Xanax and a bottle or two of booze,\nand thank you for taking my father\na few years after his own father went down thank you\nmercy, mercy, thank you\nfor not smoking meth with your mother\noh thank you thank you\nfor leaving and for coming back,\nand thank you for what inside my friends\u2019\nlove bursts like a throng of roadside goldenrod\ngleaming into the world,\nlikely hauling a shovel with her\nlike one named Aralee ought,\nwith hands big as a horse\u2019s,\nand who, like one named Aralee ought,\nwill laugh time to time til the juice\nruns from her nose; oh\nthank you\nfor the way a small thing\u2019s wail makes\nthe milk or what once was milk\nin us gather into horses\nhuckle-buckling across a field;\n\nand thank you, friends, when last spring\nthe hyacinth bells rang\nand the crocuses flaunted\ntheir upturned skirts, and a quiet roved\nthe beehive which when I entered\nwere snugged two or three dead\nfist-sized clutches of bees between the frames,\nalmost clinging to one another,\nthis one\u2019s tiny head pushed\ninto another\u2019s tiny wing,\none\u2019s forelegs resting on another\u2019s face,\nthe translucent paper of their wings fluttering\nbeneath my breath and when\na few dropped to the frames beneath:\nhoney; and after falling down to cry,\neverything\u2019s glacial shine.\n\nAnd thank\u00a0you, too. And thanks\nfor the corduroy couch I have put you on.\nPut your feet up. Here\u2019s a light blanket,\na pillow, dear one,\nfor I can feel this is going to be long.\nI can\u2019t stop\nmy gratitude, which includes, dear reader,\nyou, for staying here with me,\nfor moving your lips just so as I speak.\nHere is a cup of tea. I have spooned honey into it.\n\nAnd thank you the tiny bee\u2019s shadow\nperusing these words as I write them.\nAnd the way my love talks quietly\nwhen in the hive,\nso quietly, in fact, you cannot hear her\nbut only notice barely her lips moving\nin conversation. Thank you what does not scare her\nin me, but makes her reach my way. Thank you the love\nshe is which hurts sometimes. And the time\nshe misremembered elephants\nin one of my poems which, oh, here\nthey come, garlanded with morning glory and wisteria\nblooms, trombones all the way down to the river.\nThank you the quiet\nin which the river bends around the elephant\u2019s\nsolemn trunk, polishing stones, floating\non its gentle back\nthe flock of geese flying overhead.\n\nAnd to the quick and gentle flocking\nof men to the old lady falling down\non the corner of Fairmount and 18th,\u00a0holding patiently\nwith the softest parts of their hands\nher cane and purple hat,\ngathering for her the contents of her purse\nand touching her shoulder and elbow;\nthank you the cockeyed court\non which in a half-court 3 vs. 3 we oldheads\nmade of some runny-nosed kids\na shambles, and the 61-year-old\nafter flipping a reverse lay-up off a back door cut\nfrom my no-look pass to seal the game\nripped off his shirt and threw punches at the gods\nand hollered at the kids to admire the pacemaker\u2019s scar\ngrinning across his chest; thank you\nthe glad accordion\u2019s wheeze\nin the chest; thank you the bagpipes.\n\nThank you to the woman barefoot in a gaudy dress\nfor stopping her car in the middle of the road\nand the tractor trailer behind her, and the van behind it,\nwhisking a turtle off the road.\nThank you god of gaudy.\nThank you paisley panties.\nThank you the organ up my dress.\nThank you the sheer dress you wore kneeling in my dream\nat the creek\u2019s edge and the light\nswimming through it. The koi kissing\nhalos into the glassy air.\nThe room in my mind with the blinds drawn\nwhere we nearly injure each other\ncrawling into the shawl of the other\u2019s body.\nThank you for saying it plain:\nfuck each other dumb.\n\nAnd you, again, you, for the true kindness\nit has been for you to remain awake\nwith me like this, nodding time to time\nand making that noise which I take to mean\nyes, or,\u00a0I understand, or,\u00a0please go on\nbut not too long, or,\u00a0why are you spitting\nso much, or,\u00a0easy Tiger\nhands to yourself. I am excitable.\nI am sorry. I am grateful.\nI just want us to be friends now, forever.\nTake this bowl of blackberries from the garden.\nThe sun has made them warm.\nI picked them just for you. I promise\nI will try to stay on my side of the couch.\n\nAnd thank you the baggie of dreadlocks I found in a drawer\nwhile washing and folding the clothes of our murdered friend;\nthe photo in which his arm slung\naround the sign to \u201cthe trail of silences\u201d; thank you\nthe way before he died he held\nhis hands open to us; for coming back\nin a waft of incense or in the shape of a boy\nin another city looking\nfrom between his mother\u2019s legs,\nor disappearing into the stacks after brushing by;\nfor moseying back in dreams where,\nseeing us lost and scared\nhe put his hand on our shoulders\nand pointed us to the temple across town;\n\nand thank you to the man all night long\nhosing a mist on his early-bloomed\npeach tree so that the hard frost\nnot waste the crop, the ice\nin his beard and the ghosts\nlifting from him when the warming sun\ntold him\u00a0sleep now; thank you\nthe ancestor who loved you\nbefore she knew you\nby smuggling seeds into her braid for the long\njourney, who loved you\nbefore he knew you by putting\na walnut tree in the ground, who loved you\nbefore she knew you by not slaughtering\nthe land; thank you\nwho did not bulldoze the ancient grove\nof dates and olives,\nwho sailed his keys into the ocean\nand walked softly home; who did not fire, who did not\nplunge the head into the toilet, who said\u00a0stop,\ndon\u2019t do that; who lifted some broken\nsomeone up; who volunteered\nthe way a plant birthed of the reseeding plant\nis called a\u00a0volunteer, like the plum tree\nthat marched beside the raised bed\nin my garden, like the arugula that marched\nitself between the blueberries,\nnary a bayonet, nary an army, nary a nation,\nwhich usage of the word volunteer\nfamiliar to gardeners the wide world\nmade my pal shout \u201cOh!\u201d and dance\nand plunge his knuckles\ninto the lush soil before gobbling two strawberries\nand digging a song from his guitar\nmade of wood from a tree someone planted, thank you;\n\nthank you zinnia, and gooseberry, rudbeckia\nand pawpaw, Ashmead\u2019s kernel, cockscomb\nand scarlet runner, feverfew and lemonbalm;\nthank you knitbone and sweetgrass and sunchoke\nand false indigo whose petals stammered apart\nby bumblebees good lord please give me a minute...\nand moonglow and catkin and crookneck\nand painted tongue and seedpod and johnny jump-up;\nthank you what in us rackets glad\nwhat gladrackets us;\n\nand thank you, too, this knuckleheaded heart, this pelican heart,\nthis gap-toothed heart flinging open its gaudy maw\nto the sky, oh clumsy, oh bumblefucked,\noh giddy, oh dumbstruck,\noh rickshaw, oh goat twisting\nits head at me from my peach tree\u2019s highest branch,\nbalanced impossibly gobbling the last fruit,\nits tongue working like an engine,\na lone sweet drop tumbling by some miracle\ninto my mouth like the smell of someone I\u2019ve loved;\nheart like an elephant screaming\nat the bones of its dead;\nheart like the lady on the bus\ndressed head to toe in gold, the sun\nshivering her shiny boots, singing\nErykah Badu to herself\nleaning her head against the window;\n\nand thank you the way my father one time came back in a dream\nby plucking the two cables beneath my chin\nlike a bass fiddle\u2019s strings\nand played me until I woke singing,\nno kidding, singing, smiling,\nthank you,\u00a0thank you,\nstumbling into the garden where\nthe Juneberry\u2019s flowers had burst open\nlike the bells of French horns, the lily\nmy mother and I planted oozed into the air,\nthe bazillion ants labored in their earthen workshops\nbelow, the collard greens waved in the wind\nlike the sails of ships, and the wasps\nswam in the mint bloom\u2019s viscous swill;\n\nand you, again you, for hanging tight, dear friend.\nI know I can be long-winded sometimes.\nI want so badly to rub the sponge of gratitude\nover every last thing, including you, which, yes, awkward,\nthe suds in your ear and armpit, the little sparkling gems\nslipping into your eye. Soon it will be over,\n\nwhich is precisely what the child in my dream said,\nholding my hand, pointing at the roiling sea and the sky\nhurtling our way like so many buffalo,\nwho said\u00a0it\u2019s much worse than we think,\nand sooner; to whom I said\nno duh child in my dreams, what do you think\nthis singing and shuddering is,\nwhat this screaming and reaching and dancing\nand crying is, other than loving\nwhat every second goes away?\nGoodbye, I mean to say.\nAnd thank you. Every day.\n", "title": "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude", "id": 58762, "author": "Ross Gay"}
{"poem": "from my mother's sadness, which was,\nto me, unbearable, until,\nit felt to me\u00a0\nnot like what I thought it felt like\nto her, and so felt inside myself\u2014like death,\nlike dying, which I would almost\nhave rather done, though adding to her sadness\nwould rather die than do\u2014\nbut, by sitting still, like what, in fact, it was\u2014\na form of gratitude\nwhich when last it came\ndrifted like a meadow lit by torches\nof cardinal flower, one of whose crimson blooms,\nwhen a hummingbird hovered nearby,\nI slipped into my mouth\nthereby coaxing the bird\nto scrawl on my tongue\nits heart's frenzy, its fleet\nnectar-questing song,\nwith whom, with you, dear mother,\nI now sing along.\n", "title": "Ending the Estrangement", "id": 58760, "author": "Ross Gay"}
{"poem": "You step down into the Flat World\nThen ask me to say it, to explain\n\nHow our name can mean both\u00a0ancestor\nAnd enemy. Your body begins in four directions.\n\nHere, one calendar takes eighteen years.\nI am three. One day is an eyelash.\n\nYour body is a segment of prehistoric road,\nA buried stairwell with only the top stair obvious.\n\nWe are alluvial, obsidian.\nSometimes the ground swells\n\nWith disappointment; sometimes we know our mountains\nWill be renamed after foreign saints.\n\nWe sing nine-hundred-year-old hymns\nThat instruct us in how to sit still\n\nFor forty-nine years\nThrough a fifty-year drought.\n\nWe climb down through the hole anyway,\nAnd agree to the arrangement.\n", "title": "Mother Church No. 3", "id": 58756, "author": "Robin Coste Lewis"}
{"poem": "We meet\u2014sometimes\u2014between the dry hours,\nBetween clefts in the involuntary plan,\nRefusing to think of\u00a0rent or\u00a0food\u2014how\nCivic the slick to satisfied from\u00a0man.\n\n\nAnd Democratic. A Lucky Strike each, we\nSponge each other off, while what's greyed\nIn and grey slinks ashamed down the drain.\nNo need to articulate great restraint,\n\nNo need to see each other's mouth lip\nThe obvious.\u00a0Giddy. Fingers garnished\nWith fumes of onions and garlic, I slip\nBack into my shift, then watch her hands\u2014wordless\u2014\n\nReattach her stockings to the martyred\nRubber moons wavering at her garter.\n", "title": "The Mothers", "id": 58757, "author": "Robin Coste Lewis"}
{"poem": "Last summer, two discrete young snakes left their skin\non my small porch, two mornings in a row. Being\n\npostmodern now, I pretended as if I did not see\nthem, nor understand what I knew to be circling\n\ninside me. Instead, every hour I told my son\nto stop with his incessant back-chat. I peeled\n\na banana. And cursed God\u2014His arrogance,\nHis gall\u2014to still expect our devotion\n\nafter creating love. And mosquitoes. I showed\nmy son the papery dead skins so he could\n\nknow, too, what it feels like when something shows up\nat your door\u2014twice\u2014telling you what you already know.\u00a0\n\n\n", "title": "Summer", "id": 58758, "author": "Robin Coste Lewis"}
{"poem": "Friends I am here to modestly report\nseeing in an orchard\nin my town\na goldfinch kissing\na sunflower\nagain and again\ndangling upside down\nby its tiny claws\nsteadying itself by snapping open\nlike an old-timey fan\nits wings\nagain and again,\nuntil, swooning, it tumbled off\nand swooped back to the very same perch,\nwhere the sunflower curled its giant\nswirling of seeds\naround the bird and leaned back\nto admire the soft wind\nnudging the bird's plumage,\nand friends I could see\nthe points on the flower's stately crown\nsoften and curl inward\nas it almost indiscernibly lifted\nthe food of its body\nto the bird's nuzzling mouth\nwhose fervor\nI could hear from\noh 20 or 30 feet away\nand see from the tiny hulls\nthat sailed from their\ngood racket,\nwhich good racket, I have to say\nwas making my blush,\nand rock up on my tippy-toes,\nand just barely purse my lips\nwith what I realize now\nwas being, simply, glad,\nwhich such love,\nif we let it,\nmakes us feel.\n", "title": "Wedding Poem", "id": 58761, "author": "Ross Gay"}
{"poem": "The scruffy house cat\naches to fly\u2014\nshe dreams all day of\nwings and sky!\n\nSo tonight\nshe climbs the ladder,\nmounts a platform,\nnothing matters\n\nexcept to catch\na thin trapeze\nthen hold on tight\nwith grace and ease.\n\nShe swings herself\nby both front paws\nthen somesaults\nto wild applause\n\nof kitchen mice,\nwho, though dizzy,\nencourage Cat,\nto keep her busy.\n", "title": "Big Dreams", "id": 58754, "author": "April Halprin Wayland"}
{"poem": "Welcome, Flowers.\nWrite your name on a name tag.\nFind a seat.\n\nRasie your leaf if you've taken a class here before.\nLet's go around the room.\nCall out your colors.\n\nI see someone's petal has fallen\u2014\nplease pick it up and put it in your desk\nwhere it belongs.\n\nSprinklers at recess,\nfertilizer for lunch,\u00a0\nand you may snack on the sun throughout the day.\n\nExcuse me . . .\nwhat's that in your mouth?\nA bee?\n\nDid you\u00a0\nbring enough\nfor everyone?\n", "title": "Budding Scholars", "id": 58755, "author": "April Halprin Wayland"}
{"poem": "\nThere was a young lady named Bright\nWhose speed was far faster than light;\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0She set out one day,\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In a relative way\nAnd returned on the previous night.", "title": "Relativity", "id": 47295, "author": "A. H. Reginald Buller"}
{"poem": "In icy fields.\n\nIs water flowing in the tank?\n\nWill they huddle together, warm bodies pressing?\n\n(Is it the year of the goat or the sheep?\n\nScholars debating Chinese zodiac,\n\nfollower or leader.)\n\nO lead them to a warm corner,\n\nlittle ones toward bulkier bodies.\n\nLead them to the brush, which cuts the icy wind.\n\nAnother frigid night swooping down\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nAren\u2019t you worried about them? I ask my friend,\n\nwho lives by herself on the ranch of goats,\n\nfar from here near the town of Ozona. \n\nShe shrugs, \u201cNot really,\n\nthey know what to do. They\u2019re goats.\u201d\n", "title": "300 Goats", "id": 58630, "author": "Naomi Shihab Nye"}
{"poem": "The eater, my birthmother, was speaking:\n\n I can\u2019t tell you his name.You have to promise me you won\u2019t look for him.He\u2019s not a nice man.\n I can\u2019t tell you his name.\n\nYou have to promise me you won\u2019t look for him.\nHe\u2019s not a nice man.\n\n Agitated, frenetic, the eater falling into her own waters.\n Sobbing, almost wailing.\n\nShe said:\nI\u2019m so ashamed.I\u2019m sorry.It was one night.\nI\u2019m so ashamed.\n\nI\u2019m sorry.\n\nIt was one night.\n\nI was swirling into the streambed, \nlost in the downstream plunge.\n\nI said:\n Can you just tell me his name? I won\u2019t look for him.\n Can you just tell me his name?\n\n I won\u2019t look for him.\n\nThe eater filled with water, driving\ntoward the boulder\u2019s edge.\n\nI rocked:\ninto the lava break,into the fault.\ninto the lava break,\ninto the fault.", "title": "An eater, or swallowhole, is a reach of stream", "id": 58646, "author": "Jan Beatty"}
{"poem": "At first a silhouette on the horizon, then\nturning solid, like Schiller coming up the path to meet\nthe adorable sisters, and they, pretending not to watch,\n\ntheir hearts, all the time, pounding,driven by the same spring force (that would\ntheir hearts, all the time, pounding,\ndriven by the same spring force (that would\ntear them apart), the same force that drives\nthe salmon upriver, against the current, the odds,\nback to the home pool, even asthe autumn mind, in spite of itself,\nback to the home pool, even as\nthe autumn mind, in spite of itself,\nturns backward, with the same feverish glow as autumn\ngives to the summer\u2019s leaves, a deceptive glamour,\nwarming the past with an amber light, like brandy \nheld up to the fire, or the sun sinking at dusk\ninto the water, into the Baltic Seaeach night, where, in the mythical depths\ninto the water, into the Baltic Sea\neach night, where, in the mythical depths\nof Lithuanian folktale, lies the amber castle\nof the female sun, burning in the dark water,\na globe the color of harvest, aglow\nthere in the depths of the past, though\nthe amber, congealed sap of a once\nthe amber, congealed sap of a once\nliving force, is broken into bits, and the mythic\ncastle with it\u2009\u2014\u2009strung now as beads, and hung,\na charm, around the neck of a daughter,\nlike the one in a Greek dream, picking flowerswhen the earth opened,\nlike the one in a Greek dream, picking flowers\nwhen the earth opened,\nand in a swirl of violet cape and the pounding of hoofs,\nthe dark god broke out of the earth\ndriven by the same spring force, consequential\nand mortal,\nand up there, hanging over the mythic\nand up there, hanging over the mythic\nfields of what recurs and recurs (though never the same,\nand never to be reconciled)\u2009\u2014\u2009what is that?\n\u00a0 \u00a0 A hot air balloon filled\n\u00a0 \u00a0 A hot air balloon filled\nwith passengers who paid to be raised\nin a basket, to be up there looking down on\nthe ground where they live, a place shrunken now\nbeneath their gaze, while their bloated shadow floats \nlike a jellyfish in a green sea, barely a smudge on the pastures below,\nthe trace of their passage less than a breath of smoke \nfrom a coal-fired engine\u2009\u2014\u2009a blast of tarnished air\nfrom the actual past, heavy metal delivered from memory.\nUseless to warn the girl, whose\nUseless to warn the girl, whose\nhand will always be reaching out for the flowers, or\nthe sisters inflamed with Schiller, as he with the tricolor\ndream of a world he could never inhabit ...\n\u00a0 useless to comfort\n\u00a0 useless to comfort\nthe eyeless Tiresias who knew how terrible was\nwisdom when it knew itself useless,\n\u00a0 and useless to read\n\u00a0 and useless to read\nthe names on the shining black wall of the Vietnam\nMemorial, the text of exactly what war has accomplished\u2009\u2014\u2009\nand look, there, standing high above the tragic scene,\nand look, there, standing high above the tragic scene,\nnot the little figures of the wise ancients that Yeats saw\ncarved into the deep blue stone\u2009\u2014\u2009but there, standing high\nabove Arlington, against the blank lapis of the sky:\na horse with the torso and head of a man, yes, \nit is Chiron, the last of the hybrids, the wise and terribly wounded\ncentaur for whom immortality was a curse,\n\u00a0 \u00a0and he gave it away\n\u00a0 \u00a0and he gave it away\nto Prometheus, who stole the god\u2019s fire and gave it away,\nas art gives the power to give it away,\nfor that fire is the gift that cannot be held,\nfor it will burn to an ash those (born \nand born again, war without end) who would hold it.", "title": "Ars Poetica", "id": 58654, "author": "Eleanor Wilner"}
{"poem": "In the age of the fish, cobblestones \nshift through a square & in hand turn\n\nold weapon\u2009\u2014\u2009beyond the city an ocean \nswings in pelicans & spinner dolphins,\n\nleaves them on the Peruvian shore, or\nin a small town two thousand blackbirds fall\n\nfrom the Arkansas sky \u201cjust like last year\u201d\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nbut far off in the silence of the rural plains \nthis cow wallows on a grassy mound\n\ntill a muzzle merges from another world, \nonlookers gawk along a picket fence\n\nas she pushes the head & two hooves\n& then stands to open for the calf\n\nthat makes way with a message\u2009\u2014\u2009\na woman in the shape of a cloud saying\n\nreturn to your people & tell them I am coming.\n", "title": "Birth of the White Bison", "id": 58637, "author": "Laren McClung"}
{"poem": "Stairs: a rushed flight down thirty-eight; French doors unlocked always.\n\nAlways: a lie; an argument.\n\nArgument: two buck hunters circle a meadow\u2019s edge.\n\nEdge: one of us outside bleeding.\n\nBleeding: shards of glass; doors locked.\n\nLocked: carpet awash with blood.\n\nBlood: lift and drop; a sudden breeze.\n\nBreeze: its whistle through bone.\n\nBone: the other was looking at\u2009\u2014\n\nBone: cradled to catch drips.\n\nDrips: quiet as a meadow fawn.\n\nFawn: faces down each hunter each gun.\n\nGun: again.\n\nAgain: somebody call someone.\n\nSomeone: almost always prefers forgetting.\n\nForgetting: an argument; a lie.\n\nLie: a meadow; a casement; a stair.\n", "title": "Blackbody Curve", "id": 58634, "author": "Samiya Bashir"}
{"poem": "The city at 3 a.m. is an ungodly mask\nthe approaching day hides behind\n& from, the coyote nosing forth, \nthe muscles of something ahead,\n\n& a fiery blaze of eighteen-wheelers\nzoom out of the curved night trees,\nalong the rim of absolute chance.\nA question hangs in the oily air.\n\nShe knows he will follow her scent\nleft in the poisoned grass & buzz\nof chainsaws, if he can unweave\na circle of traps around the subdivision. \n\nFor a breathy moment, she stops\non the world\u2019s edge, & then quick as that\nmasters the stars & again slips the noose\n& darts straight between sedans & SUVs.\n\nDon\u2019t try to hide from her kind of blues\nor the dead nomads who walked trails\nnow paved by wanderlust, an epoch\nsomewhere between tamed & wild. \n\nIf it were Monday instead of Sunday\nthe outcome may be different,\nbut she\u2019s now in Central Park\nsearching for a Seneca village\n\namong painted stones & shrubs,\nwhere she\u2019s never been, & lucky\nshe hasn\u2019t forgotten how to jig\n& kill her way home.\n", "title": "Crossing a City Highway", "id": 58633, "author": "Yusef Komunyakaa"}
{"poem": "Oh my, oh my, I lose myself\nI study atlases and cirrus paths\nin search of traces of it, of you\n\n\nof that thing, of that songI keep pressing my ear to the currentof air to hear ...\u00a0I hear it and it disappearsIt was all I wanted to do in this lifeto sense that phantom tap\nof that thing, of that song\nI keep pressing my ear to the current\nof air to hear ...\u00a0\nI hear it and it disappears\nIt was all I wanted to do in this life\nto sense that phantom tap\non my nerves, to allow myself\nto be hit by it, attacked, aroused\nuntil, as if someone else, I arise\n\nI dance my part in paradise~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\nI dance my part in paradise\n~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\n\nI read that bees who\u2019ve drunk\nimidacloprid\n\ncan\u2019t waggle to indicateto others where the bestnectar is located\ncan\u2019t waggle to indicate\nto others where the best\nnectar is located\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0(you and I also long to map\n\u00a0 \u00a0for each other the sweetest\n\u00a0 \u00a0suck of sap)\n\nWorkers carry far less foodback to the waiting hive.\nWorkers carry far less food\nback to the waiting hive.\n\nThey wander, wobblecan\u2019t bring their wayhome alive\nThey wander, wobble\ncan\u2019t bring their way\nhome alive\n\nThe imidacloprid-imbibed\ncan\u2019t bring it back\nto the colony.\nSome hives collapseentirely.I desire to say that I, Iwould do it differently\nSome hives collapse\nentirely.\nI desire to say that I, I\nwould do it differently\n\nI would be the bee, bloomedwith pesticide\nI would be the bee, bloomed\nwith pesticide\n\nthat still would shake out a wiggle\nlike the finger\u2019s signature\non the iPad at checkout:\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 not quite you, but still identity\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0more like a wave than solid you\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0yet enough to signify:\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 not quite you, but still identity\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0more like a wave than solid you\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0yet enough to signify:\n\nThere, there, in the far off fieldspiked acanthus, trumpets of datura\nThere, there, in the far off field\nspiked acanthus, trumpets of datura\n\nin the abandoned loton the corner of International and High\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the mystic assignation\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the golden throat of light:\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 gorge, gorge, take\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 your fill, I would cry\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0before I too failed\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and my bumbling body lay down to die\nin the abandoned lot\non the corner of International and High\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the mystic assignation\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the golden throat of light:\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 gorge, gorge, take\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 your fill, I would cry\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0before I too failed\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and my bumbling body lay down to die\n\nI\u2019d dance my last dance\nto rescue the hive\nyes, I\u2019d carry the amber whirrers\nout alive \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\n\nOr not. Perhaps I too would succumb\nOr not. Perhaps I too would succumb\n\nto the corn syrup, chemical \npiped into our supply.\n\n(I, too, longing to find myway to you,would go off course.)\n(I, too, longing to find my\nway to you,\nwould go off course.)\n\nAlas. There is still melody,rhythm, someone is streakingout in air, droning\nAlas. There is still melody,\nrhythm, someone is streaking\nout in air, droning\n\naround the phonograph, which is the groovedheart valve of the black vinyldivine who is winding this universe.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\naround the phonograph, which is the grooved\nheart valve of the black vinyl\ndivine who is winding this universe.\n~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\n\nSomeone is dancing us.\nWill it be you? \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\n\nDance, dance, as the hive collapsesDance, dance, while the colony disassemblesDance the occasionDance the gorgeous design \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\nDance, dance, as the hive collapses\nDance, dance, while the colony disassembles\nDance the occasion\nDance the gorgeous design \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\n\ninside the honey\nof our lit up veins \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\n\nbetween the stripes and streamsof these swift rays\nbetween the stripes and streams\nof these swift rays", "title": "Dance, Dance, While the Hive Collapses", "id": 58655, "author": "Tiffany Higgins"}
{"poem": "We\u2019d been squatting \u00a0 \u00a0 near the worms\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 in the White House lawn, protesting \nthe Keystone Pipeline =$=$=$=$=$=$=>>;\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0i could sense \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the dear worms \n\u00a0 \u00a0through \u00a0 \u00a0the grillwork fence, \n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0twists & coils \u00a0 of flexi-script, remaking\nthe soil \u00a0 \u00a0by resisting it\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0After the ride in the police van \n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0telling jokes, our ziplocked handcuffs\npretty tight,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 when the presiding officer asked:\n\n\u2014\u2009Do you have any tattoos?\u2014\u2009Yes, officer, i have two.\u2014\u2009What are they?\u2014\u2009Well, i have a black heart on my inner thigh &\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0an alchemical sign on my ankle.\u2014\u2009Please spell that?\u2014\u2009Alchemical. A-L-C-H-E-M-I-C-A-L.\u2014\u2009What is that?\u2014\u2009It\u2019s basically a moon, a lily, a star & a flame.\n\u2014\u2009Do you have any tattoos?\n\u2014\u2009Yes, officer, i have two.\n\u2014\u2009What are they?\n\u2014\u2009Well, i have a black heart on my inner thigh &\u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0an alchemical sign on my ankle.\n\u2014\u2009Please spell that?\n\u2014\u2009Alchemical. A-L-C-H-E-M-I-C-A-L.\n\u2014\u2009What is that?\n\u2014\u2009It\u2019s basically a moon, a lily, a star & a flame.\nHe started printing in the little square\n\nMOON, LILY, STAR\nMOON, LILY, STAR\nMOON, LILY, STAR\n\nYoung white guy, seemed scared. One blurry \n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 tattoo on his inner wrist\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a i should have asked \n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 about his, but couldn\u2019t\n\u00a0cross that chasm. \u00a0 \u00a0 Outside, \u00a0 Ash\nWednesday in our nation\u2019s capital. \u00a0 \u00a0 Dead\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0grass, spring trees \nabout to burst, two officers\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0beside the newish van. Inside,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 alchemical notes for the next time\u2009\u2014", "title": "Describing Tattoos to a Cop", "id": 58638, "author": "Brenda Hillman"}
{"poem": "We buried the problem.\nWe planted a tree over the problem.\nWe regretted our actions toward the problem.\nWe declined to comment on the problem.\nWe carved a memorial to the problem, dedicated it. Forgot our handkerchief.\nWe removed all \u201cunnatural\u201d ingredients, handcrafted a locally-grown tincture for the problem. But nobody bought it.\nWe freshly-laundered, bleached, deodorized the problem.\nWe built a wall around the problem, tagged it with pictures of children, birds in trees.\nWe renamed the problem, and denounced those who used the old name.\nWe wrote a law for the problem, but it died in committee.\nWe drove the problem out with loud noises from homemade \u2028instruments.\nWe marched, leafleted, sang hymns, linked arms with the problem, got dragged to jail, got spat on by the problem and let out.\nWe elected an official who Finally Gets the problem.\nWe raised an army to corral and question the problem. They went door to door but could never ID.\nWe made www.problem.com so You Can Find Out About the \u2028problem, and www.problem.org so You Can Help.\nWe created 1-800-Problem, so you could Report On the problem, and 1-900-Problem so you could Be the Only Daddy That Really Turns That problem On.\nWe drove the wheels offa that problem.\nWe rocked the shit out of that problem.\nWe amplified the problem, turned it on up, and blew it out.\nWe drank to forget the problem.\nWe inhaled the problem, exhaled the problem, crushed its ember under our shoe.\nWe put a title on the problem, took out all the articles, conjunctions, and verbs. Called it \u201cExprmntl Prblm.\u201d\nWe shot the problem, and put it out of its misery.\nWe swallowed daily pills for the problem, followed a problem fast, drank problem tea.\nWe read daily problem horoscopes. Had our problem palms read by a seer.\nWe prayed. \nBurned problem incense.\nFormed a problem task force. Got a problem degree. Got on the problem tenure track. Got a problem retirement plan. \nWe gutted and renovated the problem. We joined the Neighborhood Problem Development Corp.\nWe listened and communicated with the problem, only to find out that it had gone for the day.\nWe mutually empowered the problem.\nWe kissed and stroked the problem, we fucked the problem all night. Woke up to an empty bed.\nWe watched carefully for the problem, but our flashlight died.\nWe had dreams of the problem. In which we could no longer \u2028recognize ourselves.\nWe reformed. We transformed. Turned over a new leaf. Turned a corner, found ourselves near a scent that somehow reminded us of the problem,\nIn ways we could never\nPut into words. That\nLittle I-can\u2019t-explain-it\nThat makes it hard to think. That\nRings like a siren inside.\n", "title": "Did It Ever Occur to You That Maybe You\u2019re Falling in Love?", "id": 58636, "author": "Ailish Hopper"}
{"poem": "Butane, propane \nand lungful of diesel.\nI did not stand a chance.\n\nAlways with poison\nbreath, bill, responsibility:\na man with rote hands.\n\nEverything in exchange,\nrain in a frozen season.\nOur roof, roofs strung \n\nwith hot wire. Our love,\nwhat was, an impression\nof light, gaunt: there is \n\nnothing to get.\n", "title": "Epithalamia", "id": 58652, "author": "Joan Kane"}
{"poem": "My chicken pox hotel \nyour machine gun pointillism \n\nMy bamboo branch severed but nimble name\nin the air of two alphabets \nPicassos in bull-light routine \n\nYour mantis welded on a pole \nwith a spiral staircase\nmy romance between pillager and villager\n\ntimed & timely intensity \ninversely proportional to frequency \n\nthe chickadees in my voice\nthe thrush in your mouth \n\nour polymers of I skipping \ntheir archipelago stones\n\nYour touchscreen \nmy ringtone heart\n\nYour mahogany gift bag \npuffed with confetti\n\nmy songs to appear as gauze \nfor a new island\n", "title": "The Floor Is Yours", "id": 58647, "author": "Fady Joudah"}
{"poem": "somewhere, a sun. below, boys brown\nas rye play the dozens & ball, jump\n\nin the air & stay there. boys become new\nmoons, gum-dark on all sides, beg bruise\n\n-blue water to fly, at least tide, at least \nspit back a father or two. I won\u2019t get started.\n\nhistory is what it is. it knows what it did.\nbad dog. bad blood. bad day to be a boy\n\ncolor of a July well spent. but here, not earth\nnot heaven, boys can\u2019t recall their white shirt\n\nturned a ruby gown. here, there is no language\nfor officer or law, no color to call white.\n\nif snow fell, it\u2019d fall black. please, don\u2019t call\nus dead, call us alive someplace better.\n\nwe say our own names when we pray.\nwe go out for sweets & come back.\n\n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nthis is how we are born: come morning\nafter we cypher/feast/hoop, we dig\n\na new boy from the ground, take\nhim out his treebox, shake worms\n\nfrom his braids. sometimes they\u2019ll sing\na trapgod hymn (what a first breath!)\n\nsometimes it\u2019s they eyes who lead\nscanning for bonefleshed men in blue.\n\nwe say congrats, you\u2019re a boy again!\nwe give him a durag, a bowl, a second chance.\n\nwe send him off to wander for a day\nor ever, let him pick his new name.\n\nthat boy was Trayvon, now called RainKing.\nthat man Sean named himself\u00a0I do, I do.\n\nO, the imagination of a new reborn boy\nbut most of us settle on alive. \n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nsometimes a boy is born\nright out the sky, dropped from\n\na bridge between starshine & clay.\none boy showed up pulled behind\n\na truck, a parade for himself\n& his wet red gown. years ago\n\nwe plucked brothers from branches\nunpeeled their naps from bark.\n\nsometimes a boy walks into his room\nthen walks out into his new world\n\nstill clutching wicked metals. some boys\nwaded here through their own blood. \n\ndoes it matter how he got here if we\u2019re all here\nto dance? grab a boy, spin him around.\n\nif he asks for a kiss, kiss him.\nif he asks where he is, say gone. \n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nno need for geography\nnow that we\u2019re safe everywhere.\n\npoint to whatever you please\n& call it church, home, or sweet love.\n\nparadise is a world where everything\nis a sanctuary & nothing is a gun. \n\nhere, if it grows it knows its place\nin history. yesterday, a poplar \n\ntold me of old forest\nheavy with fruits I\u2019d call uncle\n\nbursting red pulp & set afire, \nharvest of dark wind chimes. \n\nafter I fell from its limb\nit kissed sap into my wound.\n\ndo you know what it\u2019s like to live\nsomeplace that loves you back?\n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nhere, everybody wanna be black & is. \nlook\u2009\u2014\u2009the forest is a flock of boys\n\nwho never got to grow up, blooming\ninto forever, afros like maple crowns \n\nreaching sap-slow toward sky. watch\nForest run in the rain, branches\n\nmelting into paper-soft curls, duck\nunder the mountain for shelter. watch\n\nthe mountain reveal itself a boy. \nwatch Mountain & Forest playing\n\nin the rain, watch the rain melt everything\ninto a boy with brown eyes & wet naps\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nthe lake turns into a boy in the rain\nthe swamp\u2009\u2014\u2009a boy in the rain\n\nthe fields of lavender\u2009\u2014\u2009brothers\ndancing between the storm. \n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nif you press your ear to the dirt\nyou can hear it hum, not like it\u2019s filled\n\nwith beetles & other low gods\nbut like a mouth rot with gospel\n\n& other glories. listen to the dirt\ncrescendo a boy back. \n\ncome. celebrate. this \nis everyday. every day \n\nholy. everyday high \nholiday. everyday new \n\nyear. every year, days get longer. \ntime clogged with boys. the boys\n\nO the boys. they still come\nin droves. the old world \n\nkeeps choking them. our new one \ncan\u2019t stop spitting them out. \n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nask the mountain-boy to put you on\nhis shoulders if you want to see\n\nthe old world, ask him for some lean\n-in & you\u2019ll be home. step off him\n\n& walk around your block.\ngrow wings & fly above your city.\n\nall the guns fire toward heaven.\nwarning shots mince your feathers.\n\nfall back to the metal-less side\nof the mountain, cry if you need to.\n\nthat world of laws rendered us into dark \nmatter. we asked for nothing but our names\n\nin a mouth we\u2019ve known \nfor decades. some were blessed \n\nto know the mouth.\nour decades betrayed us. \n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nthere, I drowned, back before, once. \nthere, I knew how to swim but couldn\u2019t.\n\nthere, men stood by shore & watched me blue.\nthere, I was a dead fish, the river\u2019s prince. \n\nthere, I had a face & then I didn\u2019t.\nthere, my mother cried over me\n\nbut I wasn\u2019t there. I was here, by my own\nwater, singing a song I learned somewhere\n\nsouth of somewhere worse. that was when\ndirection mattered. now, everywhere \n\nI am is the center of everything.\nI must be the lord of something. \n\nwhat was I before? a boy? a son?\na warning? a myth? I whistled\n\nnow I\u2019m the God of whistling.\nI built my Olympia downstream. \n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nyou are not welcome here. trust\nthe trip will kill you. go home.\n\nwe earned this paradise \nby a death we didn\u2019t deserve.\n\nI am sure there are other heres.\na somewhere for every kind\n\nof somebody, a heaven of brown \ngirls braiding on golden stoops\n\nbut here\u2009\u2014\u2009\nhow could I ever explain to you\u2009\u2014\u2009\nhow could I ever explain to you\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\n\nsomeone prayed we\u2019d rest in peace& here we arein peace \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 whole \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0all summer\nsomeone prayed we\u2019d rest in peace\n& here we are\n\n\nin peace \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 whole \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0all summer", "title": "From \u201csummer, somewhere\u201d", "id": 58645, "author": "Danez Smith"}
{"poem": "n\u0101lani and\ni walk\n\nto our \nsmall community \n\ngarden plot \nin m\u0101noa\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nthe seed\npackets in\n\nmy pocket\nsound like\n\na baby\u2019s\ntoy rattle\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nwhen do \nthey spray\n\nglyphosate along\nthe sidewalks?\n\nfrom kunia\nto waimea,\n\nfifty thousand\nacres of\n\ngmo fields\u2009\u2014\u2009\nhow will\n\nopen air\npesticide drift\n\naffect our\nunborn daughter,\n\nwhose nerve\nendings are\n\njust beginning \nto root?\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nwe plant\nseeds in\n\nrows, soil \ngathers under\n\nour fingernails\u2009\u2014\u2009\nsyngenta, dupont,\n\ndow, pioneer,\nbasf, monsanto\n\n$240 million \nseed sector\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\ncorn for \ncattle feed\n\nand syrup\u2009\u2014\u2009\nrunoff turns\n\n[our] streams\nred\u2009\u2014\u2009poisons\n\nlo\u2018i\u2009\u2014\u200950,000\nheart sea\n\nurchins die off\u2009\u2014\u2009\nwhat will\n\nour daughter\nbe able \n\nto plant\nin this\n\nparadise of\nfugitive dust\u2009\u2014\n", "title": "From \u201cunderstory\u201d", "id": 58639, "author": "Craig Santos Perez"}
{"poem": "Child, when you\u2019re sad put on your blue shoes.\nYou know that Mama loves you lollipops\nand Daddy still has a job to lose.\n\nSo put on a party hat. We\u2019ll play the kazoos\nloud and louder from the mountaintop.\nChild, when you\u2019re sad put on your blue shoes\n\nand dance the polka with pink kangaroos,\ndolphin choirs singing \u201cflip-flop, flip-flop.\u201d\nHey, Daddy still has a job to lose\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\ndon\u2019t be afraid. Close your eyes, snooze,\nbecause today our suns have flared and dropped.\nTomorrow when you wake, put on your blue shoes.\n\nEat a good breakfast. Be good in school.\nGood boys go to college goody gumdrops\nso someday too you\u2019ll have a job to lose.\n\nWaste trucks clatter by as the gray bird coos.\nFlames pour forth when the faucet\u2019s unstopped.\nChild, when you\u2019re sad put on your blue shoes.\nFor now, Daddy still has a job to lose.\n", "title": "Lullaby in Fracktown", "id": 58649, "author": "Lilace Mellin Guignard"}
{"poem": "No one \nwould burn \nyour name\nfor not seeing\nthe ant\u2019s \ncareful antennae\ntesting the air\nnext to your \nshoe, six legs\nalmost rowing \nit along. Who\n\nwould be upset\nif you brushed one\noff-handedly off\nyour arm, undone\nby the tiny \nsteps: what do \nthey want, \nyou ask\u2009\u2014\u2009unaware \nthat they breathe \nthrough their \nsides. Do they\nsleep? Do they \ndream \nanything? No \none should\n\nmark your soul \nshort \u00a0 \u00a0 if you \nmash one: when \ntwo ants meet\nthere\u2019s no tongue\nfor hello\u2009\u2014\u2009it\u2019s a\nbug, a nearly \nless than\nlittle thing: at most, \nmade to chisel \ncrumbs \nunder the fridge\nwith eyes that,\neven in brightest \nday, see not reds\nor greens but gray\nand gray again. \nWho would\n\ncurse your life\nif you bring out \nthe Raid? \nHow many \nbooks have they \nread?\u2009\u2014\u2009that \nbrain \u00a0 \u00a0a virtual\nspeck. Is all\nthey carry \nreally work\n\nor just some \ndumb old daily \nado?\u2009\u2014\u2009the heart \nspending \nwhat blood, what \nprehistoric nudge \non that\nhandsome, \nbrittle head.\n", "title": "Magnifying Glass", "id": 58653, "author": "Tim Seibles"}
{"poem": "how to explain brazil to an extraterrestrial:\nyour face on a flag. they\u2019d recognize\nyou as leader\nand knock you off. dirty \npart of the conquest.\nbut it already happened, in another shape: aerial\nview of the amazon,\na hundred-odd\nhydroelectric plants\nto fry your eggs in the microwave.\nand they\u2019d finish you off: just \npart of the conquest.\nand what if they came\nto tour the waterfalls?\nor to be taught by the elite\nhow to make a democracy?\nthe spaceships cover the sky\ncompletely.\nall the offices and fast food joints declare\nan end to the working day.\ncockroaches and rats\nfled first.\nit\u2019s christmas, carnival, easter,\nour lady of aparecida, and the final judgment\nall at once.\nlovers fuck for the last time.\natms dry heave.\nthe supermarket was a cemetery!\nthe malls, the freeways!\nto explain civil unions\nto an iguana, to explain\npolitical alliances to a cat, to explain\nclimate change\nto an aquarium turtle.\nit\u2019s done, already. now, wait.\neat an activia.\ndwell in philosophy. imagine!\nin our tropical country ... disastrous!\nnot one river more. tragic!\nworse than locusts,\nyour marvelous hydroelectric plants will be\nseen, in flames, from sirius:\n\u201cmy country was a sweet corn pamonha\nthat a starving alien \nput in the microwave.\u201d\nwatch us burn:\npossible epitaph.\n\n\n\nTranslated from the Portuguese\u00a0\nTranslated from the Portuguese\u00a0", "title": "microwave", "id": 58659, "author": "Ang\u00e9lica Freitas"}
{"poem": "Ashen face, wool hat bobbing,\nthe young boy\u2019s eyes dart to me,\nthen up at the man pulling a rolling\nsuitcase, whose hand he holds,\nthen back at me. His legs move\nas if without gravity. The man asks:\nDo you know a church on this street\nthat serves free food? I want to say\nI know. That the names of churches\non an Avenue called Americas roll\nout of me. I want to tell you\nit is temporary, their condition:\nsuitcase, darting eyes, seeking free\nfood at 9 pm in a big city on a school night.\nI want to tell you I don\u2019t for a moment\nwonder if that is really the boy\u2019s father\nor uncle or legitimate caretaker\u2009\u2014\u2009\nsomething in the handholding and\neyes, having watched too many\nepisodes of\u00a0Law and Order. I want\nto tell you I take them to a restaurant\nand pay for a warm meal or empty\nmy wallet not worrying how\noffensive that might be because\nin the end hunger is hunger.\nI want to tell you I call someone\nwho loves them\u2009\u2014\u2009that there is someone\u2009\u2014\u2009\nand say your guys are lost, can\nyou come? I want to tell you I sit\ndown on the sidewalk at the corner\nof Waverly and pray\u2009\u2014\u2009that all \npassing by, anonymous shoes \nmarking the pavement, join \nin a chorus of prayer humming \nlike cicadas in the Delta. I want to \ntell you the boy and the man eat food \nencircled by the warmth of bodies. \nI want to turn the cold night into a feast.\nI will tell you I am praying.\n", "title": "Now I Pray", "id": 58660, "author": "Kathy Engel"}
{"poem": "Do you know what whole fields are?\nThey are fields with a dog and a moon.\nDo you know the answer\u2009\u2014\u2009for the many?\n\nExcept there would be vineyards.\nMeaning there would, as usual, be commerce.\nMoney, and a game of sorts to play it.\n\nMeanwhile\u2009\u2014\u2009Emma lost in the cover-crop.\nTop of her head bobbing through mustard-flower.\nIt is, after all, still here\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nThe real world, the outstretched earth,\nRain, soil, copper for pennies.\n", "title": "The Outstretched Earth", "id": 58643, "author": "Jane Mead"}
{"poem": "Where do you suppose\n\nthey\u2019ve gone the bees now\nthey\u2019ve gone the bees now\n\nthat you don\u2019t see them\nanymore four-winged\nanymore four-winged\n\namong flowers \u00a0 \u00a0 low\nsparks in the clover\nsparks in the clover\n\neven at nightfall\nare they fanning have\nare they fanning have\n\nthey gone another\nplace blued with pollen\nplace blued with pollen\n\nstuck to their bristles\nwaiting beyond us\nwaiting beyond us\n\nspringdwindle is what\nwe call it collapsing\nwe call it collapsing\n\nneonicotinoids\n\u201chigh levels in pneu-\n\u201chigh levels in pneu-\n\nmatic corn exhaust\u201d\nloss of habitat\nloss of habitat\n\nor disappearing\ndisease in the way\ndisease in the way\n\nof our kind \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0so to speak\nwhat do you think\nwhat do you think\n\nthey would call it \nlanguage older than\nlanguage older than\n\nour ears were they\nsaying it all along\nsaying it all along\n\neven at daybreak\u2009\u2014", "title": "Peril Sonnet", "id": 58631, "author": "David Baker"}
{"poem": "A lot of it lives in the trachea, you know. \nBut not so much that you won\u2019t need more muscle:\nthe diaphragm, a fist clenching at the bottom. \nInhale. So many of us are breathless,\nyou know, like me \nkneeling to collect the pottery shards\nof a house plant my elbow has nudged \ninto oblivion. What if I sigh,\nand the black earth beneath me scatters \nlike insects running from my breath?\nAm I a god then? Am I insane\nbecause I worry about the disassembling of earth\nregularly? I walk more softly now \n\ninto gardens or up the steps of old houses\nwith impatiens stuffed in their window boxes.\nWhen it\u2019s you standing there with a letter\nor voice or face full of solemn news,\nwill you hold your breath before you knock?\n", "title": "Respiration", "id": 58641, "author": "Jamaal May"}
{"poem": "It was dusk for kilometers and bats in the lavender sky,\n\nlike spiders when a fly is caught, began to appear.\nlike spiders when a fly is caught, began to appear.\nAnd there, not the promised land, but barbwire and barbwire\n\nwith nothing growing under it. I tried to fly that dusk\nwith nothing growing under it. I tried to fly that dusk\nafter a bat said la sangre del saguaro nos seduce. Sometimes\nI wake and my throat is dry, so I drive to botanical gardens\nI wake and my throat is dry, so I drive to botanical gardens\n\nto search for red fruit clutched to saguaros, the ones at dusk\nI threw rocks at for the sake of slashing hunger.\nI threw rocks at for the sake of slashing hunger.\n\nBut I never find them here. These bats say speak English only.\nSometimes in my car, that viscous red syrup\nSometimes in my car, that viscous red syrup\nclings to my throat, and it\u2019s a tender seed toward my survival:\n\nI also scraped needles first, then carved those tall torsos\nI also scraped needles first, then carved those tall torsos\nfor water, then spotlights drove me and thirty others dashing\ninto palos verdes, green-striped trucks surrounded us,\ninto palos verdes, green-striped trucks surrounded us,\n\nour empty bottles rattled and our breath spoke with rust.\nWhen the trucks left, a cold cell swallowed us.\nWhen the trucks left, a cold cell swallowed us.", "title": "Saguaros", "id": 58656, "author": "Javier Zamora"}
{"poem": "Cowards, let us sing in dead Elmolo\nhow the elephants have died.\nWe thank the cavemen, that they drew them,\nthat zoologists described them,\nfor the photos of them herding\nwhich the tourists left behind,\nfor who would ever, fools, believe us?\nTeeth from heaven to the ground!?\n\nI stretch my arm out like a trunk\nto palm the graveyard of its cranium;\nit\u2019s how, I hear, they mourned.\nThe brain within worked tools and language.\nI have none: a useless pen\n(it\u2019s only good for drafting elegies)\nand even then, no words.\nWe once had tuskers. Tell the birds!\n", "title": "Satao", "id": 58658, "author": "Stephen Derwent Partington"}
{"poem": "beauty eludes me, usually. i soak\nbeauty eludes me, usually. i soak\nup the lush red, violet, indigo blooms\nabdullah ibrahim\u2019s cool fingers pluck\nabdullah ibrahim\u2019s cool fingers pluck\nfrom the keyboard\u2019s bed, but bring to these \u2018rooms\u2019\n\n(stanzas forged from replayed past as today\u2019s\n(stanzas forged from replayed past as today\u2019s\nnot-news) no solacing bouquets. my weeds?\ni conjure rough green to rupture from seeds\ni conjure rough green to rupture from seeds\nso furious they bleed\u2009\u2014\u2009or, grieving, raise\n\ncrabgrass and blue notes, peppered with rust,\ncrabgrass and blue notes, peppered with rust,\nwhere he grows flowers. yes, i tend my plants\nincisively : no phrase that droops or wants\nincisively : no phrase that droops or wants\nout of the sun survives long. but the rest\n\nrun wild, flush vivid, throw shade, deluge fruit,\r lavishly express their dissonant root.\nrun wild, flush vivid, throw shade, deluge fruit,", "title": "senzo", "id": 58651, "author": "Evie Shockley"}
{"poem": "Housed in a boom of blubber\n& bone, harpooned six times,\nthe giant grew into a dynamo\nhitched to six taut rope-lines\nskipping the boat across waves\ntoward the blurry lighthouse.\n\nIt bled out a long silence\nbut men in oilskins labored\nwith hydraulics of light\non water, walked its flank,\n& tore it down to a storeroom\nof Nantucket scrimshaw.\n\nBallast stone or sledge? \nThey bashed in the skull\n& lowered down the boy\nto haul up buckets of oil\nfor candles that burned\na slow, clean, white glow.\n\nAt ten, he was almost a man\nwhose feet sank into the waxy\nmuck of ambergris. His sweat\ndripped into a long hour.\nBig as a barrel, the head\nechoed a temple nave.\n", "title": "Sperm Oil", "id": 58632, "author": "Yusef Komunyakaa"}
{"poem": "The neighbor calls the Siberian Elm\na \u201cweed\u201d tree, demands we hack\nit down, says the leaves overwhelm\nhis property, the square backyard.\n\nHe\u2019s collar-and-tie. A weed tree?\nBranches screen buildings, subway tracks,\nhis patch of yard. We disagree,\nclaim back the sap, heartwood, wild bark.\n\nHe declares the tree \u201chazardous.\u201d\nWe shelter under leaf-hoard, crossway\nfor squirrels, branch house for sparrows, jays.\nThe balcony soaks up the shade.\n\nChatter-song drowns out cars below.\nSun branches down. Leaves overwhelm.\nThe tree will stay. We tell him \u201cno.\u201d\nRoot deep through pavement, Elm.\n", "title": "The Tree Agreement", "id": 58635, "author": "Elise Paschen"}
{"poem": "Ode\u2019iminibaashkiminasiganke\nShe makes strawberry jam\n\nginagawinad wiishko\u2019aanimad, waaseyaagami\nmixing sweet wind and shining water\n\nmiinawaa gipagaa nibwaakaa,\nwith thick wisdom\n\nbigishkada\u2019ad, dibaabiiginad\npounding, measuring\n\ngakina gaa zhawenimangidwa\neverything we\u2019ve cared for\n\ngakina gaa waniangidwa\neverything we\u2019ve lost\n\nnagamowinan waa nagamoyaang\nthe songs we have not yet sung\n\nmiigwanag waa wawezhi\u2019angidwa\nthe feathers yet to decorate\n\nezhi-zhoomiingweyaangoba\nand all the ways we\u2019ve smiled\n\nmooshkine moodayaabikoong\ninto jars filled to the brim\n\nji-baakaakonid pii bakadeyaang.\nto be opened when we are thin.\n", "title": "Umpaowastewin", "id": 58648, "author": "Margaret Noodin"}
{"poem": "Stoned by no Rosetta,\nmerchants allowed through the fence\nlearn to misspeak \u201cblack speak,\u201d\n\nin Edgar\u2019s harbor village,\nat HipHop Fish & Chicken\non Route number 4 \u00d7 10.\n\n\u201cBaby Girl\u201d becomes XX.\n\u201cMy Man\u201d assumes all XY.\n\nFor salt & pepper curls,\n& baby stroller crowds,\ntheir broadcast is the same:\n\n\u201cBaby Girl, your diabetes\nis ready.\u201d \u201cMain Man, your\nstroke order is up.\u201d\n\nThey know their audience:\nfrench fried lives, french fried\nluck, french fried us.\n\nThey know corner markets\nof cornered markets, seldom\nscale the wall. Their shit\n\nis always hot. Their shit is\nalways cheap. Their shit is\n\nalways landmark of poison\nin pens, along with: windows\nwearing boards, hubcaps\n\nleaning curbs, the sound of\n\u201cbitch,\u201d the sound of \u201cmother-\nfucker,\u201d the sound of \u201cniggah\u201d \n\nsounding off, projectile vomiting\nfrom children\u2019s lips\u2009\u2014\u2009our hush\npuppy young, made beasts\n\nbehind these bars. Some days\nyou will see them, dirt bike \nknights, riding Edmondson \n\nAvenue, armor-less. They are\nwheelies, jousting against traffic,\nwheelies, jousting against stop-\n\nlights, gas tanks bleeding out\non stretchers, as sirens serenade,\nmetal flies hover. There are\n\nskeletons of chickens scattered on\nthe ground. There are meeting bones\nof children fractured in the street,\n\ncordoned off.\n\nThis is urban warming. This is\nunderwear in exhibition, pants\nsaddened to sag, hanging off ass\n\ncracks, like wet clothes on a line.\nThis is the ecology of locks, since\nour country is locks, since our\n\ncolor is locks, since this block is\nlocked. When your order is up,\nyou will eat anything tossed inside\n\nthe cage.\n", "title": "Urban Warming", "id": 58657, "author": "Truth Thomas"}
{"poem": "The breaking of clouds begins with seizure.\n\nA man grabs another, reasons ransom.\nA man grabs another, reasons ransom.\nA murder averted in the thing\u2019s scheme.\nA cape\u2019s shell transformed, more than one supposed.\nA cape\u2019s shell transformed, more than one supposed.\nWhat stands behind this? Enemy or friend?\n(Yes, they can be both. Don\u2019t you think I know?)\n(Yes, they can be both. Don\u2019t you think I know?)\nList: Dutch. Indian. Pequot. Puritan.\nList: Then. War. Event. Now. History. List.\nList: Then. War. Event. Now. History. List.\nThe shell buys glories of iron and pelt.\nWampum is dismissed. Joke. Sneer. Currency\nWampum is dismissed. Joke. Sneer. Currency\nof the disappeared whose children live still.\nList: Blessing. Curse. Wife. Slave. Savior. Savage.\nList: Blessing. Curse. Wife. Slave. Savior. Savage.\nThe shells make their noise. The robbed graves cradle.\nHe who brings food to the starving gets cooked.\nHe who brings food to the starving gets cooked.", "title": "Wampum", "id": 58640, "author": "Honor\u00e9e Fanonne Jeffers"}
{"poem": "Spout of a leaf,\nlisten out for the screams\nof your relentless audience:\nthe applause of a waterfall\nin the distance,\n\na hurricane looting \na Miami shopping mall.\nHow careful you are \nwith the rain-cradling\ncurve of your back.\n\nNear your forest,\nall are ready to swim\nand happy to drown\nin me: this lake of fire\nthat moats the edges. \n\nFrom my mouth,\nthey come to peel the flames \nand drink their slick throats\ninto the most silent \nof ashes.\n", "title": "Water Devil", "id": 58642, "author": "Jamaal May"}
{"poem": "Weave me closer\nto you\nwith hands dyed indigo\nthat rake oyster beds\nawake\nSmell you long\nbefore\nI see you\nVanilla sweet\nSweetgrass weaving\nwares that keep Yankees coming\non ferries, no bridge\nWaters been troubled\nMakes you wonder \nwho put the root on whom first\nwith doors dyed indigo\nPray the evil spirits away\nat the praise house\nMake John Hop to stave off John Deere\nWe migrants\nfighting to stay put\nEven nomads come home\nfor a Lowcountry boil\na feast for hungry\nprodigal sons\nand daughters\nwith hearts dyed indigo\nDying for you to\nweave us closer\n", "title": "We Who Weave", "id": 58661, "author": "LeCont\u00e9 Dill"}
{"poem": "it is hallelujah time,\nthe swallows tracing an arc\nof praise just off our balcony,\nthe mountains snow-sparkling\nin gratitude.\n\nHere is our real life\u2009\u2014\u2009\na handful of possible peonies\nfrom the market\u2009\u2014\u2009\nthe life we always intended,\nswallow life threading\nthe city air with\nour weaving joy.\n\nAre we this simple, then,\nto sing all day\u2009\u2014\u2009country songs,\nold hymns, camp tunes?\n\nWe even believe\nthe swallows, keeping time.\n", "title": "When the sun returns", "id": 58650, "author": "Sarah Browning"}
{"poem": "The war was over.\nWe sutured the wounded,\n\nburied the dead, sat at the bar\nwith the enemy, near the blue\n\nthroat of the sea. A sushi chef\nslivered salmon into orchids,\n\netched clouds from oysters,\nas they rose snowing pearls.\n\nFrom shrimp and seaweed\nhe shaped hummingbirds, \n\nwhich hovered above\nour heads.\n\nWith the world\u2019s smallest blade\nhe carved from yellowfin,\n\nminiature flanks of horses. \nThey cantered around our hands.\n", "title": "Yellowtail", "id": 58644, "author": "Mary Morris"}
{"poem": "I think she wanted to explain\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the silence\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0hidden\nwithin her voice\u2014\n\nblue egg in the nettles.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 She wrote something\n\non a rock, used the rock\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 to bash in the skull\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of an injured deer.\n\nBloodied swan-neck arms.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 She\nslinks into her own viscera,\n\na baby fox\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0backing into its trunkhole.\n\nThe wordbone's connected to the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0gutbone.\n\nMeanwhile, her desire\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0for nobody now\nbucks like a rabbit\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0under her ground.\n", "title": "Improvisation (Girl)", "id": 58729, "author": "Rebecca Lindenberg"}
{"poem": "I haven't written \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in a while\nbecause I don't want to talk\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 about anything\nI've been unable to stop\nthinking about: the knotted thread\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of bad capillaries on my retinae,\nmoney, or that my morning was ruined\nby the unusual tightness\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of jeans around my thighs,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0like the obligations\nof having a body\nso ill-fitting, oppressively snug\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0around an obstinate will.\nAnd while \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I don't want\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0to be distracted\nfrom this Duchamp thing\nI've been working on\u2014 \u00a0 \u00a0 I am\nitched out of reverie\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 over and over again\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 by this feeling I don't deserve\nmy raptures anymore.\nSo I'm sorry. I don't want to\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0bring you down. It's unfair\nto have to hear about needles\nand envelopes and flies\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 when you might just have been\nenjoying an iced tea outside\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and when I would prefer to tell you,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 really,\nthere's a family of pheasant living\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 in the massive cottonwood\nwe call the Tree of Life.\nThe male's red, green, gold plumage\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 makes him look\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 like a Christmas present\nI would want to give you.\nSo except \u201cI hope you're well,\u201d\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0that's all.\n", "title": "Letter to a Friend, Unsent", "id": 58730, "author": "Rebecca Lindenberg"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Poetic Subjects", "id": 58731, "author": "Rebecca Lindenberg"}
{"poem": "A child is something else again. Wakes up\nin the afternoon and in an instant he's full of words,\nin an instant he's humming, in an instant warm,\ninstant light, instant darkness.\n\nA child is Job. They've already placed their bets on him\nbut he doesn't know it. He scratches his body\nfor pleasure. Nothing hurts yet.\nThey're training him to be a polite Job,\nto say \"Thank you\" when the Lord has given,\nto say \"You're welcome\" when the Lord has taken away.\n\nA child is vengeance.\nA child is a missile into the coming generations.\nI launched him: I'm still trembling.\n\nA child is something else again: on a rainy spring day\nglimpsing the Garden of Eden through the fence,\nkissing him in his sleep,\nhearing footsteps in the wet pine needles.\nA child delivers you from death.\nChild, Garden, Rain, Fate.\n", "title": "A Child is Something Else Again", "id": 58663, "author": "Yehuda Amichai"}
{"poem": "They amputated\nYour thighs off my hips.\nAs far as I'm concerned\nThey are all surgeons. All of them.\n\nThey dismantle us\nEach from the other.\nAs far as I'm concerned\nThey are all engineers. All of them.\n\nA pity. We were such a good\nAnd loving invention.\nAn aeroplane made from a man and wife.\nWings and everything.\nWe hovered a little above the earth.\n\nWe even flew a little.\n\n\n", "title": "A Pity, We Were Such a Good Invention", "id": 58628, "author": "Yehuda Amichai"}
{"poem": "My father built a great worry around me like a dock\nOnce I left it before I was finished\nAnd he remained with his great, empty worry.\nAnd my mother\u2014like a tree on the shore\nBetween her arms outstretched for me.\n\nAnd in '31 my hands were merry and small\nAnd in '41 they learned to use a rifle\nAnd when I loved my first love\nMy thoughts were like a bunch of colored balloons\nAnd the girl's white hand clutched them all\nWith a thin string\u2014and then let them fly.\n\nAnd in '51 the movement of my life\nWas like the movement of many slaves rowing a ship,\nAnd the face of my father like the lantern at the end of a parting\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0train,\nAnd my mother closed all the clouds in her brown closet.\nAnd I climbed up my street,\nAnd the twentieth century was the blood in my veins,\nBlood that wanted to go out to many wars,\nThrough many openings.\nIt pounds on my head from inside\nAnd moves in angry waves to my heart.\n\nBut now, in the spring of '52, I see\nMore birds have returned than left last winter.\nAnd I return down the slope of the mountain\nTo my room where the woman's body is heavy\nAnd full of time.\n", "title": "Autobiography in the Year 1952", "id": 58664, "author": "Yehuda Amichai"}
{"poem": "Saturday I ran to Mytilene.\n\nBushes and grass along the glass-still way\nWere all dabbled with rain\nAnd the road reeled with shattered skies.\n\nTowards noon an inky, petulant wind\nRavelled the pools, and rinsed the black grass round them.\n\nGulls were up in the late afternoon\nAnd the air gleamed and billowed\nAnd broadcast flung astringent spray\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 All swordy-silver.\nI saw the hills lie brown and vast and passive.\n\nThe men of Mytilene waited restive\nUntil the yellow melt of sun.\nI shouted out my news as I sped towards them\nThat all, rejoicing, could go down to dark.\n\nAll nests, with all moist downy young\nBlinking and gulping daylight; and all lambs\nFour-braced in straw, shivering and mild;\nAnd the first blood-root up from the ravaged beaches\nOf the old equinox; and frangible robins' blue\nTeethed right around to sun:\nThese first we loudly hymned;\nAnd then\nThe hour of genesis\nWhen the first moody firmament\nSwam out of Arctic chaos,\nOrbed solidly as the huge frame for this\nCramped little swaddled creature's coming forth\nTo slowly, foolishly, marvellously\nDiscover a unique estate, held wrapt\nAway from all men else, which to embrace\nOur world would have to stretch and swell with strangeness.\n\nThis made us smile, and laugh at last. There was\nRejoicing all night long in Mytilene.\n", "title": "Birth Day", "id": 58688, "author": "Margaret Avison"}
{"poem": "Winter advances\nleaving its white tracks\nbounding over the hills\nI climb each December\nto get to the river\nwhere velvety shrews,\nvoles and squirrels\ncrisscross in the snow,\ntheir claw marks\nreminding me of the exquisitely\ncomplicated pattern\nI watched an Ojibwe\nbite into a birchbark.\n(Art as old as the world,\nthe woman said to me.)\r \n\u2022\n\n\nIn the origin myth of Eskimos\nthe first children\nsprouted from fertile soil\nand, like tender plants,\nstayed rooted there,\nbeing nourished by the earth.\nNo one knows how one boy\nand one girl grew into adults\nable to walk into the world,\nable to meet and marry.\r \n\u2022\n\n\nEach tree\nwas a letter once.\nPagans\nspelled out their secrets\nby threading\nthe proper leaves\nin proper order\u2014\nBirch tree, Heather leaf,\nleaf of the Ash.\nA language\nyou could hold in your hand.\nWords that quivered,\nturned color in the fall,\nthat could be taken back,\nburned in regret.\nLonely winters\nwhen there was nothing\nto say.\n\n\u2022\n\n\nFrom a north window,\nthe choked river,\na slippery crack of light.\nDoes my neighbor notice me\ncrouched down,\nmy bare fingers exploring\nthe deer tracks I've found,\nsome chips in the ice?\nI wave once,\nbut she stares\nabsentmindedly into the cold.\nPure imitation.\nThe great bored glacier of her face.\n\n\u2022\n\n\nHow many have known\nthe endless emptiness\ninside an ordered room?\nHow many, a silence\nso profound, inside\nand out?\n\n\u2022\n\n\nI turn, startled,\nas if someone\ndogged my steps.\nNothing.\nMidday sun\nscatters down\namong sapling ash.\nAt my feet, birdtracks\nwherever I look.\nThe only ciphers of the day.\nMy footprints merge\nwith the ones laid down here,\nmy whole body,\nheart, lung, muscle,\nleaving its trace.\n\n\u2022\n\n\nEverything that moves\nleaves a story. No story\ncan exist by itself.\n\n\u2022\n\n\nWhat am I\nto the wolf and the rabbit and the fox?\nTo the songless birds\nbalancing on branches?\nTo the solitary pines\ndipped in frost?\n\n\u2022\n\n\nFirst the trough\nwhere it plowed forward,\nthen the wide belly-slide\ndown the bank,\nthe musty scent-post,\nthe scat, the smooth hole\nwhere the otter slipped\nthrough a window in the ice.\nScattered all around,\na wolverine's fresh tracks,\nthe slashes where its claws\nraked as it slid to a stop.\nStiff gusts of wind\nkick up around me.\nTwigs and bits of debris\nsoon mar the tracks.\nBefore long, the sharp edges\nwill begin to slump.\nBy early next week,\neverything will be erased,\nthe immaculate snow\nunable to keep the shape\nof a single creature.", "title": "Deciphering the Alphabet", "id": 58624, "author": "Francine Sterle"}
{"poem": "All night an accelerating\ngeometry of eyes\u2014hundreds\nshaped like birds or boats\nor beetles, simplified to dots\nor crosses or a pair of 2s or mis-\nmatched diamonds, perfect zeros,\nscoops of moon placed sidewise\nor lengthwise on a face, slipping\nout of orbit on a cheek, hung\nunder an ear, planted mid-forehead,\npaper-thin planes of them,\neach one alive and staring\nfrom the dislocated faces of wives,\nlovers, mothers, serene and lopsided,\nsplintered, wrenching, ravaged,\na proliferating gallery of women,\nterraced in my head as I sleep,\nand my own curious eye:\nsteering toward what it perceives,\ncapturing exact duplicates of each\nstylized eye I run by,\nas I race to comprehend\nwhat I'm taking in, what expression\nI'd see if I raised the mirror\nto find my own eye, distorted\nand floating above an iron cheek.\n", "title": "Dreaming of Picasso", "id": 58621, "author": "Francine Sterle"}
{"poem": "The neighborhood cringes behind windows\nwashed in magnesium light, streamers fizzling\nabove the shingled rooftop of the apartments\nacross the street where teenaged boys\nwith mannish arms throw cherry bombs,\nbottle rockets, wings and spinners, snappers,\nchasers, fiery cryolite wheels onto the avenue.\nPaint flakes off the flammable houses\nand onto brave square plots of white grass.\nRain-deprived vines sucker the shutters.\nBackyard dogs tear at the dirt, cats\nrun flat out, their tails straight up.\nWhat's liberty to the checkout girl\nselling smokes and nuts, greenbacks\nturning her fingers to grease? The boys\ninsist on pursuing happiness, their birthright:\na box of matches, crackers on strings,\nsparklers, fountains, missiles, repeating shells,\nRoman candles, Brazilian barrages.\nWe peek through blind slats to where they stand\naround a manhole cover, the gold foam\nof Corona bottles breaking at their feet,\nyoung up-turned faces lit by large caliber\nmulti-shot aerials. We suffer each concussion,\nthe sulfer rush that smells like fear, each dizzy,\norgiastic display that says we love this country,\ndemocracy, the right to a speedy trial. We're afraid\nto complain, to cross the spent red casings\nmelted on asphalt in the morning's stunned\naftermath, to knock hard on any door, and find them\ndraped like dead men over the couches, the floor,\nhands clasped behind their heads prison style,\nshoulders tattooed, dreaming the dreams of free men\nin summer, shirts off, holes in their jeans.\n\n\n", "title": "Fourth of July", "id": 58685, "author": "Dorianne Laux"}
{"poem": "In the middle of this century we turned to each other\nWith half faces and full eyes\nlike an ancient Egyptian picture\nAnd for a short while.\n\nI stroked your hair\nIn the opposite direction to your journey,\nWe called to each other,\nLike calling out the names of towns\nWhere nobody stops\nAlong the route.\n\nLovely is the world rising early to evil,\nLovely is the world falling asleep to sin and pity,\nIn the mingling of ourselves, you and I,\nLovely is the world.\n\nThe earth drinks men and their loves\nLike wine,\nTo forget. \nIt can't.\nAnd like the contours of the Judean hills,\nWe shall never find peace.\n\nIn the middle of this century we turned to each other,\nI saw your body, throwing shade, waiting for me,\nThe leather straps for a long journey\nAlready tightening across my chest.\nI spoke in praise of your mortal hips,\nYou spoke in praise of my passing face,\nI stroked your hair in the direction of your journey,\nI touched your flesh, prophet of your end,\nI touched your hand which has never slept,\nI touched your mouth which may yet sing.\n\nDust from the desert covered the table\nAt which we did not eat\nBut with my finger I wrote on it\nThe letters of your name.\n\n\n", "title": "In the Middle of This Century", "id": 58625, "author": "Yehuda Amichai"}
{"poem": "It's been a while since they asked, Who lives in between these\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0houses,\nAnd who was he, the last of the last to speak,\u00a0\nAnd who forgot his coat between these houses,\nAnd who was the one who stayed. Why didn't he flee?\n\nAmong the blossomers, a dead tree stands, dead tree.\nA long-standing error, a misunderstanding of yore,\nThe edge of the Land, where an era begins to be\nFor somebody else. A bit of stillness there.\n\nAnd the current events of body and of hell,\nThe reeds of the end, their spells of sway and sough.\nThe wind passed on its way through that locale\nAnd a serious dog saw the humans laugh.\n", "title": "It's Been a While Since They Asked", "id": 58626, "author": "Yehuda Amichai"}
{"poem": "We forget where we came from. Our Jewish\nnames from the Exile give us away,\nbring back the memory of flower and fruit, medieval cities,\nmetals, knights who turned to stone, roses,\nspices whose scent drifted away, precious stones, lots of red,\nhandicrafts long gone from the world\n(the hands are gone too).\n\nCircumcision does it to us,\nas in the Bible story of Shechem and the sons of Jacob,\nso that we go on hurting all our lives.\n\nWhat are we doing, coming back here with this pain?\nOur longings were drained together with the swamps,\nthe desert blooms for us, and our children are beautiful.\nEven the wrecks of ships that sank on the way\nreached this shore,\neven winds did. Not all the sails.\n\nWhat are we doing\nin this dark land with its\nyellow shadows that pierce the eyes?\n(Every now and then someone says, even after forty\nor fifty years: \"The sun is killing me.\")\n\nWhat are we doing with these souls of mist, with these names,\nwith our eyes of forests, with our beautiful children,\nwith our quick blood?\n\nSpilled blood is not the roots of trees\nbut it's the closest thing to roots\nwe have.\n", "title": "Jews in the Land of Israel", "id": 58629, "author": "Yehuda Amichai"}
{"poem": "Like our \u00a0bodies' imprint\nNot a sign will remain that we were in this place.\nThe world closes behind us,\u00a0\nThe sand straightens itself.\n\nDates are already in view\nIn which you no longer exist,\u00a0\nAlready a wind blows clouds\nWhich will not rain on us both.\n\nAnd your name is already in the passenger lists of ships,\nAnd in the registers of hotels,\nWhose names alone\nDeaden the heart.\n\nThe three languages I know,\nAll the colors in which I see and dream:\n\nNone will help me.\n\n\n", "title": "Like Our Bodies' Imprint", "id": 58627, "author": "Yehuda Amichai"}
{"poem": "They peopled landscapes casually like trees,\nbeing there richly, never having gone there,\nand whether clanning in cities or village-thin stands\nwere reticent as trees with those not born there,\nand their fate, like trees, was seldom in their hands.\n\nOthers to them were always one of two\nevils: the colonist or refugee.\nThey stared back, half disdaining us, half fearing;\ninferring from our looks their destiny\nas preservation or as clearing.\n\nI envied them. To be local was to know\nwhich team to support: the local team;\nwhere to drop in for a pint with mates: the local;\nbest of all to feel by birthright welcome\nanywhere; be everywhere a local...\n\nBedouin-Brython-Algonquins; always there\nbefore you; the original prior claim\nthat made your being anywhere intrusive.\nThere, doubtless, in Eden before Adam\nwiped them out and settled in with Eve.\n\nWhether at home or away, whether kids\nplaying or saying what they wanted,\nor adults chatting, waiting for a bus,\nor, in their well-tended graves, the contented dead,\nthere were always locals, and they were never us.\n", "title": "Locals", "id": 58691, "author": "James Lasdun"}
{"poem": "Of 385 varieties, to make the simplest\nall you need are two sticks:\none vertical; the other, horizontal.\nCall one time; one, space or\nlife\u2014death, good\u2014evil, male\u2014female.\nYou choose. Any polarity will do\nas long as the cross-piece cuts across\nthe one upright. Now, it's a human form\nwith arms outstretched. Rub them together.\nA couple of sparks, a few more,\na flash of light, a slow increase in heat,\nand radiating around you: uncontainable fire.\n", "title": "Making a Cross", "id": 58623, "author": "Francine Sterle"}
{"poem": "It's tough being a guy, having to be gruff\nand buff, the strong silent type, having to laugh\nit off\u2014pain, loss, sorrow, betrayal\u2014or leave in a huff\nand say No big deal, take a ride, listen to enough\nloud rock and roll that it scours out your head, if\u00a0\nnot your heart. Or to be called a fag or a poof\nwhen you love something or someone, scuffing\na shoe across the floor, hiding a smile in a muffler\npulled up nose high, an eyebrow raised for the word quaff\nused in casual conversation\u2014wine, air, oil change at the Jiffy\nLube\u2014gulping it down, a joke no one gets. It's rough,\nyes, the tie around the neck, the starched white cuffs\ntoo long, too short, frayed, frilled, rolled up. The self\nisn't an easy quest for a beast with balls, a cock, proof\nof something difficult to define or defend. Chief or chef,\nthief or roofer, serf or sheriff, feet on the earth or aloof.\nSon, brother, husband, lover, father, they are different\nfrom us, except when they fall or stand alone on a wharf.\n", "title": "Men", "id": 58684, "author": "Dorianne Laux"}
{"poem": "I passed through the narrow hills\nof my mother's hips one cold morning\nand never looked back, until now, clipping\nher tough toenails, sitting on the bed's edge\ncombing out the tuft of hair at the crown\nwhere it ratted up while she slept, her thumbs\nlocked into her fists, a gesture as old\nas she is, her blanched knees fallen together\nbeneath a blue nightgown. The stroke\n\ntook whole pages of words, random years\ntorn from the calendar, the names of roses\nleaning over her driveway: Cadenza,\nGreat Western, American Beauty. She can't\nthink, can't drink her morning tea, do her\ncrossword puzzle in ink. She's afraid\nof everything, the sound of the front door\nopening, light falling through the blinds\u2014\npulls her legs up so the bright bars\nwon't touch her feet. I help her\nwith the buttons on her sweater. She looks\nhard at me and says the word sleeve.\nExactly, I tell her and her face relaxes\nfor the first time in days. I lie down\n\nnext to her on the flowered sheets and tell her\na story about the day she was born, head\nfirst into a hard world: the Great Depression,\nshanties, Hoovervilles, railroads and unions.\nI tell her about Amelia Earhart and she asks\n\nAir? and points to the ceiling. Asks Heart?\nand points to her chest. Yes, I say. I sing\nCole Porter songs. Brother, Can You Spare\na Dime? When I recite lines from Gone\nwith the Wind she sits up and says Potatoes!\nand I say, Right again. I read her Sandburg,\nsome Frost, and she closes her eyes. I say yes,\nyes, and tuck her in. It's summer. She's tired.\nNo one knows where she's been.\u00a0\n\n\n", "title": "Mother's Day", "id": 58687, "author": "Dorianne Laux"}
{"poem": "The first time\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I went to the tree\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0was to knock on wood.\n\nNo one answered.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The second time I knocked,\u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the tree, wild in the wind,\n\nleaned toward me.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 No bad luck arrived.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I went back and knocked again\n\nto tell the tree\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0my good fortune\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 was not forgotten.\n\n\n\u2022\n\n\nChiseling a nest hole\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in dead wood,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 a woodpecker drills a downed log.\n\nThe rapid blows of its beak\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 hammer me awake\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0each night for a week.\r \n\u2022\n\n\nBeneath the bark\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0nymphs live\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 like hidden charms\n\npeople leave\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 in drawers or cupboards\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0for protection.\n\nI believe in tree spirits\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0who embed their souls\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 in this wood.\r \n\u2022\n\n\nThey are not immortal\r \n\u2022\n\n\nbut their lives,\u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0says Hesiod,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0are ten times\n\nthat of the phoenix,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0who outlives nine\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ravens, who outlive\n\nthree glorious stags,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0who outlive four\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 crows, who outlive\n\nnine generations of aged men.\r \n\u2022\n\n\nBeyond the shelter-\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0belts of farmsteads,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0found deep\n\nin poplar woods\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and birch thickets,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a flicker assaults a tree\n\nas nymphs\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0retreat into the tunneled\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ruts of the trunk.\n\nThe bird chips away\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0without distraction.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Its showy\n\nred patch,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a splash of blood,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 catches my eye.\r \n\u2022\n\n\nTender\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0wing buds\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of an immature insect\n\nare like the rising\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0nipples of a \n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0young girl.\n\nThe temptation\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 to slide a finger\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0over the small mounds...\r \n\u2022\n\n\nFly away!\n\n\u2022\n\n\nThe nymphs are free,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0changed forever\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0as they brush\n\nthe pond's scalloped edge.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 What part of me they take away\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 will settle some day.\n\nDeep in dying wood.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I will be there\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0when you knock.", "title": "Nymphs", "id": 58622, "author": "Francine Sterle"}
{"poem": "As the tide rises, the closed mollusc\nOpens a fraction to the ocean's food,\nBathed in its riches. Do not ask\nWhat force would do, or if force could.\n\nA knife is of no use against a fortress.\nYou might break it to pieces as gulls do.\nNo, only the rising tide and its slow progress\nOpens the shell. Lovers, I tell you true.\n\nYou who have held yourselves closed hard\nAgainst warm sun and wind, shelled up in fears\nAnd hostile to a touch or tender word\u2014\nThe ocean rises, salt as unshed tears.\n\nNow you are floated on this gentle flood\nThat cannot force or be forced, welcome food\nSalt as your tears, the rich ocean's blood,\nEat, rest, be nourished on the tide of love.\n", "title": "Of Molluscs", "id": 58677, "author": "May Sarton"}
{"poem": "A woman in a man's world, a woman\nmaking a claim, choosing her own body\nas the source of inspiration, wearing, as Pittura did,\na gold chain bearing the mask of imitation:\nher tousled hair and muscled arms,\nthe shifting gold-green colors of her dress,\nher sleeve rolled to the elbow,\nthe light striking \u00a0her brow and the shadow\nmade by the mask-shaped charm against flesh,\nthe double mirrors she used to paint herself,\nthe act of it captured mid-gesture,\nthe paint laid out as her father taught her:\nwhite near the thumb then red, brown, green,\nher well-curved body bending around the canvas,\nthe calculated self-image occupying\nthe full height of the picture, her unromanticized face,\ndramatically lit, composed, the bare bodice,\nthe rolled-up sleeve, her eyes turned upward,\nher right arm raised, its movement frozen,\nthe mind in motion, her wide, searching gaze.\n\n\n", "title": "Self-Portrait as an Allegory of Painting", "id": 58620, "author": "Francine Sterle"}
{"poem": "make out with him a bit, this\nis what my friend would like to do\noh these too many dead summers later,\nand as much as I want to stroll with her\ninto the poet's hazy fancy\nall I can see is O'Hara's long-gone lips\nfallen free of the bone, slumbering\nbeneath the grainy soil.\nI can hear Frank's dry voice\ncombing the air for song, but what I see\nis his skeleton entombed in dust, wrapped\nin his dapper suit, his razzle-dazzle sunglasses.\nShe sees him alive, ambling\ndown a sidewalk, all of New York\nclambering into the sky behind him,\ncuff links winking, his dear friends waving,\ncalling him by name like they do in the city:\n800,000 people and you step outside for a smoke\nand see someone you know.\nThat's how it is with death.\nThose you love come at you like lightning,\ncrackle for an instant\u2014so kissable\u2014\nand then lips and all, they're gone.\n", "title": "To Kiss Frank...", "id": 58686, "author": "Dorianne Laux"}
{"poem": "Tell a child she is composed of parts\n(her Ojibway quarters, her German half-heart)\nshe'll find the existence of harpies easy\nto swallow. Storybook children never come close\nto her mix, but manticores make great uncles,\nSphinx a cousin she'll allow, centaurs better to love\nthan boys\u2014the horse part, at least, she can ride.\nWith a bestiary for a family album she's proud.\nHer heap of blankets, her garbage grin, prove\nshe's descended of bears, her totem, it's true.\nAnd that German witch with the candy roof,\nthat was her ancestor too. If swans can rain\nwhite rape from heaven, then what is a girl to do?\nBelieve her Indian eyes, her sly French smile,\nher breast with its veins skim milk blue\u2014\nShe is the myth that is true.\n\n\n", "title": "True Myth", "id": 58669, "author": "Heid E. Erdrich"}
{"poem": "between basalt cliffs\n\r no one mourns\n\r the loss of statecraft.\n\n\r a blaze over water\n\r reminds a quayside\n\r that soon the sea\n\r shall round up stoneposts,\n\r tapers and\u2014\n\n\r should the seafarer\n\r invite tenderness to meander\n\r through returning hairlines\n\n\r should his fingers\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 become racy\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0or go idling through\u00a0\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0wingtips of paranoia\n\n\r \u2014the sea shall watch itself\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 riot\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and\n\r reclaim the storm\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0that\n\r snaps and screams\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and\u00a0\n\r whirls past clambacks\n\r porcupine quills\n\n\r seeds of clover\n\r flesh of tides.\n\r \u00a0\n", "title": "Untitled (\u201cbetween basalt cliffs\u201d)", "id": 58668, "author": "Uche Nduka"}
{"poem": "boat me around gently.\n\r whoever i'm with\n\r i'm seeing only you.\n\n\r diplomacy has wounded us.\n\r pierced us. smashed us.\n\r is there something\n\r in the turning\n\r of this river's head\n\r that will mend our dislocations?\n\n\r your eagle drives my ego.\n\r there is ice in your thighs.\n\n\r take the buoys of light\n\r for your thighpaths whose\n\r eyes\n\n\r night has darkened.\n", "title": "Untitled (\"boat me around gently\")", "id": 58667, "author": "Uche Nduka"}
{"poem": "when shall your wounds\n\r welcome their scabs?\n\n\r daily your kingdom squeaks\n\r and leaps to the starlight\n\n\r it wants all of you\n\r you of all and the music\n\n\r of the pastures of midnoon\n\r a little boy's kaleidoscopticon\n\n\r you are the one the music\n\r has chosen and whom strings call\n\n\r twilight moans behind you\n\r all you are you are all\n\n\r it is the boy in black talking\n\r how civil is the civil war?\n", "title": "Untitled (\"when shall your wounds\")", "id": 58666, "author": "Uche Nduka"}
{"poem": "I was wondering why that guy\nwore the blanket coat, bone choker, rock\nwatch, woven buckle, quilled Stetson\u2014\nI was wondering why he wore\nthat beaded vest, like a ledger drawing\nor a Winter Count, its skinny figure\nforever sneaking after two bison\naround belly to back,\naround back to belly\u2014\nI was wondering why, when he said,\nI wear these getups every day\u2014\nEvery day, because these things\nare sacred, these things are prayer.\n\nThen I knew I could live this life\nIf I had blue horses\npainted around and around me,\nshells and beads like rain in my ear\npraying Prairie open in me\nat stoplight, hard city, last call, bank line,\ncoffee break, shopping cart, keycode,\nPrarie open in me\nPrarie open in me\nevery day\u00a0every day\u00a0every day.\n\n\n", "title": "Wearing Indian Jewelery", "id": 58670, "author": "Heid E. Erdrich"}
{"poem": "I thought of happiness, how it is woven\nOut of the silence in the empty house each day\nAnd how it is not sudden and it is not given\nBut is creation itself like the growth of a tree.\nNo one has seen it happen, but inside the bark\nAnother circle is growing in the expanding ring.\nNo one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,\nBut the tree is lifted by this inward work\nAnd its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.\n\nSo happiness is woven out of the peace of hours\nAnd strikes its roots deep in the house alone:\nThe old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,\nWhite curtains softly and continually blown\nAs the free air moves quietly about the room;\nA shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall\u2014\nThese are the dear familiar gods of home,\nAnd here the work of faith can best be done,\nThe growing tree is green and musical.\n\nFor what is happiness but growth in peace,\nThe timeless sense of time when furniture\nHas stood a life's span in a single place,\nAnd as the air moves, so the old dreams stir\nThe shining leaves of present happiness?\nNo one has heard thought or listened to a mind,\nBut where people have lived in inwardness\nThe air is charged with blessing and does bless;\nWindows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.\n", "title": "The Work of Happiness", "id": 58678, "author": "May Sarton"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Ambition", "id": 58703, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "And When My Sorrow was Born", "id": 58723, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Astronomer", "id": 58717, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Blessed City", "id": 58711, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Crucified", "id": 58716, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness;\n You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs,\n And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.\n \u00a0\n Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance,\n Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot\n And not to be trapped by withering laurels.\n And in you I have found aloneness\n And the joy of being shunned and scorned.\n \u00a0\n Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield,\n In your eyes I have read\n That to be enthroned is to be enslaved,\n And to be understood is to be leveled down,\n And to be grasped is but to reach one\u2019s fullness\n And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.\n \u00a0\n Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion,\n You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences,\n And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings,\n And urging of seas,\n And of mountains that burn in the night,\n And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.\n \u00a0\n Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,\n You and I shall laugh together with the storm,\n And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,\n And we shall stand in the sun with a will,\n And we shall be dangerous.\n", "title": "Defeat", "id": 58713, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Eye", "id": 58720, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Faces", "id": 58715, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Fox", "id": 58701, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "God", "id": 58692, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Good God and the Evil God", "id": 58712, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Grave-Digger", "id": 58709, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Great Longing", "id": 58718, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Greater Sea", "id": 55373, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "My Friend", "id": 58693, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "Last night I invented a new pleasure, and as I was giving it the\u00a0first trial an angel and a devil came rushing toward my house.\u00a0 They\u00a0met at my door and fought with each other over my newly created\u00a0pleasure; the one crying, \u201cIt is a sin!\u201d\u2014the other, \u201cIt is a\u00a0virtue!\u201d", "title": "The New Pleasure", "id": 58704, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Night and the Madman", "id": 58714, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "On Giving and Taking", "id": 58698, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "On the Steps of the Temple", "id": 58710, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Other Language", "id": 58705, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "\u201cThe Perfect World\u201d", "id": 58724, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The\u00a0Pomegranate", "id": 58706, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Said a Blade of Grass", "id": 58719, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Scarecrow", "id": 58694, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Seven Selves", "id": 58699, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Sleep-Walkers", "id": 58695, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Three Ants", "id": 58708, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Two Cages", "id": 58707, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Two Hermits", "id": 58697, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Two Learned Men", "id": 58721, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "War", "id": 58700, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "When My Sorrow Was Born", "id": 58722, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Wise Dog", "id": 58696, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Wise King", "id": 58702, "author": "Kahlil Gibran"}
{"poem": "Man\u2019s rich with little, were his Judgment true,Nature is frugal, and her Wants are few;Those few Wants answer\u2019d, bring sincere Delights,But Fools create themselves new Appetites.Fancy and Pride seek Things at vast Expence,Which relish not to\u00a0Reason\u00a0nor to\u00a0SenseLike Cats in Airpumps, to subsist we striveOn Joys too thin to keep the Soul alive.\nMan\u2019s rich with little, were his Judgment true,\nNature is frugal, and her Wants are few;\nThose few Wants answer\u2019d, bring sincere Delights,\nBut Fools create themselves new Appetites.\nFancy and Pride seek Things at vast Expence,\nWhich relish not to\u00a0Reason\u00a0nor to\u00a0Sense\nLike Cats in Airpumps, to subsist we strive\nOn Joys too thin to keep the Soul alive.", "title": "XII Mon. February [1746] hath xxviii days", "id": 58689, "author": "Benjamin Franklin"}
{"poem": "His new hip healed in, we're working \non a bluff, talking doctors and health care \nreform as we shove a new propane tank into place. \nA shape on the surface catches his eye: \n\"Right whale,\" he says, but I can only see\n endless swells rolling in from the east.\n He points out the gradations of gray \nand green that mark deep ledge, the tide's \nshape along the islands and rocks,\n the whale's glistening back suddenly in focus.\n I react with the same surprise\n my patients feel when I observe \nwhat they can't see\u2014 \na sudden shift in gaze, or a crease in a cheek, \nunderstanding how a doctor becomes \nlike a man who has spent sixty years \non a lobster boat, watching the world \nswim fast and shining, right before his eyes.\n", "title": "A Lobsterman Looks at the Sea", "id": 58439, "author": "Richard M. Berlin"}
{"poem": "Week upon week at the dorm she watched him\nworking at a table with a pencil in his teeth,\neating with a stack of books and papers,\nreading while he walked. His hair was\ngroups of angry men, his sweaty cuffs were wrinkled\nat his forearms: he seemed to be loved by no one.\nBut always there were pairs of houseflies\nhovering above him, landing on his nest of notes,\ntrailing him as if with streamers and sound.\nA farm girl, she knew to follow the flies:\nthey'll take you to the milk just pulled to the pail,\nto the cow's haunch where the meat will one day be sweetest,\nthe swelled pond, the unlatched gate. Everything,\nshe knew, was in those notebooks\nhe would carry: her future, the distances of islands, poles\nand stars, the reason for the network of men's follies,\nhow to spend the night.\n", "title": "At the Dorm", "id": 58673, "author": "Mandy Kahn"}
{"poem": "Perhaps she came down for the apples,\n or was flushed out by the saws powering \nthe far woods, or was simply lost, \nor was crossing one open space for another. \n\nShe was a figure approaching, a presence \noutside a kitchen window, framed \nby the leafless apple trees, the stiff blueberry bushes, \nthe after-harvest corn, the just-before-rain sky, \n\na shape only narrow bones could hold, \nturning its full face upward, head tilted to one side, as if to speak. \n\nI want my life back. \n\nMorning settles around her like a silver coat.\n Rustling branches, hooves in flight.\n", "title": "Deer Descending", "id": 58436, "author": "Philip Terman"}
{"poem": "Perhaps to those familiar with their ways\nThe sight would not have been so startling:\nA deer fording the Missouri in the early afternoon.\n\nPerhaps they would not have worried as much\nAs I about the fragility of it all:\nHer agonizingly slow pace, the tender ears\nAnd beatific face just above the water.\n\nAt one point she hit upon a shoal\nAnd appeared to walk upon a mantle,\nThe light glancing off her thin legs and black hooves.\n\nI thought she might pause for a while to rest,\nTo gain some bearings, but instead she bound\nBack in, mindful I suppose\nOf the vulnerability of open water.\n\nWhen she finally reached the island\nAnd leapt into dark stands\nOf cottonwoods and Russian olives,\nI swear I almost fell down in prayer.\n\nAnd now I long to bear witness of such things,\nTo tell someone in need the story\nOf a deer fording the Missouri in the early afternoon.\n", "title": "Deer Fording the Missouri in Early Afternoon", "id": 58671, "author": "Kevin Cole"}
{"poem": "Sometimes, when we're on a long drive,\nand we've talked enough and listened\nto enough music and stopped twice,\nonce to eat, once to see the view,\nwe fall into this rhythm of silence.\nIt swings back and forth between us\nlike a rope over a lake.\nMaybe it's what we don't say\nthat saves us.\n", "title": "Enough Music", "id": 58676, "author": "Dorianne Laux"}
{"poem": "My wife sits in her swivel chair\nringed by skeins of multicolored yarn\nthat will become the summer sweater\nshe has imagined since September.\nHer hand rests on the spinning wheel\nand her foot pauses on the pedals\nas she gazes out into the swollen river.\nLight larking between wind and current\nwill be in this sweater. So will a shade\nof red she saw when the sun went down.\nWhen she is at her wheel, time moves\nlike the tune I almost recognize now\nthat she begins to hum it, a lulling\nmelody born from the draft of fiber,\nclack of spindle and bobbin, soft\nbreath as the rhythm takes hold.\n\n\n", "title": "Handspun", "id": 58672, "author": "Floyd Skloot"}
{"poem": "breezy, floral, dancing with color\n soft, silky, flows as I walk \nEaster Sunday and you always liked \n\nto get dressed, go for brunch, \"maybe \nthere's a good movie playing somewhere?\" \nWrong religion, we were not church-goers, \n\nbut New Yorkers who understood the value \nof a parade down 5th Avenue, bonnets\n in lavender, powder blues, pinks, hues \n\nof spring, the hope it would bring.\n We had no religion but we did have\n noodle kugel, grandparents, dads \n\nwho could fix fans, reach the china\n on the top shelf, carve the turkey. \nThat time has passed. You were the last\n\n to go, mom, and I still feel bad I never\n got dressed up for you like you wanted me to. \nI had things, things to do. But today in L.A.\u2014 \n\nhot the way you liked it\u2014those little birds \nyou loved to see flitting from tree to tree\u2014 \njust saw one, a twig in its mouth, preparing \n\na bed for its baby\u2014might still be an egg, \nI wish you were here. I've got a closet filled \nwith dresses I need to show you.\n", "title": "I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom,", "id": 58437, "author": "Kim Dower"}
{"poem": "To crease a sheet of paper is to change\nits memory, says the origami\nmaster: what was a field of snow\nfolded into flake. A crane, erect,\nstructured from surface. A tree\nemerges from a leaf\u2014each form undone\n\nreveals the seams, pressed\nwith ruler's edge. Some figures take\nhundreds to be shaped, crossed\n& doubled over, the sheet bound\nto its making\u2014a web of scars\nthat maps a body out of space,\n\nhow I fashion memory: idling\nat an intersection next to Jack Yates High,\nan hour past the bell, I saw a girl\nfold herself in half to slip beneath\nthe busted chain-link, books thrust\nahead, splayed on asphalt broiling\n\nin Houston sun. What memory\nwill she retain? Her cindered palms,\nthe scraped shin? Braids brushing\nthe dirt? The white kite of her homework\ntaking flight? Finding herself\nlocked out, or being made\n\nto break herself in.\n", "title": "Lessons", "id": 58674, "author": "Vanessa Stauffer"}
{"poem": "Before the train screamed him through tunnels \nto his windowless office, the idiots\n he had to \"sir,\" my father needed a space \nwithout us, so in a crack of light from the bathroom, \nhe dressed, held his shoes by two fingers, \nand left us sleeping. That walk \n\nto the diner, the last stars fading out, \nthe sky lightening from black to blue to white, \nwas his time. He walked in all weather, \nlet each season touch him all over, \nlifted his face to rain and sun. He liked \nto watch the old houses stir awake\n and nod to the woman in her slippers on 27th, \nsmoking as she strolled her little mutt. \nTo step back, smooth as Fred Astaire,\n from the paperboy's wild toss. \n\nMilk bottles sweated on doorsteps, \nsweet cream on top, and once, he lifted a quart \nfrom its wire basket, drank it down \nbeneath our neighbor's winking porch light, \nand left the empty on the stoop.\n", "title": "Mornings", "id": 58438, "author": "Susan Aizenberg"}
{"poem": "Every spring my mother says I should buy a straw\n hat so I won't overheat in summer.\n\n I always agree but the valley's soon cold, and besides\n my old Borsalino is nearly rain-proof. \n\nShe's at it again, it's August, the grapes are sugaring.\n I say, Okay, and pluck a little spider from her hair\u2014 \n\nhair so fine it can't hold even one of her grandmother's\n tortoise shell combs.\n", "title": "My Mother Worries About My Hat", "id": 58435, "author": "Richard Jarrette"}
{"poem": "My route lassos the outskirts, \nthe reclusive, the elderly, the rural\u2014 \nthe poor who clan in their tarpaper \nislands, the old ginseng hunter\n\n Albert Harm, who strings the \"crow's\n foot\" to dry over his wood stove. \nShy eyes of fenced-in horses \nfollow me down the rutted dirt road. \n\nAt dusk, I pedal past white birches, \nbreathe the smoke of spring chimneys, \nmy heart working uphill toward someone \nhungry for word from the world. \n\nI am Mercury, bearing news, my wings\n a single-speed maroon Schwinn bike.\n I sear my bright path through the twilight \nto the sick, the housebound, the lonely. \n\nMessages delivered, wire basket empty, \nI part the blue darkness toward supper, \nconfident I've earned this day's appetite, \nstronger knowing I'll be needed tomorrow.\n", "title": "The Paper Boy", "id": 58413, "author": "Thomas R. Smith"}
{"poem": "That day we were trapped\nbetween chartreuse living\nroom walls and the godly\ncleanliness of afghans\nsaving sofas and chairs.\n\nWe were talking about\nanything except Uncle Carl\u2014\ngone, how we'd miss him\u2014\nwhen Uncle Gus came down\nthe hall and stood in\n\nthe archway, his wiry\nbody strapped under a black\naccordion. \"Haven't played,\"\nhe said, \"for a long time.\"\nSo he played a waltz and I\n\nsquirmed in my chair under\nthe slow flow of grief. He\nplayed a polka and I heard\nmy sister clapping lightly\nfor the mourner bending over\n\nthe keys. His cheek-bones,\nred as Helgoland's\ncliffs on the North Sea. Gulls\nwhirled and screamed around\nthe black load on his heart.\n", "title": "Playing His Heart Out", "id": 58675, "author": "Ken Smith"}
{"poem": "Pruning back the old spirea bushes\nthat sprawled for years in summer's heat,\nI bared the snake skin, a yard and a half long:\nits naked empty length rippled in the streaming wind\nlifting its ghostly coils from the dead shoots\nthat scraped the slough from the slithering body\nthat shed it in that narrow, shaded space.\n\nI paused\u2014who wouldn't?\u2014shears poised,\nslipped off gray canvas gloves, extracted\nthe sere, striated casing from the brown stalks\nthat had held it, silent, hidden.\n\nI coiled the paper-thin curling sheath with care,\ndelicately, eased it into a simple squatty box\nfor keeping, for care, for my daughters\nto take to school, to show, to explain\nhow some sinuous body we've never glimpsed,\nthat haunts about our shrubs, our porch,\nleft for us this translucent, scale-scored wrapper,\nthis silent hint of all that moves unseen.\n\n\n", "title": "Snakeskin", "id": 58683, "author": "Stephen Behrendt"}
{"poem": "Fifteen I got a job at Leggett's, stock \nboy, fifty cents an hour. Moved up\u2014I come \nfrom that kind of people\u2014to toys at Christmas,\n then Menswear and finally Shoes. \n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Quit to go \nto college, never worked retail again, but \nI still really like stores, savor merchandise \nneatly stacked on tables, sweaters wanting\n my gliding palm as I walk by, mannequins \nweirdly sexy behind big glass windows, \nshoes shiny and just waiting for the right feet. \n\nSo why in my seventies do Target, Lowes,\n and Home Depot spin me dizzy and lost, \nwanting my mother to find me, wipe my eyes,\n hold my hand all the way out to the car?\n", "title": "Stores", "id": 58680, "author": "David Huddle"}
{"poem": "As I drove into town\n the driver in front of me \nruns a stop sign. \nA pedestrian pulls down his cap. \nA man comes out of his house \nto sweep the steps.\n Ordinariness\n bright as raspberries. \n\nI turn on the radio. \nSomebody tells me\n the day is sunny and warm. \nA woman laughs \n\nand my daughter steps out of the radio. \nGrief spreads in my throat like strep. \nI had forgotten, I was happy, I maybe \nwas humming \"You Are My Lucky Star,\" \na song I may have invented. \nSometimes a red geranium, a dog,\n a stone\nwill carry me away. \nBut not for long. \nSome memory or another of her \ncatches up with me and stands\n like an old nun behind a desk, \nruler in hand.\n", "title": "This Morning", "id": 58679, "author": "Jo McDougall"}
{"poem": "So many years later, the old dog\nstill circles, head lowered, crippled by\narthritis, nearly blind, incontinent.\nWe repeat the litany, as if we need\nconvincing that the end is right.\n\nI'll get her an ice cream cone if you'll\ndrive her to the vet, my wife says.\nSo there we sit on the front steps\nwith our friend, and in the car, as always,\nwhen she senses the doctor's office\ndrawing near, she moans and tries to\nburrow underneath the seats.\n\nWhat remains, the memory of how\nshe taught us all the way we need\nto learn to live with wasting.\nThere we sit, together, one last time\nas all that sweetness slowly disappears.\n", "title": "The Way We Said Goodbye", "id": 58681, "author": "Mark Vinz"}
{"poem": "With spring in our flesh\nthe cranes come back,\nfunneling into a north\ncold and black.\n\n And we go out to them,\ngo out into the town,\nwelcoming them with shouts,\nasking them down.\n\nThe winter flies away\nwhen the cranes cross.\nIt falls into the north,\nhomeward and lost.\n\nLet no one call it back\nwhen the cranes fly,\nsilver birds, red-capped, \ndown the long sky.\n", "title": "With Spring In Our Flesh", "id": 58682, "author": "Don Welch"}
{"poem": "Inside the Northern General\nthey\u2019re trying to burn away\na small piece of your heart.\n\nI want to know which bit,\nhow much\nand what it holds.\n\nMy questions live\nbetween what doctors call the heart\nand what we mean by it,\n\nwide as the gap between brain and mind.\nAnd in our lineage of bypassed hearts\nwe should be grateful\n\nfor the literal. I know my heart\nis your heart\u2009\u2014\u2009good for running,\nnot much else\n\nand later as you sit up in your borrowed bed\nI get the whole thing wrong,\ncall it oblation. Offering\n\nor sacri\ufb01ce. As if you\u2019d given something up.\nAs if their tiny \ufb01re was ritual\nand we could warm by it.\n", "title": "Ablation", "id": 58575, "author": "Helen Mort"}
{"poem": "I surrender my weapons:\nCatapult Tears, Rain-Cloud Hat,\nLip Zip, Brittle Coat, Taut Teeth\nin guarded rows. Pluck this plate\nof armor from my ear, drop\nit in the Amnesty Bin,\nwatch my sadness land among\nthe dark shapes of memory.\n\nUnarmed, now see me saunter\npast Ticking Baggage, Loaded\nQuestions, Gangs of Doubt; my love\nequips me. I swear, ever\nsince your cheeky face span round\nI trust this whole bloody world.\n", "title": "The Amnesty", "id": 58574, "author": "Caroline Bird"}
{"poem": "And Smart saw God concentric in his cat.\nSmart\u2019s cat, artificing faith from cyclone\nvolition. There is no God in you, yellow\ndog. Your breath is our daily quicksand;\nyou juggle your legs into an avid heap.\nYou are bent on death. There is no God\nin you. You are imperfect and critterly.\nI will consider you, for all of that. Today,\nas you joust farewell to the park; the pack\nin their garrison palsy, tails agog, and you,\ncocking your head to cup Madam\u2019s strewn\nbark, your nose like an antique brooch\nin the sun. I will consider you, yellow dog,\nas you twist in a rapt mechanical dream.\nI will consider your coat, the color\nof fenced gold; how you are your own\nsecular halo. I will consider your skull,\nthe narrow skull of a young gazelle\nwhose victory is leaping. And I will\nconsider your eyes, their hazel light\na gulp of fire, those firewater eyes,\nholding now a numb depth down,\nand milkier flickering monthly. I will\nconsider your youth, when we didn\u2019t\nknow if you would saunter or quake;\nwhen we didn\u2019t know if you\nwould prove savvy or giddy or both.\nIt was both. Our frank amaze at your hardy\nsmarts! Our silly delight at each degree\nof more-than-human knowing. I will\nconsider you, yellow dog, your pale\nmoods and your gazing; your fidgets\nand your snoozes. There is no God in you,\nthe deep-time of a dog year is enough.\nAnd lately you are wiser than all zero.\nDear dog, creaking like a haunted house,\nI will consider you, from bucking young\n\u2019un to patient as settling porter; how you\nheld the pack when Fat Man was small\nand a zoomy nuisance of wriggling. I will\nconsider your narrow self, aslant against\nmy chest in grief, in grieving, overwhelmed,\nwhen you were the busy broom that swept\nthe pieces of me together. Yes, I will\nconsider the yellow dog, his bestowing\nsnout in the chill a.m.; his royal cheek\nand his dances. A yellow dog comes only\nonce and is hisself: brilliant, final, and entire.\n", "title": "And I will consider the yellow dog", "id": 58568, "author": "Fran Lock"}
{"poem": "So many names, my mother, I\u2019m never sure\n \u00a0 \u00a0what to call you. So many names for all your predators\n \u00a0 \u00a0and crushes and suitors. I\u2019m sorry.\n\nI\u2019m sorry I\u2019m here and I\u2019m sorry I\u2019m not here.\n\u00a0 \u00a0Would you have made it on your own\n \u00a0 \u00a0without the comorbid condition of motherhood\n \u00a0 \u00a0and the slowness and consistency of time?\n\nI\u2019m sorry for the slowness and consistency of time;\n \u00a0 \u00a0years like zombies dawdling toward a cliff edge\n \u00a0 \u00a0holding back the child\u2019s writhing body, itching to grow, packed\n \u00a0 \u00a0around the same mind I have now.\n\nI\u2019m sorry the concept of promise outgrew the concept of child\n \u00a0 \u00a0and that systemic contradiction and wizardry left only a dim sense\n \u00a0 \u00a0of suspicion; a crescendoing breeze, accumulating clouds\n \u00a0 \u00a0amidst bewildering dichotomies.\n\nI\u2019m sorry for resembling your relatives and captors and the man\n \u00a0 \u00a0who penetrated you, who\u2019s still there, communicating boldly\n \u00a0 \u00a0via intersections of others\u2019 thought waves and memories,\n \u00a0 \u00a0blatant into the long nights, haunting,\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0for my inferiority in the face of nuclear family culture,\n \u00a0 \u00a0feeding on detritus of white goods, leisure sports, laminate \ufb02oors,\n \u00a0 \u00a0a real home and fake recycling,\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0for creeping by night into a tight void, blinds down, brain blown\n \u00a0 \u00a0glass-thin, electric impulses and bloated thoughts bolted in.\n \u00a0 \u00a0For this life being the only one my quiet mind knows,\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0its many versions and phases, I\u2019m sorry. I wasn\u2019t your daughter\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u2009\u2014\u2009or anyone\u2009\u2014\u2009when you were the blue-water navy,\n \u00a0 \u00a0or the beheaded, or the baby boy. Or was I?\n\nI\u2019m sorry I was not yet born and could not yet hear you\n \u00a0 \u00a0when you were over there, listening carefully\n \u00a0 \u00a0for the rain and small movements of animals, for sounds\n \u00a0 \u00a0of life, through a green, \ufb01ve-\ufb01ngered haze.\n\nI\u2019m sorry I consider sentiment, fact; authenticity, originality,\n \u00a0 \u00a0when they are irrelevant. So many choices\n \u00a0 \u00a0in supermarkets, the natural habitat of panic attacks, \n \u00a0 \u00a0it\u2019s enough to make anyone sorry and I am.\n\nI\u2019m sorry it\u2019s taking over half a century to link your purple-patched\n \u00a0 \u00a0brain scan to the basic biology of stress. The piano thunders on,\n \u00a0 \u00a0sustain pedal wired to the facial muscles of all your neglecters, \n \u00a0 \u00a0aching like hell behind their stamina and machinery.\n\nI\u2019m sorry I had, logically, to think of my own self \ufb01rst\u2009/\u2009simultaneously,\n \u00a0 \u00a0navigating through the \ufb01re and acid of Trust and her sycophant\n \u00a0 \u00a0Love before returning. All the powerful were women; the power\n \u00a0 \u00a0of penises and facial hair originated there, cajoled by matriarchs.\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0As if skin and breath were insigni\ufb01cant!\nI\u2019m so sorry.\n \u00a0 \u00a0Where are you now, to take into my arms and resuscitate?\n \u00a0 \u00a0Is it too late, given you\u2019re \ufb01fty and no longer a child?\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s always mothers and mind control which is why\nI thank you for breaking the cycle, withstanding the enormity\n \u00a0 \u00a0of generations, magnetic as water,\n \u00a0 \u00a0to let us go. You weren\u2019t to know\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0about other outrageous families and sadistic counterparts.\n \u00a0 \u00a0A nugget of my limbic system remembered choosing my own\n \u00a0 \u00a0lemon-yellow baby clothes so thank you.\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0I squeezed that into the thumb-sized space\n \u00a0 \u00a0in the palm of my hand knowing all along they were wrong\n \u00a0 \u00a0and imploding with it.\n\nI\u2019m sorry I wept in the shower for your canceled wedding,\n \u00a0 \u00a0letting the violet dress down the plughole, unsure \n \u00a0 \u00a0what it all meant except things staying the same, future\n \u00a0 \u00a0aggravating my brain, a baby brother gone again.\n\nI\u2019m sorry you were out there, alone, de\ufb01ned by the worst\n \u00a0 \u00a0of others and de\ufb01ned by your children\u2019s prisms of hope\n \u00a0 \u00a0and survival mechanisms. In one version, you did marry and lived\n \u00a0 \u00a0in a house with green walls and extravagant furniture.\n\nI\u2019m sorry that consensus reality had you set \ufb01re to your bed\n \u00a0 \u00a0as you lay in it; arrested, put in a cell, let off the next day\n \u00a0 \u00a0because the lawyer believed it was a genuine attempt\n \u00a0 \u00a0and convinced the police.\n\nI\u2019m sorry you\u2019ve had to withstand such torrents\n \u00a0 \u00a0of \u200aknowledgeless advice and legal toxi\ufb01cation,\n \u00a0 \u00a0clinging to reality by a sinew of tooth, remembering yourself,\n \u00a0 \u00a0through the rough and the smooth.\n\nI\u2019m sorry I was absent, memorizing books of the Bible\n \u00a0 \u00a0for a bar of Dairy Milk, owning up to things\n \u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019d never done, getting con\ufb01rmed as an antidote\n \u00a0 \u00a0to the evil core of me.\n\nI\u2019m sorry it was exotic to think of kids like me\n \u00a0 \u00a0ending up in prison, coincidentally, inevitably\n \u00a0 \u00a0or prevented (which is the same), salvaged, peristalsized\n \u00a0 \u00a0through society, brain safely contained,\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0doused daily in cold water or electricity\n \u00a0 \u00a0or disgrace, temptations kept consistently far enough away\n \u00a0 \u00a0as to appear illusory\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0like you, my brave mother, fantastic prodigy\n \u00a0 \u00a0in \ufb02owing white caftan, knotted long brown hair, a beautiful gaze\n \u00a0 \u00a0of solemnity, rare stone, emotionless (de\ufb01ned by others).\n\nI\u2019m sorry I was ill-prepared for your soiled mattress\n \u00a0 \u00a0and comatose body, under a wave of advocaat \n \u00a0 \u00a0and transistor radios oozing with cheap Scotch. Even I\n \u00a0 \u00a0developed feelings for them amidst adults acting like it\u2019s okay\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0to leave you this way, the blue bottle \ufb02ies in on it,\n \u00a0 \u00a0in\ufb02ated with dog shit and red hot egos, resting on your cheek,\n \u00a0 \u00a0your lip, too cunning to get rid of.\n\nI\u2019m sorry that laughing off a difficult childhood\n \u00a0 \u00a0didn\u2019t make it never happen. Even a basic calculator\n \u00a0 \u00a0recognizes an in\ufb01nite loop as a malfunction; don\u2019t they see cutting\n \u00a0 \u00a0off my privates every night needs additional information?\n\nI\u2019m sorry I talked you out of wounding yourself\n \u00a0 \u00a0although I know it feels hopeful and lets in sunlight and air\n \u00a0 \u00a0through an open door. I\u2019m sorry I can\u2019t help you go up.\n \u00a0 \u00a0I, also, don\u2019t know how.\n\nI\u2019m sorry I prioritize the stimulation of adrenalin and opioids\n \u00a0 \u00a0in my own axis before I come to you. Thank you\n \u00a0 \u00a0for believing I love you even though you know\n \u00a0 \u00a0I don\u2019t know love or trust it.\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0I dreamed a baby died from kidney failure. The worst part?\n \u00a0 \u00a0Not knowing distress from relief in the face of the mother,\n \u00a0 \u00a0like a child in an experiment. What does this mean?\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0My man fearing a moment of madness. Not locking the\n \u00a0 \u00a0knives away but keeping a steady eye on them, paying attention\n \u00a0 \u00a0to the moon and turning moods. He underestimates me;\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m my own doppelg\u00e4nger. Here I am, locked to him, discussing\n \u00a0 \u00a0sex positions and holiday destinations. Here I am \n \u00a0 \u00a0courting solitude in the doorway, a pair of eyes and a chest cavity\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0thrumming on the dark boundary between survival and self-control. \n \u00a0 \u00a0While there are no babies, I carry on. I am testament to the problem\n \u00a0 \u00a0of the baby. Look at me\u2009\u2014\u2009\ufb02aunting my own survival. Who am I?\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0Except the parasite that accidentally caught on\n \u00a0 \u00a0to your womb wall as you lay stoned on a fur-lined coat\n \u00a0 \u00a0in a hallway in Moss Side? Happy accident, accidentally on purpose. \n\n \u00a0 \u00a0Close the piano lid. Empty a drawer. Things happen.\n\nI\u2019m sorry for absences, holidaying in France, studying guilt,\n \u00a0 \u00a0time-traveling the pain barrier, intent on nerve endings\n \u00a0 \u00a0and their connections to various biological systems.\n \u00a0 \u00a0Learning to accept and relinquish responsibility appropriately.\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0Throwing back the hot stone in a horizontal line.\n\nThank you to the policeman who took all the men whose safety\n \u00a0 \u00a0you feared for to the pub so you could come home\n \u00a0 \u00a0for dinner, monologue, nail varnish remover, a set\n \u00a0 \u00a0of impartial weighing scales and cheap French wine.\n\nI\u2019m sorry about the home, the wine, the monologue resonating\n \u00a0 \u00a0against the plastic mug others might keep for you, fussing \n \u00a0 \u00a0over makeup-smeared walls, upholstery and understatements. \n \u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m a bit sad we can\u2019t see Al. He comes on the radio sometimes.\n\n\nI\u2019m sorry I\u2019m not bringing you home, \ufb01nally, to thrive and repair.\n \u00a0 \u00a0I wanted to stay, singing Luther Vandross on the walkway\n \u00a0 \u00a0outside at 6 a.m., fetching toast from the neighbor. I was hoping\n \u00a0 \u00a0for perfection, believing in anything, all those years.\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0Is it too ambitious to hope? I\u2019m sentimentally sorry\n \u00a0 \u00a0despite a genuine fear of sentimentality and pseudo-unhappiness,\n \u00a0 \u00a0struggling under the weight of an A1 poster on complex trauma\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0and a pair of Sennheiser headphones to lock me in.\n \u00a0 \u00a0Think of what it is when God himself puts his arms around you\n \u00a0 \u00a0and says \u201cwelcome home.\u201d There\u2019s nothing mysterious\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0about my thoughts or affect, nor yours, nor anyone\u2019s, biologically\n \u00a0 \u00a0generated by the relationships we hide our consciousness from.\n \u00a0 \u00a0Oh unhappiness and in\ufb01delity! Disguised in metaphor\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0you\u2019re nothing but the deep yearning of an infant for its mother\n \u00a0 \u00a0and the furiousness. Making this connection is like remembering \n \u00a0 \u00a0being born, which is like folding time, which is no one to blame and \nall the world to blame.\n\nThank you for picking up the handless, footless doll\n \u00a0 \u00a0in the park, saving him from a dog or fox or thoughtless children,\n \u00a0 \u00a0keeping him to your breast on the tram, the bus, in pubs\n \u00a0 \u00a0and not noticing the scathing looks.\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0I learnt to trust without you, leaving my thoughts\n \u00a0 \u00a0outside for \ufb01ve minutes and trusting the neighbor\u2019s cat\n \u00a0 \u00a0not to urinate on them.\n\nI\u2019m sorry my stand-in mother was an evil replica, machine-like\n \u00a0 \u00a0yet unpredictable. We tried to calculate an algorithm for her\n \u00a0 \u00a0mood, as you would\u2019ve done, and in 14 years never cracked it.\n \u00a0 \u00a0She remained seated when I left for the last time.\n\nYou weren\u2019t to know\n \u00a0 \u00a0and they wouldn\u2019t have believed you anyway.\n \u00a0 \u00a0We learn to accept the clouds for what they are\nand wait, patiently.\n", "title": "Apology", "id": 58580, "author": "Ruby Robinson"}
{"poem": "The mind\u2019s black kettle hisses its wild\nexigencies at every turn: The hour before the coffee\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and the hour after.\n\nPenscratch of the gone morning, woman\na pitched hysteria watching the mad-ant scramble,\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0her small wants devouring.\n\nHer binge and skin-thrall.\nHer old selves being shuffled off into labyrinths,\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0this birdless sky a longing.\n\nHer moth-mouth rabble unfacing\ntouch-and-go months under winter, torn letters\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0under floorboards,\n\neach fickle moon pecked through with doubt.\nAnd one spoiled onion. Pale Cyclops\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0on her kitchen counter\n\nnow sprouting green missives,\nsome act of contrition; neighbor-god\u2019s vacuum\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a loud rule thrown down.\n\nHer mother now on the line saying too much.\nThis island is not a martyr. You tinker too much\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0with each gaunt memory, your youth\n\nand its unweeding. Not everything blooms here\na private history\u2009\u2014\u2009consider this immutable. Consider\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0our galloping sun, its life.\n\nYour starved homesickness. The paper wasp kingdom\nyou set fire to, watched for days until it burnt a city in you.\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Until a family your hands could not save\n\nbecame the hurricane. How love is still unrooting you.\nAnd how to grow a new body\u2009\u2014\u2009to let each word be the wild rain\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0swallowed pure like an antidote.\n\nHer mother at the airport saying don\u2019t come back.\nLove your landlocked city. Money. Buy a coat.\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0And even exile can be glamorous.\n\nSome nights she calls across the deaf ocean to no one\nin particular. No answer. Her heart\u2019s double-vault\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a muted hydra.\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0This hour a purge\n\nof \u200aits own unselfing.\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0She must make a home of it.\n", "title": "The Art of Unselfing", "id": 58586, "author": "Safiya Sinclair"}
{"poem": "\nHe was born in the countryside / the provinces / the blameless sticks\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in (\u200afalse) Waltersdorf (recte) Dresden\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in what is now Czechoslovakia / the Czech Republic (laughs) /\u00a0Czechia,\u00a0if it\n\u00a0ever catches on\n\u00a0ever catches on\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0what\u2019s it to you.\n\nStripped of his East German citizenship, he fled\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0on foot with a handful of pop music cassettes\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in a pantechnicon mit Kind und Kegel\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in pandemonium\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0nach vorne\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0cool as you like, in an S-Bahn from the Russian Sector, in the\u00a0clothes he\u00a0stood up in.\n\u00a0stood up in.\n\n\nGermany (thus Goethe\u2019s friend Mme de Sta\u00ebl) is the land of poets and\u00a0thinkers\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0der Dichter und Denker\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0or of judges and executioners\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0der Richter und Henker\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0or of Richter and Penck.\n\nHe drew innocent geometrical shapes\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0boxed shirts / boxer shorts / boxy suits\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0men without women\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0hairy heroes of the Thirty Years\u2019 War / lansquenets / strangely\u00a0fibrous figures\u00a0a bit like those New Yorker caveman cartoons\n\u00a0a bit like those New Yorker caveman cartoons\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0empty Renaissance helmets / mostly US fighter jets\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the suicides of Stammheim.\n\nHe took the name of an American boxing promoter\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a German Ice Age geologist\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the village of his birth\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the one he was given.\n\nHis first work to really catch on / be banned / get him in trouble /\u00a0cause widespread\u00a0revulsion was Onkel Rudi\nrevulsion was Onkel Rudi\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Die gro\u00dfe Nacht im Eimer\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0H\u00f6here Wesen befahlen: rechte obere Ecke schwarz malen! / oyez,\u00a0oyez, oyez,\u00a0\nPolitburo decree: upper right-hand corner in ebony!\nPolitburo decree: upper right-hand corner in ebony!\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0ohne Titel\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a mural in the cafeteria of the Hygiene Museum, since painted over.\n\nHe wound up in D\u00fcsseldorf\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Berlin, doh!\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0la bella Italia\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0tax-exempt Ireland of B\u00f6ll- and Beuys-ful memory, where the\u00a0earth apples bloom.\n\nHis paintings were fuzzy geometry\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0like the country, ripped across the middle\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0upside down (especially effective: the trees)\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0shoveled out of the window\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0later withdrawn.\n\nHis favored technique involved stick figures\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Polke dots\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0out of focus grisaille photographs\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0scribbling on his pictures\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0woodcuts \u00e0 la D\u00fcrer.\n\nThe numerals on his graphics represent a recent shopping bill\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0an attempt to disconcert the onlooker / ostranenie\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0amortization\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0bar code\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0some other code\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Durchnummerierung.\n\nHe studied with Joseph Beuys\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the least doctrinaire painter he could find\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0for the best part of ten years, in East and West, so that everything\u00a0canceled\u00a0itself out\n\u00a0itself out\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0what\u2019s it to you\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0he didn\u2019t.", "title": "Baselitz and His Generation", "id": 58573, "author": "Michael Hofmann"}
{"poem": "you must be\nmade of money.\nyour parents\nmust have grown\non trees.\nbet you\u2019re black\ntinged with green.\nbet you sleep\non bags of it.\nbet your barbies\nclimb it.\nbet you never\nwanted.\nbet you never\nhad to ask.\nbet you golf.\nbet you tennis.\nbet you got \na summer house.\nbet you got \na credit card\nfor your 5th birthday. \nbet you played\nwith bills for toys.\nbet you chew \nthem up \nfor dinner.\nbet you spit \nyour black out \nlike tobacco\nthat\u2019s why you talk so\nbet you listen to green day.\nbet you ain\u2019t never heard of al.\nbet your daddy wears a robe\naround the house.\nbet his hands are soft as a frog\u2019s belly.\nbet your house is on a hill.\nbet the grass is freshly cut.\nbet you feel like a princess.\nbet the police protect your house.\nbet you know their first names. \nbet your house has a hundred rooms.\nbet a black lady comes to clean them.\n", "title": "beverly, huh.", "id": 58590, "author": "Jamila Woods"}
{"poem": "You would expect an uncountable number,\nAcres and acres of books in rows \nLike wheat or gold bullion. Or that the words just\nAppear in the mind, like banner headlines. \nIn fact there is one shelf \nHolding a modest number, ten or twelve volumes.\nNo dust jackets, because\u2009\u2014\u2009no dust. \nCovers made of gold or skin \nOr golden skin, or creosote or rain-\nSoaked macadam, or some \nMix of salt & glass. You turn a page \n& mountains rise, clouds drawn by children \nBubble in the sky, you are twenty\nAgain, trying to read a map\nDissolving in your hands. I say You & mean \nMe, say God & mean Librarian\u2009\u2014\u2009who after long research\nOffers you a glass of water and an apple\u2009\u2014\u2009\nYou, grateful to discover your name,\nA footnote in that book.\n", "title": "The Bookshelf of the God of Infinite Space", "id": 58565, "author": "Jeffrey Skinner"}
{"poem": "Eight-year-old sitting in Bramhall\u2019s field,\nshoes scuffed from kicking a stone,\ntoo young for a key but old enough now\nto walk the short mile back from school.\n\nYou\u2019ve spied your mother down in the village\ncrossing the street, purse in her fist.\nIn her other hand her shopping bag nurses\nfour ugly potatoes caked in mud,\n\na boiling of peas, rags of meat, or a tail of fish\nin grease-proof paper, the price totted up\nin penciled columns of shillings and pence.\nHow warm must she be in that winter coat?\n\nOn Old Mount Road the nearer she gets\nthe smaller she shrinks, until you reach out\nto carry her home on the flat of your hand\nor your fingertip, and she doesn\u2019t exist.\n", "title": "Camera Obscura", "id": 58579, "author": "Simon Armitage"}
{"poem": "The meek inherit nothing.\nGod in his tattered coat\nthis morning, a quiet tongue\n\nin my ear, begging for alms,\ncold hands reaching up my skirt.\nLittle lamb, paupered flock,\n\nbless my black tea with tears.\nI have shorn your golden\nfleece, worn vast spools\n\nof white lace, glittering jacquard,\ngilded fig leaves, jeweled dust\non my skin. Cornsilk hair\n\nin my hems. I have milked\nthe stout beast of what you call America;\nand wear your men across my chest\n\nlike furs. Stickpin fox and snow\nblue chinchilla: they too came\nto nibble at my door,\n\nthe soft pink tangles I trap\nthem in. Dear watchers in the shadows,\ndear thick-thighed fiends. At ease,\n\nplease. Tell the hounds who undress\nme with their eyes\u2009\u2014\u2009I have nothing\nto hide. I will spread myself\n\nwide. Here, a flash of muscle. Here,\nsome blood in the hunt. Now the center\nof the world: my incandescent cunt.\n\nAll hail the dark blooms of amaryllis\nand the wild pink Damascus,\nmy sweet Aphrodite unfolding\n\nin the kink. All hail hot jasmine\nin the night; thick syrup\nin your mouth, forked dagger\n\non my tongue. Legions at my heel.\nHere at the world\u2019s red mecca,\nkneel. Here Eden, here Bethlehem,\n\nhere in the cradle of Thebes,\na towering sphinx roams the garden,\nher wet dawn devouring.\n", "title": "Center of the World", "id": 58610, "author": "Safiya Sinclair"}
{"poem": "It was the thought that\u2009\u2014\u2009\nif you could watch, if I could leak to the public the film of when I needed to reach you\u2009\u2014\u2009\nthat would be one way.\n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nFrom a little-known bluff overgrown last summer with wildflowers,\nif you could watch a family of turkeys,\na mother and 162 poults,\nif you could watch them abandon their roost on the lowest branch of a cottonwood tree,\nand lugging 163 tow cables behind them when they departed,\nif you could watch them dragging the tree through a field overgrown last summer with\ntanglehead grass.\n\nAnd discarding the yellow tree pitilessly across the rails of the Sunset Limited, \nwhich was carrying that day exactly 162 passengers west to their sentencings.\n\nIt could be one way, I kept telling myself, to awake in summer when everyone\u2019s sentenced\nand film myself shut of those dead to me.\n\nIf the lights came up on my train in a field overgrown last summer with tanglehead.\nIf we could slow to a halt in front of the yellow tree obstructing our path.\n\nThere could be a smash cut,\nan establishing shot of the bluff where you knelt cutting wildflowers,\n\nand off-camera if the cottonwood started hemorrhaging yellow termites,\nif you could see the mites glowing yellow having drunk the yellow blood of the tree.\n\nIf I could leak to you what the camera work couldn\u2019t\u2009\u2014\u2009\nin a hand-me-down suit\nan unsavory man\nhe\u2019s inside a renaissance cherry casket,\n\nand the casket\u2019s buried eight feet beneath the Sunset Limited\u2019s engine room,\nand the casket\u2019s rigged on the inside with a hand-crank generator,\nwith Christmas lights in five colors,\nif we leaked red first then blue,\nif we leaked green before we leaked orange,\nlast yellow,\nthe light of which illuminates the interior of the casket enough for the man\n\n(he\u2019s alive)\n\nto watch his face decompose in the mirror that\u2019s rigged to the ceiling,\nif we could cut to the sentence handed down to the man many years ago,\nthat any unsavory man is a man who should watch himself die.\n\nIf there was a slow zoom on a woman\u2019s hands typing eight words in first class,\na slow dissolve to a child in coach,\nif he fingers a text that says don\u2019t change for you,\ndon\u2019t change for me, if there\u2019s no ellipsis, no period at the end,\nif he doesn\u2019t need to ask who it\u2019s from.\n\nFrom a little-known bluff you could stand up with a fistful of wildflowers. \nIf you could watch the faces of 162 passengers darken unannounced\nas if from a lightning storm.\n\nThe cottonwood could stand up from the rails and dust off her own blood herself.\nResume her cold work, untangling the grasses.\n\nIf you could watch my train resume its terrible campaign for the west.\n\nUnseen for you I could stay buried here,\nbeneath 162 suitcases with the rest of the stowaways.", "title": "Cold Open", "id": 58593, "author": "Danniel Schoonebeek"}
{"poem": "This is where you leave me.\nFilling of old salt and ponderous,\n\nwhat\u2019s left of your voice in the air.\nBlue honeycreeper thrashed out\n\nto a ragged wind, whole months\nspent crawling this white beach\n\nraked like a thumb, shucking, swallowing\nthe sea\u2019s benediction, pearled oxides.\n\nOut here I am the body invented naked,\nwoman emerging from cold seas, herself\n\nthe raw eel-froth met beneath her tangles,\nwho must believe with all her puckering\n\nholes. What wounds the Poinciana slits\nforth, what must turn red eventually.\n\nThe talon-mouths undressing. The cling-cling\nbird scratching its one message; the arm\n\nyou broke reset and broke again. Caribbean.\nSky a wound I am licking, until I am drawn new\n\nas a lamb, helpless in the chicken wire of my sex.\nI let every stranger in. Watch men change faces\n\nwith the run-down sun, count fires\nin the loom-holes of their pickups, lines of rot,\n\nstudying their scarred window-plagues,\nnightshade my own throat closed tight\n\nagainst a hard hand. Then all comes mute\nin my glittering eye. All is knocked back,\n\nslick hem-suck of the dark surf, ceramic\ntiles approaching, the blur of a beard.\n\nThe white tusk of his ocean goring me.\nThis world unforgiving in its boundaries.\n\nThe day\u2019s owl and its omen\nslipping a bright hook\n\ninto my cheek\u2009\u2014\n", "title": "Confessor", "id": 58587, "author": "Safiya Sinclair"}
{"poem": "1\n1\n\nDelphine is snug in the corruptible quiet, her heart all lurgy.\nShe is vigorous with postures and slackening her jaw.\nThe vogue memory is how when she was ten she stuck\nher tongue out really far and her friend said,\n\u201cThat makes you a lemon.\u201d Retrospectively,\nwhat she wanted was a perm\nand a dad that gave money for the arcade.\n\n\n2\n2\n\nDelphine lies down in the corner and gets up and lies down again, etc.\nThis is so she knows she\u2019s lain down on every bit of the \ufb02oor.\n\n\n3\n3\n\nThere\u2019s no one to see, so makeup is taken very seriously.\nIf she French kisses the window her hair starts to curl\u2009\u2014\u2009\nit is all very boudoir. Delphine expected to be bored.\nWhat she needs to say aloud is smooch.\n\n\n4\n4\n\nDelphine\u2019s heart is more woolen than sure.\nShe nipped off the fur buds\nfrom the pussy willow and strung them\ninto a necklace\u2009\u2014\u2009a means of clustering wants.\nIn the faraway land, her old milk glass\nholds other people\u2019s toothbrushes and curdling water.\n\n\n5\n5\n\nPrecision here is super\ufb02uous as cut \ufb02owers. On the seafront\nthe shrubs are meek in the blossoming wind.\nDelphine has worked on her complexion.\nBestowed with peaches, she\u2019s personal limelight.\n\n\n6\n6\n\nAt night her cruelties sneak up the ladder of her throat.\nIts delphinedelphinedelphine on steamed-up mirrors,\nalways in joined-up \ufb01nger-writing.\n\n\n7\n7\n\nSinging is only permitted in the dark. Delphine is judging\nher own obedience. Look at me being strict! But she has\nto remind herself of the rules, hourly. Deceit is its own discipline.\n\n\n8\n8\n\nToday the shrubs are insolent, waiting for adults to prepare a new game.\nDelphine considers ceremonial magic, but how to practice\nwithout a little magic escaping?\n\n\n9\n9\n\nWish yourself into a lovely place, she thinks. Loveliness\nwould include shrubs without such expressions!\n\n\n10\n10\n\nWisdom may well have been squandered on seafronts\nand lipstick. So many years afraid of waste is its own\nwaste is her self-comfort when the light folds.", "title": "Delphine Is on Silent Retreat", "id": 58582, "author": "Amy Key"}
{"poem": "Sees him at the far end of the strand,\nsquamous in rubbery weed, his knees bobbing\nurchins, his lean trunk leaning, sea-treasure for her.\n\nAfter it all (they mate, like carapaces, in parentheses)\nDora feels coolness in new places, lifts a reused\nrazor shell, mother-of-pearly and straight\n\nand signals out to the swell of moldering green.\nDora is electric, in love, and deep water.\nDora, Dora, Dora, in which dread is.\n\nPeople people the beach, peering\nthrough splayed hands, appealing:\nDAW-RAAaargh. A boat sees her passing.\n\nSea-scribbler\u2019s chest buckles\nin aftershock:\nhis quill is primed: squid-inked and witful.\n", "title": "Dora Incites the Sea-Scribbler to Lament", "id": 58571, "author": "Geraldine Clarkson"}
{"poem": "Here, the brightest constellation\n\u00a0 \u00a0is Hydra, the Water Snake, named\nfor the half-woman, half-reptile \n\n\u00a0 \u00a0whom Hercules slew with the help\nof \u200aIolaus, his charioteer. Imagine\n\u00a0 \u00a0the sound of so many heads screaming\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nthe long, shrill bays of an angry woman\n\u00a0 \u00a0times twenty\u2009\u2014\u2009and the smell of birth, \nof all origins, that followed Hydra\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0as she rose from her fetid swamp. Iolaus\nwas strategic, went straight for the bowels\n\u00a0 \u00a0instead of the mouth, burned her center\n\nbefore the head. When her fundament\n\u00a0 \u00a0was reduced to ash, only then could\nHydra be silenced. Hera, enraged\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0that Hercules was able to slay the creature\nshe had raised in order to destroy him,\n\u00a0 \u00a0flung the corpse of the decapitated,\n\nmaimed Hydra into the sky, lest she be\n\u00a0 \u00a0forgotten. Hydra\u2019s blood, unstoppable,\nbecame hot gas; her screams rose \n\n\u00a0 \u00a0and fell until they were radio waves;\nand her wild flailing was fixed\n\u00a0 \u00a0into points of radiance. Hera was right\n\nto hurl those stars here, above this bay,\n\u00a0 \u00a0so close to where the earth is bisected,\na place where Hydra\u2019s mirror image\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0glosses the water, where dense blooms\nof \u200aalgae flourish on the nitrogen surface,\n\u00a0 \u00a0thousands of wild heads and arms\n\ndevouring ammonia, cyanide, and sewage\n\u00a0 \u00a0as fast as we can produce them,\nthis hydra, emblem of insatiable desire.\n", "title": "Equator Sky, Manila Bay", "id": 58561, "author": "Joanne Diaz"}
{"poem": "Well, friend, we\u2019re here again\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 sauntering the last half-mile to the land\u2019s frayed end\nto \ufb01nd what\u2019s laid on for us, strewn across the turf\u2009\u2014\u2009\ngull feathers, bleached shells,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0a whole bull seal, bone-dry,\nknackered from the rut\n(we knock on his leathern head, but no one\u2019s home).\n\nChange, change\u2009\u2014\u2009that\u2019s what the terns scream\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0down at their seaward rocks;\n\ufb02eet clouds and salt kiss\u2009\u2014\u2009\neverything else is provisional,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0us and all our works.\nI guess that\u2019s why we like it here:\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0listen\u2009\u2014\u2009a brief lull,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 a rock pipit\u2019s seed-small notes.\n", "title": "Fianuis", "id": 58566, "author": "Kathleen Jamie"}
{"poem": "Meaning \u201chomeland\u201d\u2009\u2014\u2009mulk\n(in Kashmir)\u2009\u2014\u2009exactly how \nmy son demands milk.\n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nFull-rhyme with\u00a0Jhelum,\nthe river nearest his home\u2009\u2014\u2009\nmy father\u2019s \u201crealm.\u201d\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nYou can\u2019t put a leaf\nbetween written and oral;\nthat first A, or alif.\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nLetters. West to east\nMum\u2019s hand would write; Dad\u2019s script goes\neast to west. Received.\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nInvader, to some\u2009\u2014\u2009\nneither here, nor there, with me\u2009\u2014\u2009\nour rhododendron.\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nWhere migrating geese\npause to sleep\u2009\u2014\u2009somewhere, halfway\nis this pillow\u2019s crease.\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nNow we separate\nfor the first time, on our walk,\nat the kissing gate.\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nOld English \u201cDeor\u201d\u2009\u2014\u2009\nan exile\u2019s lament, the past\u2019s\ndark, half-opened door.\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nYes, I know. Empty.\nBut there\u2019s just something between\nthe p and the t.\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nAt home in Grasmere\u2009\u2014\u2009\nthin mountain paths have me back,\na boy in Kashmir.", "title": "From \u201cEmpty Words\u201d", "id": 58567, "author": "Zaffar Kunial"}
{"poem": "For I will consider my Star Sol.\nFor I am the servant of this Living God and daily serve her.\nFor at the \ufb01rst glance of the glory of God in the East I worship in my way.\nFor this is done by \ufb01xing espresso and watching the pinkening light on The Shard.\nFor then she waves her warmth across the scene and lifts the hearts of those who took a Night Bus at 4 a.m. to clean HQs.\nFor she tickles the orbitals of foxes in their stride and hies them home.\nFor having risen and settled into her groove she begins to consider herself.\nFor this she performs in eleven degrees.\nFor \ufb01rst she does the Planck to strengthen core stability.\nFor secondly she runs a malware scan for comets closing in.\nFor thirdly she completes the paperwork for eclipses total, annular, and partial.\nFor fourthly: \ufb02ares.\nFor \ufb01fthly she sorts her sunspots into pairs.\nFor sixthly she gives neutrinos Priority Boarding.\nFor seventhly she referees the arm-wrestling match between the upstart fusion and gravity.\nFor eighthly she weaves \ufb02ux ropes and thinks up skipping games.\nFor ninthly she degausses her plasma screens.\nFor tenthly she is pro\ufb02igate with her photons. \nFor eleventhly: star jumps.\nFor having considered herself she will consider her neighbors.\nFor she runs a cloth around the ecliptic to make it gleam.\nFor she oils the wheels of any planets gliding there.\nFor she sends invites out to wall\ufb02owers in the Oort cloud.\nFor she issues shadows for children to dodge as they make their way to school.\nFor she shakes out her blankets for devotees of helioseismology.\nFor when she takes her prey she plays with it to give it a chance.\nFor one planet in nine escapes by her dallying.\nFor in her morning orisons she loves the Earth and the Earth loves her.\nFor she is of the tribe of Tyger! Tyger!\nFor she hands out coloring books to chameleons in the morning.\nFor when it is time to rise she blushes to be seen at so intimate an hour.\nFor when it is time to set she is crimson ashamed to run out on us.\nFor though she neither rises nor sets she thinks it best that we believe so, so that we can take our rest and fuel our waking with anticipation.\nFor she lifts oceans over mountains without thinking.\nFor she tries to solve the puzzle of the weather, placing this here and that there and attempts to even out the air.\nFor she is a mixture of gravity and waggery.\nFor she\u2019s a stickler for solstices.\nFor she booms like a woofer for those that can hear.\nFor she cares not what lives as long as all live.\nFor she takes her time.\nFor she lenses the light from distant stars to swerve it into our sockets.\nFor sometimes in the winter haze she\u2019s as pale as a lemon drop and lets us watch her bathe unpunished.\nFor she never calls in sick.\nFor her colors are open source.\nFor every raindrop\u2019s an excuse for Mardi Gras.\nFor she will work on her drafts for a million years and release them typo-free. \nFor she will lash out and then regret the hurt.\nFor she promises radio hams jam tomorrow.\nFor your power grid is a cobweb she walks into when she steps off her porch.\nFor she kept mum through the Maunder Minimum.\nFor her behavior is de\ufb01nitely \u201con the spectrum.\u201d\nFor she keeps dark about dark matter but she de\ufb01nitely knows something.\nFor she plays Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Furnaced.\nFor she offers board and lodging to Turner\u2019s angel in the Sun.\nFor she made a great \ufb01gure in Egypt for her signal services.\nFor she can fuse the wounded parts of a broken heart and release the lost mass as hope.\nFor she spins plates to create auroras.\nFor she leaves clues all over the place: some cryptic, some quick, some general knowledge-based.\nFor she is hands-off.\nFor she tends to micromanage.\nFor she lays down squares of light for your pets to sleep in.\nFor she turns a blind eye to all the creeping, swooping killers of the night but leaves a Moon-faced night-light on.\nFor her sunquakes \ufb02atten no buildings, gridlock no cities, disgorge no refugees.\nFor she is not too proud to dry your smalls.\nFor she gives us heliopause and time to rethink disastrous decisions. \nFor Ray-Bans.\nFor she polarizes opinion.\nFor her secrets are waiting to free us.\nFor she appreciates Stonehenge and visits every day.\nFor she sets herself by the grid of Manhattan.\nFor she will kill you with the loving of you.\nFor she can shine.\n", "title": "From \u201cSunspots\u201d", "id": 58570, "author": "Simon Barraclough"}
{"poem": "beverly be the only south side you don\u2019t fit in\neverybody in your neighborhood color of white hen\n\nbrown bag tupperware lunch don\u2019t fill you\nafter school cross the street, count quarters with white friends\n\nyou love 25\u00a2 zebra cakes mom would never let you eat\nyou learn to white lie through white teeth at white hen\n\noreos in your palm, perm in your hair\neveryone\u2019s irish in beverly, you just missin\u2019 the white skin\n\npray they don\u2019t notice your burnt toast, unwondered bread\nyou be the brownest egg ever born from the white hen\n\npantry in your chest where you stuff all the Black in\ndistract from the syllables in your name with a white grin\n\nkeep your consonants crisp, coffee milked, hands visible\nnever touch the holiday-painted windows of white hen\n\nyou made that mistake, scratched your initials in the paint\nan unmarked crown victoria pulled up, full of white men\n\nthey grabbed your wrist & wouldn\u2019t show you a badge\nthe manager clucked behind the counter, thick as a white hen\n\nthey told your friends to run home, but called the principal on you\n& you learned Black sins cost much more than white ones\n", "title": "Ghazal for White Hen Pantry", "id": 58588, "author": "Jamila Woods"}
{"poem": "when i went to summer camp the white kids had a tendency\nto shorten names of important institutions. make Northwestern\nUniversity into NU. international relations into IR. everybody\nstarted calling me Nate. before this i imagined myself\n\nNathaniel A. maybe even N. Armstead to big up my granddad.\ni wrote my whole name on everything. eventually i started\nunintentionally introducing myself as Nate. it never occurred\nto me that they could escape the knowing of my name\u2019s\nreal length. as a shorty\n\nmost the kids in my neighborhood couldn\u2019t say my name.\nMick-daniel, Nick-thaniel, MacDonnel shot across the courts\nlike wild heaves toward the basket. the subconscious visual\nof a chicken shack seems a poor fit for national expansion.\n\nHarold\u2019s Chicken is easier, sounds like Columbus\u2019s flag stuck\ninto a cup of cole slaw. shack sounds too much like home\nof poor people, like haven for weary\r \nlike building our own. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\nlike building our own. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0", "title": "Harold\u2019s Chicken Shack #86", "id": 58584, "author": "Nate Marshall"}
{"poem": "The woman in the attic did not have visitors.\nThe man in the basement gave parties that were popular.\nThe woman in the attic had mononucleosis.\nThe man in the basement had type 1 diabetes.\nThe woman in the attic listened to audiobooks which the man\u00a0in the basement held in disdain.\nThe door to the attic swelled in some weathers; in order to shut,\u00a0it had to be slammed.\n\u201cThere is a way in which\u201d was a way in which the man opened sentences, as in \u201cThere is a way in which to close a door so it doesn\u2019t slam.\u201d\nThe woman in the attic took cautious walks to build her strength.\nThe man in the basement pointedly said, \u201cSome of us have ailments\u00a0which are not manufactured.\u201d\nThe man in the basement wrote stories about heroin.\nThe woman in the attic read stories with heroines.\nThe woman in the attic noticed a bruise that ran from the top to the\u00a0base of her thigh.\nThe bruise looked like Europe.\nThe man in the basement was in love with the sister of the secretive\u00a0man who loved him more.\nHe whooped at the woman, \u201cYou killed your student?\u201d\nTo himself he wept, \u201cI killed my father.\u201d\nThe man in the basement, recently divorced, was left with literally two possessions.\nThe woman in the attic purchased books on psychopathology.\nThe man in the basement produced fecal matter\nthat blocked the pipes in both attic and basement.\nThe woman in the attic produced nothing at all.\nThe woman in the attic was a waste of space.\nThe man in the basement had sex almost daily.\nThe woman in the attic had panic attacks.\nThe man in the basement had only one rule:\nthe woman in the attic was banned from his bedroom.\nBut once she stole in and lay on his bed\nin his absence (or perhaps he was absent because she was there).\nThe man in the basement moved to the West Coast;\nthe woman in the attic crossed the Atlantic,\nwhereas the house with the attic and basement saw states\nof fumigation, exorcism, detoxification, and rehabitation.\n", "title": "The House with Only an Attic and a Basement", "id": 58578, "author": "Kathryn Maris"}
{"poem": "1\n\npavlos\n\nlooking out\nto sea\n\nexplains:\n\nson costa,\n20, will be\ncoming home\n\nwent with a\nsponge caiqui\nto nearby\nisland\n\na storm\ncame up:\n\nthe boat\nwas smashed\n& sunk\n\nthe boys\nall got\nashore\n\n& will be\ncoming home\n\nin another \ncaiqui \n\n\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a02\n\n late at\n night\n\n i saw\n them\n\n costa &\n the others\n\n they\u2019d saved\n the sponges\n too\n\n unloaded them\n first\n\n in burlap\n bags\n\n then hoisted\n them onto\n their backs\n\n trotted up\n the stone\n steps\n\n plodded up\n a steep\n hill\n\n at mid-\nnight\n\n mid-\nnight\n\n to the\n store-\nhouse\n\n\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a03\n\n at 5\n in the\n morning\n\n at the\n cafeneion\n\n the captain\n described\n\n the wreck:\n\n the boat\n had turned\n over &\n over\n\n in the\n water\n\n churning it\n\n like a\n propell-\ner\n\n\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a04\n\n costa\n\n went by\n later\n\n on his\n motor-\ncycle\n\n (tall &\n sombre)\n\n riding\n like an\n indian\n\n\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a05\n\n spiro\n\n (young\n gypsy)\n\n fishes\n off the\n dock\n\n when he\n isn\u2019t\n\n climbing\n hills\n\n & selling\n blankets\n\n\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a06\n\n what can\n you do?\n\n i get\n bored\n\n around\n the house\n\n the children\n crying\n\n fighting\n\n can\u2019t sit\n all day\n\n in the\n cafeneion\n\n so i\n fish\n\n\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a07\n\n after an\n hour\n\n he rolls\n in his\n lines\n\n teaches\n me two\n words\n\n in the\n romany\n tongue\n\n for \u2018no\n fish\u2019\n\n (in the\n plural)\n\n\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a08\n\n pat\n mos\n\n pat\n mos\n\n an\n gels\n\n an\n gels\n\n kaly\n mnos\n\n kaly\n mnos\n\n men\n\n kaly\n mnos\n\n kaly\n mnos\n\n men\n\n pat\n mos\n\n pat\n mos\n\n an\n gels\n\n an\n gels\n\n kaly\n mnos\n\n kaly\n mnos\n\n men\n\n\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a09\n\n stergo\n\n has a\n tired\n eye\n\n bright\n but\n weary\n\n when he\n looks\n at you\n\n he looks\n into\n you\n\n his eye\n takes\n the place\n\n of what-\never\n\n you were\n think-\ning\n\n\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a010\n\n his caf\u00e9\n is near\n the customs\n house\n\n (& the\n pier)\n\n he keeps\n it open\n\n till late\n at night\n\n & opens\n again\n\n at 5 in\n the morn-\ning\n\n if ever\n his cus-\ntomers\n\n find it\n closed\n\n they walk\n right by\n\n (& won\u2019t\n drink\n\n coffee\n anyplace\n else)\n\n\n\n \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a011\n\n in the\n endless\n city\n\n the end-\nless\u00a0city\n\n the beg-\ngars\u00a0are\n in one\n place\n\n the cops\n in an-\nother\n\n the fine\n people\n here\n\n & the\n poor\n people\n\n there\n\n (each has\n his parish\n\n each his\n precinct)\n\n in the endless\n\n endless\n\n endless\n\n city\n", "title": "Kalymnos: November 29, 1968", "id": 58583, "author": "Robert Lax"}
{"poem": "They call it the corner of heaven:\na laboratory, a foot at the throat\nof an empire. Before the holy\ndirt, the woman with the feline gait\nwaits with tangled hair, mouth \nagape\u2009\u2014\u2009the letter X marked \non what\u2019s left of her breasts \nand face. Nuestra Belleza \nMexicana. A roped mule\nwatches a man place a crown \non her severed head. Tomorrow\nthe queen will be picked clean \nby the kindness of the sea. \nShuttered shops and empty \nrestaurants. Stray dogs couple \nin a courtyard. Under a swaying\npalm tree, a cluster of men \nfinger golden pistols, whisper,\naqu\u00ed ni se paran las moscas. \nTwo boys, transfixed, watch \na pixelated video: a family fed\nto a swarm of insatiable pigs. \nA butcher sweeps blood \nfrom an empty street. Death \nis my godmother, he repeats. \nDeath is a burnt mirror. \nWhen the crackling stereo \ndithers between stations\u2009\u2014\u2009amor\nde mis amores, sangre de mi alma\u2009\u2014\u2009\na gaggle of silent children \ngather before a sputtering \ntrash bin. Together they watch \nthe terror hover like flies.\n", "title": "Kingdom of Debt", "id": 58592, "author": "Erika L. S\u00e1nchez"}
{"poem": "Mugoo was a sweeper boy and the cleanest\nof the sweeper caste. He would leap at the blush\nof dawn to clean the paths and the steps spotless.\n\nGugoo was a bootmaker girl who made boots.\nGugoo was higher caste than Mugoo. By rights\nhe was the floor and she was the foot that trod.\n\nYet after work, while the boys and girls played\nat tug of war, wrestling, or archery, shy boy Mugoo\nand shy girl Gugoo would draw the boys and girls.\n\nThe children smiling at the shining visions would hug\nMugoo and Gugoo. Then that couple would bury\nthe drawings for fear their elders feel scandalized.\n\nIn manhood for Mugoo and womanhood for Gugoo,\nhow hard that Gugoo thread boots for her father\nwhen she had no golden stitch for the gaping hole\n\nin her soul. How hard that Mugoo scrub the lanes!\nWho dare be swept away from the law of caste\nby the foul stamp and passport of besotted love?\n\nYet the hairs at their ears, their nipples, bomped\nby a mere sultana breeze. Then the swirling night\nwhen they\u2019d escape for Arabia than stay near-far\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\n\nIn Mugoo and Gugoo Love was a rabbit leaping on\na radish when they became runaway lovers! Like hares\nunder the sketched moon they bobbed in the grunch \n\nwind before the tossed river. Timorous Gugoo\nto timorous Mugoo, \u201cIs it not said the pure of heart\nare able to turn water into solid crystal orbs?\u201d\n\n\u201cI have heard it Gugoo. Let us swim till the waters\nturn dot by dot into crystal orbs, slowly mounting\nup for us a solid path so we can bobble across.\u201d\n\nThat cub-like couple held on a first-ever daredevil\ncuddle. Then snuck a parched kiss! And fell into\ntheir dive across Punjab\u2019s muggur of an ogre\u2009\u2014\u2009the\n\nriver Ravi! They were soon to learn the blunderous\nwater was bigger than they; they were dabbing onwards\non the spot; directionless comical pups; pawdawdling\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\n\nOnly Death was woken by their swallowed screams.\nAt the sight of a cutesome pair brinked for his maw\nDeath\u2019s thin lips aah\u2019d and coo\u2019d. To tickle himself\n\nDeath tipped a witching shriek in the eardrums\nof the ferryman, Charan, who was rank in a dream.\nCharan swore at Death, \u201cWhat bastard panchod\n\nis unheroing my dream? I was the River God\nriding the turmeric sea when the fisher king\u2019s\nred bill fished me up a buxom masala mermaid!\u201d\n\nDeath hushed Charan. Bundled him into the boat.\nCharan, still swearing, fished for a scream-trail, \nfor bunny-like feet in the sudden dead-stop river\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\n\nNext morning, by the prophecy of the snake-priest,\nthe villagers arrived at the shame-faced riverbank.\nCharan, in his guzzy saffron turban, was blaring\n\nat the crowd about a passion crime. Huffing too\nhad arrived the muscly cobbler and sweeper fathers.\nAll heard Charan, \u201cI am my own King of the Sticks!\n\nI row two weeks that way to the flowers of Kashmir\nthe gold-haired men with their bloated bags of honey,\nand one week that way for the spices of Samarkand\n\nwith the red-fingered sellers of kalonji, saffron, jeera.\nToday I catch by the feet a fresh parable of a kutcha-\npucka business. I sing it for only one rupee each!\u201d\n\nAll looked down by Charan\u2019s sandal\u2019d feet.\nDared to be rolled in the same shivering blanket\n(like a chapati rolled around saag paneer)\n\nyet fearing to be parted, yet tenuously panting were\nMugoo and Gugoo! The frail couple like shy red\nsquirrels, \u201cO father, we love you. But. Most we are\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\n\nloving this: this that is my soul\u2019s mirror. Mugoo is \nmy Gugoo: Gugoo is my Mugoo.\u201d The bony youths\nclung sauced together. Stiffed for the glooping apart.\n\nThe bootmaker father been crunching his own fists,\nthe sweeper father been hurling daggers from his eyes,\nas the crowd fell silent, the fathers spoke as one,\n\n\u201cWhat draws them out of caste, their underhand\nidle drawings. Such fancy is inking good for nothing.\u201d\nGugoo and Mugoo raised their necks, \u201cIf all hearts\n\nwere good for nothing, could love from each for each\nblow as one?\u201d The apricot breeze blew a soft cadence\nbut could it push the dominion of the communal mind\n\npast its bound and daily utility? Could sweet nothings\nclear the world free of blood fear? Of sweet-faced \nMugoo and Gugoo in a threadbare pleading, \u201cDo not\n\npart us.\u201d From their mild rhetoric and politic of Love\nthe hills and valleys had swooned into blossoms of\nheaven, and had set the scene with gaudiest cheeks.\n\nSo who dare part them? O Love, be roused, take arms\nand wound for the cause of love! Or at least shackle\nthe shadows that deepened into that tinsy couple.\n", "title": "The Love Song of Mugoo and Gugoo", "id": 58577, "author": "Daljit Nagra"}
{"poem": "\n\n I been \u2018Candy\u2019 since I came here young.\n\n\nMy born name keeps but I don\u2019t say.\n\n\nTo her who my mama was I was\npure millstone, cumbrance. \u00a0\u00a0Child ain\u2019t but a towsack full of bane.\n\n\nWell I lit out right quick.\n\n\nHitched, and so forth.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Legged it.\nWas rid.\n\n\nAccabee at first (then, thicket-hid) then Wadmalaw;\nout to Nash\u2019s meat-yard, Obie\u2019s jook.\u00a0 \u00a0At\nCounty Home they had this jazzhorn drumbeat\norphan-band \u2018them lambs\u2019 they\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\nThey let me bide and listen.\n\n\nThis gristly man he came he buttered me\nthen took me off (swore I was surely something) let me ride in back.\n\n\nSome thing\u2009\u2014\u2009\n(snared) (spat-on) Thing\nbeing morelike moresoever what he meant.\n\n\nNo I\u2019d never sound what brunts he called me what he done\nhad I a hundred mouths.\n\n\nHow his mouth. \u00a0 Repeats\non me down the years. \u00a0 Everlastingly\nriveled-looking, like rotfruit. \u00a0 Wasn\u2019t it\nrunched up like a grub.\n\n\nFirst chance I inched off (back through bindweed) I was gone.\n\n\nNothing wrong with gone as a place\nfor living. \u00a0 Whereby a spore eats air when she has to;\nwhere I\u2019ve fairly much clung for peace.\n\n\nCame the day I came here young\nI mothed\nmy self. \u00a0 I cleaved apart.\n\n\nA soul can hide like moth on bark.\nMy born name keeps but I don\u2019t say.", "title": "Moth", "id": 58559, "author": "Atsuro Riley"}
{"poem": "Your voice crawls across the dashboard of Grandma\u2019s Dodge Dynasty on the way home from Lilydale First Baptist. You sing a cocktail of static and bass. Sound like you dressed to the nines: cowboy hat, fur coat & alligator boots. Sound like you lotion every tooth. You a walking discography, South Side griot, keeper of crackle & dust in the grooves. You fell in love with a handmade box of wires at 16 and been behind the booth ever since. From wbez to V103, you be the Coolest Gent, King of the Dusties. Your voice wafts down from the ceiling at the Hair Lab. You supply the beat for Kym to tap her comb to. Her brown fingers paint my scalp with white grease to the tunes of Al & Barry & Luther. Your voice: an inside-out yawn, the sizzle of hot iron on fresh perm, the song inside the blackest seashell washed up on a sidewalk in Bronzeville. You soundtrack the church picnic, trunk party, Cynthia\u2019s 50th birthday bash, the car ride to school, choir, Checkers. Your voice stretch across our eardrums like Daddy asleep on the couch. Sound like Grandma\u2019s sweet potato pie, sound like the cigarettes she hide in her purse for rough days. You showed us what our mommas\u2019 mommas must\u2019ve moved to. When the West Side rioted the day MLK died, you were audio salve to the burning city, people. Your voice a soft sermon soothing the masses, speaking coolly to flames, spinning black records across the airwaves, spreading the gospel of soul in a time of fire. Joycetta says she bruised her thumbs snappin\u2019 to Marvin\u2019s \u201cGot to Give It Up\u201d and I believe her.", "title": "Ode to Herb Kent", "id": 58589, "author": "Jamila Woods"}
{"poem": "my first venture west was in Windows 98\nor Independence, Missouri. class in the computer lab\n& we were supposed to be playing some typing game\nor another. the one i remember had a haunted theme.\nghosts instructing us on the finer points of where \nto put our fingers. these were the last days \nbefore keyboards as appendage, when typing \nwas not nature. i should\u2019ve been letting an apparition \ncoach me through QWERTY but rather \ni was at the general store deciding between ammo & axles,\nconsidering the merits of being a banker or carpenter.\n\ntoo young to know what profession \nwould get me to the Willamette Valley \nin the space of a 40-minute period. \ni aimed my rifle with the arrow keys, tapped the space\nbar with a prayer for meat to haul back to the wagon.\n\nthis game came difficult as breathing underwater after\ntrying to ford a river. \n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 i was no good at survival.\nsomebody always fell ill or out into the river.\neach new day scurvy or a raid was the fate of a character\nnamed for my crush or my baby sister.\nthis loss i know, how to measure what it means\nto die premature before a school period ends.\n\ni can\u2019t understand the game coming to a late end. \nan elderly daughter grieving her elderly mother. \nreading the expansive obit in a suburban \nDetroit church is a confusing newness.\n\nwhen the old do the thing the world expects\ni retreat into my former self. focus on beating\nvideo games I\u2019ve always sucked at, brush up\non Chicago Bulls history, re-memorize\nthe Backstreet Boys catalog, push \naway whatever woman is foolhardy enough \nto be on any road with me. i pioneer my way away\nfrom all the known world. i look at homicide rates \n& wish we all expired the way i know best. i pray\nfor a senseless, poetic departure. i pray for my family\nto not be around to miss me while i\u2019m still here.\ni want a short obituary, a life brief & unfulfilled,\nthe introductory melody before a beat\u2019s crescendo into song,\nthe game over somewhere in the Great Plains.\n\ni want to spare my descendants the confusion\nof watching a flame flicker slow. keep them from being\nat a funeral thumbing the faded family pictures like worn keys,\nobserving the journey done, the game won, the west\nconquered.\n", "title": "Oregon Trail", "id": 58585, "author": "Nate Marshall"}
{"poem": "What are my friends? Mouths, not eyes for\nBitterest underflesh of the farewell.\nI was a man and suffered like a girl.\nI spoke underneath to where the lights are\n\nPretty, pretty, pretty whence they came to tell\nOne God gets another. My friends are\nMouths for God, tearing me. In such a world\nBroken only daughter opens to splendor.\n\nMy first thought was that dying is a deep well\nInto the image of death, a many of one girl.\nLater it meant to smile with no face, where\nMirrors are mouths. Cupid and Psyche wore\n\nBlindfolds made of glass, which explains why girls\nGet to heaven early mornings Adam fell.\nGods after gods we go. Still later,\nFriends shouldered high mountains to the lee shore.\n\nGashed, and the gash a fountain of waters,\nThe landscape defames a single flower:\nAmaranth. Magic hides an island world\nOf boys and one daughter. I buried a pearl\n\nIn God\u2019s eye. And yet He sees her,\nDefames her, considers His time well\nSpent imagining a continent of flowers\nWhose final climate is a broken girl.\n\nBells of a Cretan woman in labor\nHurled from a tower, flesh realer\nThan the ground she somehow upwards curled\nInto the bloom of her groin where bells\n\nAre bees. I am an old man with a new beard.\nI am the offspring of my child sprung from hell.\nShipwreck makes peninsular metaphor\nOut of my hatred, her rape, and one bell tower.\n\nConfusion suicides the poems, heaven I heard\nWhere the juice runs from stone-struck flowers.\nAt the end of the world I must use proper\nViolence. Nothing is more true to tell.\n\nTell the taut-strung higher calendars\nI\u2019ve a margent in mind and new words\nHope to say, catastrophe to hear, \nOld confederates and inwood apples\n\nWhere apples never shone. Also tell\nOf mountains shouldered underneath one flower\nCalled amaranth. They tired of the world\nWho made the world this way. God never\n\nDid, never will. If you were to call\nFrom the bottom of the ocean, the words,\nEvery one to me a living daughter,\nWould shout wild mercy as never was before.\n", "title": "Pericles", "id": 58560, "author": "Donald Revell"}
{"poem": "He walks through a cloud of blue moths\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0one for each apostle\u2009\u2014\u2009into a round tower\n\nwith a peaked chapeau of tiles, the oak door\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0rotted, wasps fierce in the vine, limestone\n\nsteps hollowed. Rows of nesting boxes dark\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0as the eyes of city whores; pigeons sleeping;\n\na wedge of sun chiseling mica through dusky\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0air. Now the quiet clamor of roosting birds\n\nkept for the eggs he candles in the sacristy;\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0for the sweet meat of their breasts and dung\n\ndug into the Abb\u00e9\u2019s onion beds; for music of\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a sort: the crooning of forbidden sex, blood\n\nbubbling from a man\u2019s cut throat. The boy\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0reaches to their stink, peering at novices\n\nworking the pump below: their creamy thighs\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and sleek-dipped heads, their oxter hair and\n\nsideways looks; soapy laughter, stiff nipples,\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0wide eyes, and slender hands. Now this back-\n\nplumage black as smeared soot; iridescent\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0necks; this underwing down dense with heat\n\nand lice and suffocating dark. Their amber\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0eyes stare incuriously as he kills, wringing\n\nout last sobs of life, lining them up neat\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0as martyrs cut down from a cross of air.\n", "title": "Pigeonnier", "id": 58581, "author": "Graham Mort"}
{"poem": "At the Mind Museum, you can walk to the back,\nstep on several large buttons on the ground,\n\nand watch parts of the brain light up: the frontal lobe\nfor decision and memory, the temporal lobe\n\nfor smell and sound, the occipital for sight. I try\nto make my toddler son laugh by hopping\n\nfrom one button to the next, watching each lobe\nlight up along the way, but he will not leave the prison\n\nof his melancholy. My son: how he loves to revisit\nthe most difficult point of conflict in a picture book,\n\nor the moment at which his favorite car heaves\na difficult sigh at the pinnacle of a movie\u2019s emotional\n\narc, or the promise of injury if I take a fall. My son,\nso distant from other children in his sadness.\n\nJust the other day, at the pool, he gazed\nat the boys and girls splashing and shrieking\n\nand said, Look. The children are having fun,\nas if he were an anthropologist in a foreign land.\n\nIf these are his musings at age two, one can only\nimagine the life that must follow. Through a dark channel\n\nhe was born; to darkness he is most drawn. Easier\nto write than say the guilt I feel for giving him\n\nthe sharp pain of melancholy. My son, always\nin the world without husk or shell, it is as if his heart\n\nthrobs on the outside of his body, as if his brain\nhas no skull to absorb the assaults that strike it.\n\nToday, I watch him writhe in the pain of a tantrum\u2009\u2014\na typical kid, this is what they do, everyone assures \n\nme\u2009\u2014\u2009and usually I rush in, unwittingly increasing\nhis sense of emergency. Instead, today, I stand back,\n\nrelinquish the role of skull and skin, watch his mind\nunfurl like a medieval tapestry. In that moment\n\nof my feigned disinterest, his head is no longer head\nbut battlefield where Wrath wages a fierce war\n\nagainst Patience. He is no longer a little boy\nscreaming on the ground and throwing plastic trucks;\n\ninstead he is a creature engaged in a struggle\nto free his enslaved heart from the monsters\n\nwhose foaming mouths and hot fumes\nand clots of foul blood besiege him\n\nas he gathers his thoughts from the unraveling \nof his universe. Prudentius says that fiery Wrath\n\nin her frenzy slays herself and dies\nby her own weapons. I will watch and wait\n\nfor my son to close his mind from the anger\nand sorrow that fester in him, but if the mind\n\ndoes not close, I hope I can hide the weapons\nbefore, one day, it is too late.\n", "title": "Psychomachia", "id": 58562, "author": "Joanne Diaz"}
{"poem": "Who I am\u2019s child\u2019s play,\na cry in a kindergarten;\nthough I pun on Latin,\nmy Yorkshire kin\u2019s laik,\n\na whole lexical rainbow\nunweaving in no code,\nno Mason\u2019s Mahabone\nnor Horseman\u2019s Word\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nbut I\u2019m caltrops at night\nto the bare feet of adults\ninspiring their language\nto such colors as I am,\n\nKulla, Mondrian plastic\npixelating Mies blocks;\nthe Ephesian Artemis\nin each cubist bust;\n\nthe Song of Amergin\nby a Turing machine:\nname me or you\u2019ll be\nthicker than any brick.\n", "title": "Riddle", "id": 58572, "author": "Ian Duhig"}
{"poem": "My weight is\nfour whippets,\n\ntwo Chinese gymnasts,\nhalf a shot-putter.\n\nIt can be measured\nin bags of sugar, jam jars,\n\nenough feathers for sixty pillows,\nor a \ufb02ock of dead birds\n\nbut some days it\u2019s more\nthan the house, the span\n\nof Blair Athol Road.\nI\u2019m the Crooked Spire\n\nwarping itself,\ndoubled up over town.\n\nI measure myself against\nthe sky in its winter coat,\n\npeat traces in water, air\nlocked in the radiators at night,\n\nagainst my own held breath,\nor your un\ufb01nished sentences,\n\nyour hand on my back\nlike a passenger\n\ntouching the dashboard\nwhen a driver brakes,\n\nas if they could slow things down.\nI measure myself against\n\nlove\u2009\u2014\u2009heavier, lighter\nthan both of us.\n", "title": "Scale", "id": 58576, "author": "Helen Mort"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Secret Recipe 10", "id": 58563, "author": "Jaap Blonk"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Secret Recipe 7", "id": 58564, "author": "Jaap Blonk"}
{"poem": "Admit it\u2009\u2014\u2009\nyou wanted the end \n\nwith a serpentine \ngreed. How to negotiate\n\nthat strangling \nmist, the fibrous\n\nwhisper?\n\nTo cease to exist \nand to die\n\nare two different things entirely.\n\nBut you knew this, \ndidn\u2019t you?\n\nSome days you knelt on coins \nin those yellow hours. \n\nYou lit a flame\n\nto your shadow \nand ate\n\nscorpions with your naked fingers.\n\nSo touched by the sadness of hair\nin a dirty sink.\n\nThe malevolent smell \nof soap.\n\nWhen instead of swallowing a fistful\nof white pills,\n\nyou decided to shower,\n\nthe palm trees\nnodded in agreement,\n\na choir \nof crickets singing \n\nbehind your swollen eyes.\n\nThe masked bird \nturned to you \n\nwith a shred of paper hanging\nfrom its beak.\n\nAt dusk, \nhair wet and fragrant,\n\nyou cupped a goat\u2019s face\n\nand kissed \nhis trembling horns. \n\nThe ghost? \n\nIt fell prostrate,\npassed through you \n\nlike a swift \nand generous storm.\n", "title": "Six Months after Contemplating Suicide", "id": 58591, "author": "Erika L. S\u00e1nchez"}
{"poem": "I am not saying \u201cmark my words,\u201d\nas the thief says early each winter.\nHe leaves nothing of value. He too wants.\nA brute with language, he has a fondness\nfor preaching. I am bathed to luster.\nMemories move musically through my bones.\nHe sings above, vaults off a horse with feigned\nkindness, lands so fancy. Letting go of this, \nsitting with tropical leaves the size of men\nin a terrarium, I am beautiful. He means well, \nadmonishing women. He is lucky \nwith the show of crankiness.\nWhat does it mean to let go the envy?\nI sometimes hope stars don\u2019t spread themselves\nover New York\u2019s lights. Performing for himself,\nglasses glittering, he reads stories of poverty,\nclaims them all as his own. \nHere in Colorado irises of all colors unfold\noutwards to the half-hidden sun. On the cracked \ncement, chilly before rain, I see perpetual \nbeginnings. I\u2019m going to forget him:\nlock him in a box in my head,\nlock him in the haunt of violins, let go \nwhat\u2019s his in the hurl of breath of my groans.\n", "title": "The Thief", "id": 58558, "author": "Sheryl Luna"}
{"poem": "I\nOne day as she rinsed her wash from the jetty,\nthe bay's cold grave rose up through her arms\nand into her life.\n\nHer tears froze into spectacles.\nThe island raised itself by its grass\nand the herring-flag waved in the deep.\n\n\n\nII\nAnd the swarm of small pox caught up with him,\nsettled down onto his face.\nHe lies and stares at the ceiling.\n\nHow it had rowed up through the silence.\nThe now's eternally flowing stain,\nthe now's eternally bleeding end-point.\n", "title": "From the Island, 1860", "id": 58615, "author": "Tomas Transtr\u00f6mer"}
{"poem": "Dazzling emptiness of the black green end of summer no one\nrunning in the yard pulse pulse the absence.\n\nLeave them not to the empty yards.\n\nThey resembled a family. Long quiet hours. Sometimes\none was angry sometimes someone called her \"wife\"\nsomeone's hair receding.\n\nAn uptick in the hormone canopy embodied a restlessness\nand oh what to do with it.\n\n(How she arrived in a hush in a looking away and not looking.)\n\nIt had been some time since richness intangible\nand then they made a whole coat of it.\n\nMeanwhile August moved toward its impervious finale.\nA mood by the river. Gone. One lucid rush carrying them along.\n\nBorderless and open the days go on\u2014\n", "title": "September", "id": 58554, "author": "Deborah Landau"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Somebody Said the Riffs Sounded Like Metal,", "id": 58539, "author": "Stephanie Gray"}
{"poem": "I probably didn't tell you that the last\nLine of your poem left me on a plane of\nMovement somewhere between the best of pop\nCulture and the longest break in your favorite pop song\nI probably didn't tell you that the train is going to take\nWay longer than you think and you were probably annoyed\nI probably broke the moon in pieces with my night vision\nStraining too hard to remember what I probably dropped in your inbox\nI probably should've said what I meant.\nYou probably knew how my life didn't fix into\nThat theory box on your shelf, so I probably\nIgnored you when you said hi to me near Mercer St\nI probably left off the most important thing\nBut you probably didn't want to hear it\nI probably tried to be a good New Yorker and\nWork hard and play hard but it didn't work\nOut that way, I probably just reverted back to\nThe Rust Belt mode\u2014work hard, have it not mean\nEnough to play hard or play at all. It's probably too hard to make\nA dent for yourself in the Rust Belt. It's all probably said and done\nYour neighbor knows what you did tomorrow and what was\nGoing on yesterday. Probably good too so you don't get in trouble\nWith the other neighbor. But they probably don't know that you could\nBe in NY for a few hours and have something good and so life changing happen\nTo you it was probably a 360 for you and probably took\nYou years to come down to 180, probably, right?\n", "title": "Stuff I probably did and didn't", "id": 58538, "author": "Stephanie Gray"}
{"poem": "This forest in May. It haunts my whole life:\nthe invisible moving van. Singing birds.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 In silent pools, mosquito larvae's\nfuriously dancing question marks.\n\nI escape to the same places and same words.\nCold breeze from the sea, the ice-dragon's licking\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the back of my neck while the sun glares.\nThe moving van is burning with cool flames.\n\n\n", "title": "Alcaic", "id": 58612, "author": "Tomas Transtr\u00f6mer"}
{"poem": "The black grand piano, the gleaming spider\nstood trembling in the midst of its music-net.\n\nIn the concert hall a land was emerging\nwhere the stones were no heavier than dew.\n\nBut Balakirev fell asleep during the music\nand dreamed a dream about the tsar's carriage.\n\nIt rolled along over the cobblestones\nstraight into the crow-cawing dark.\n\nHe sat alone in the cab and looked out\nbut at the same time ran alongside in the road.\n\nHe knew that the trip had been long\nand his watch showed years, not hours.\n\nThere was a field where the plow lay\nand the plow was a bird taking flight.\n\nThere was a bay where the ship lay\nice-bound, lights out, with people on deck.\n\nThe carriage glided across that ice and the wheels\nspun and spun with a sound of silk.\n\nA lesser battleship: Sevastopol.\nHe was aboard. The crew came forward.\n\n\"You won't have to die if you can play.\"\nThey showed him a peculiar instrument.\n\nIt looked like a tuba, or a phonograph,\nor a part to some obscure machine.\n\nScared-stiff and helpless he understood: this\nis the instrument that drives the warship.\n\nHe turned to the sailor nearest him,\ndesperately signaled with his hands and begged:\n\n\"Make the sign of the cross like me, cross yourself!\"\nThe sailor stared somberly like a blind man,\n\nstretched his arms out, sunk his head down\u2014\nhe hung as if nailed to the air.\n\nThe drums beat. The drums beat. Applause!\nBalakirev woke up from his dream.\n\nThe applause-wings pattered around the hall.\nHe watched the man at the grand piano rise.\n\nOutside the streets lay blacked-out by the strike.\nThe carriages rolled swiftly through the darkness.\n\n\n", "title": "Balakirev's Dream (1905)", "id": 58608, "author": "Tomas Transtr\u00f6mer"}
{"poem": "\u2022\n\n\nWhen G died began the midnight panic attacks.\n He spoke French and English\nbut that didn't help.\n\nHow the body can betray.\nIt frayed and decayed and then\nhe was removed\n\nfrom it promptly and with force.\nTo begin with, a bit of pressure\nin the throat.\n\nA tendency to choke.\nAnd then how lavishly\nit grew to overtake him.\n\n\n\u2022\n\n\nAt the funeral his wife\nhad a gaudy kind of beauty.\nSheer and elegant in a champagne\n\nsilk blouse. And where did he go?\nNo matter where on this earth\nand you could never find him.\n\nFlowery and young\ncame the mourners, like bridesmaids.\nG would have liked it that way.\n\nStilettos and stockings.\nThe curves of the widow\nsleek and sublimate in blacksilk pants.\n\nElsewhere people\nwent shopping or to the movies.\nWe drove to the crematorium.\n\nI can only hope\nso many beautiful women\ncome to my funeral, M said.\n\n\n\u2022\n\n\nJust at the moment when the person has disappeared forever\nthey tell you he's alive forever lucky him.\n\nThe church hushed dark a ruin\nand all of us inside it.\n\n(The city's a brute the sky is a brute\nthough the day is calm and clear and mild\n\nstrain to comfort console\nbut there's no dispersing this.\n\nO incidental fragile beloved one,\nchance of recovery none.)\n\n\n\u2022\n\n\nThe city of Paris has you in mind tonight\u2014\nLet its bridges lift you up.\nLet the city of Paris write you a letter,\n\nthe men of Paris open their windows,\ntending their gardens of giant snapdragons.\nLet the city perceive you.\n\nIt is infinite and slow, it will have you back.\nThe beds of Paris are made for you,\nthe city of Paris is sending you\n\nsteak and water, wine and eggs,\nit has caf\u00e9s for you, a broad-flowing river\nand many crossbreezes.\n\nWhen vaulting under, when the body\nhas shown you its foul airless destination,\nlet the Saint-Sulpice declare living\n\nand visible your clever spirit your kindness.\nThe tables of Paris will give you food\nhere are some macarons pink-sweet with jam.\n\n(Rude-blooming the flowers of Paris\nas if snout to blossom\ncould uncover could reinvoke.)\n\n\n\u2022\n\n\nHow is it to have a body today\nand walk in this city in the sun,\na bit shocked to find ourselves actually here\n\nwith books and teacups and ghosts\nand time ample, a slow greedy feast.\nIf there's no one to walk with all over this city\n\nyou can go to the movies can hurry stop\nbuy a bunch of lavender, a book, pastry\nbe someone distinct true personal and new.\n\nThe mind rivers out, angle by angle.\nHe was sick and now nowhere\nand soon the cities and soon the planet and yet\n\nthe decadence and festivals\nboys running, couples\nswooning on the bridge.\n\nTonight G's attached to a city,\nwhere I carry him along in my head,\nordering dinner, sitting in the square\n\ndrawing the sheet up over the body\nthat happens now to be lying there.\n\n\n\u2022\n\n\nHow emptily the time goes, how ros\u00e9.\nThe waiter, he had a frank stare.\nHe wanted to be admired\n\nand I admired him.\nIn the caf\u00e9 everyone was alive.\nEveryone was eating, the garden\n\nfull and flowering wet\nand pleasure-dome the earth\nthe days go on\n\nand G not and G just\nand how can a person\nand now one less\n\nand she crumpled thing now\nas if each were an original grief\nnow gather here and look.\n\n(Everyone this summer is obsessed with Michael Jackson.\nA cold place in the center feel it.\nIn central Paristhe French are saying \"moon walk.\")\n\n\n\u2022\n\n\nI drank the tiny coffee\nbut it didn't work\ntried the pills\n\nthat are supposed\nto make you happy\nthe pills that are supposed\n\nto make you free.\nThe man on the\ncorner is a flasher\n\nhis skin bright blue.\nIn front of the M\u00e9tro\ngrandpa is dancing.\n\nWhen he looked up\nthere were so many\ncracks in the sky.\n\n\n\u2022\n\n\nWalked until the caffeine wore off.\nUntil the buzzing stopped. Walked.\nFood everywhere and everywhere people\n\nputting it into their mouths. Butter and cream,\nfruit and sugar, coffee and wine.\nPeople on the island swirling gelato.\n\nThe private inner sweetness. When the rain\ncomes down you can feel less lonely.\nYou can feel cozy even shut alone\n\ninto your private room. When the sun\ncomes out it's a disappointment.\nWho on earth can live up to it.\n\nThe days go on despair and elation in alternation.\nBlazoned swinging moods so big\nthey bewilder.\n\nAnd what is the arc of life.\nAnd up ahead nothing.\nOn the other side what.\n\n\n\u2022\n\n\nThe city says\njust live with the mystery don't fight it.\n\nThis is your life, life using you.\n\nThe great diminishment coming\u2014\nYou're not the only one who feels it.\n\nIt's not like you're any more mortal now\nyou were always mortal.\n\nSo try a moment of lightness\nlike when the red bird appeared\n\non the terrace and it wasn't mystical\nwasn't anyone returning\n\njust was\n\n\n\u2022\n\n\nThe old man in the wheelchair smelling of garlic\nthe little dog in the grocery cart\nthe homeless dog and his homeless owner\n\nthe dog's sad-looking face\nhe stays all day in the grocery cart\nthe sympathy one feels for a dog\n\nhelpless in his dog life\nthe sympathy one feels for a man\nhelpless in his man life\n\nfor the grey cat leashed to the fire hydrant\nthe sympathy one feels for a woman\nalone at the dinner table.\n\nIn the hot courtyards\nParis lowered\nits awnings.\n\nIt's hard to walk\nin a skirt in this weather\nthe wind catches you.\n\nA gradual slowing\nand she turned transparent\njust a window, just a sensation\n\nof walking, a blister.", "title": "The City of Paris has You in Mind Tonight", "id": 58553, "author": "Deborah Landau"}
{"poem": "I once loved a boy who built batteries\nfor pacemakers, miniature machines\nthat could glint a heart to life.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 There were no secrets\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 in his fingertips; to make sure,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I held them to the light. Even so,\n\nhe had learned a way\nto make a pulse. He might have\nset it down like a wind-up toy:\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 a small bear stomping\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 across the table, escape\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 on its mechanical mind.\n\nNow, my own steps stutter\nwhen I sneak into the hospital\nand figure out how\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 to bring you back. With me\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 comes every girl I've ever been,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 holding hands to let\n\nthe current shiver through us\nlike spun sunlight: flaxen, fizzy,\na memory of miles, of measure,\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 time tangled together, copper wires\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 in my palm. Hello, gorgeous,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 give me your hand.\n\nWe've been waiting\nfor you. So rise, girl.\nWake up.\n\n\n", "title": "Dangerous Electric", "id": 58555, "author": "Janet McNally"}
{"poem": "Rushing rushing water's rumbling old hypnosis.\nThe river's flooding the car-graveyard, glittering\nbehind the masks.\nI grab hold of the bridge railing.\nThe bridge: a large iron bird sailing past death.\n", "title": "From the Snowmelt of '66", "id": 58611, "author": "Tomas Transtr\u00f6mer"}
{"poem": "If you believe in snow, you have to believe\nin water as it's meant to be, loosed\n\nfrom clouds arranged like asphodel. Because that's\nwhat it's like to come back: a slow\n\nsurfacing, memory spiraling away. You can sleep\nso long, whole seasons are forgotten\n\nlike a hospital-room plaster, spidered\nwith cracks in Portugal shapes. You can love\n\nsleep like water, love your heavy limbs\npushing river and ocean aside.\n\nAfter Maggie woke, the doctors had her stringing\nbracelets of semiprecious beads, and she\n\ncouldn't stop counting the kinds of blue.\nHere, summer, in the high shade of a ginko,\n\nshe pulls up a handful of stones on silk\nand we drink grapefruit seltzer, listening\n\nto the tinny chime of bubbles\nrising to the air. She can't remember\n\nautumn, so we tell her someday this tree will drop\nits fan-shaped leaves all at once,\n\ngolden in the October crush\nof every plant's frantic strip show. Later\n\nwe'll see mountains through the scrim of empty\nbranches, and if we can look straight up\n\ninto the atmosphere, see the same plain old sky\nrevolving. When we ask Maggie what color it is\n\nshe always says iolite, picturing beads\nlike raindrops, shining azure on the table.\n\nShe forgets that sometimes things don't stay\nwhere you leave them, that the sky fades\n\nto white even before snow begins\nto fall. It's hard, but we have to tell her\n\neven sapphires don't glow blue\nwithout some kind of help.\n\n\n", "title": "Maggie Says There's No Such Thing as Winter", "id": 58556, "author": "Janet McNally"}
{"poem": "I\nTwo old men, father-and son-in-law, Liszt and Wagner, are staying by the Grand Canal\ntogether with the restless woman who is married to King Midas,\nhe who changes everything he touches to Wagner.\nThe ocean's green cold pushes up through the palazzo floors.\nWagner is marked, his famous Punchinello profile looks more tired than before,\nhis face a white flag.\nThe gondola is heavy-laden with their lives, two round trips and a one-way.\n\nII\nA window in the palazzo flies open and everyone grimaces in the sudden draft.\nOutside on the water the trash gondola appears, paddled by to one-oared bandits.\nLiszt has written down some chords so heavy, they ought to be sent off\nto the mineralological institute in Padua for analysis.\nMeteorites!\nToo heavy to rest, they can only sink and sink straight through the future all the way down to the Brownshirt years.\nThe gondola is heavy-laden with the future's huddled-up stones.\n\nIII\nPeep-holdes into 1990.\n\nMarch 25th. Angst for Lithuania.\nDreamt I visited a large hospital.\nNo personnel. Everyone was a patient.\n\nIn the same dream a newborn girl\nwho spoke in complete sentences.\n\n\nIV\nBeside the son-in-law, who's a man of the times, Liszt is a moth-eaten grand seigneur.\nIt's a disguise.\nThe deep, that tries on and rejects different masks, has chosen this one just for him\u2014\nthe deep that wants to enter people without ever showing its face.\n\nV\nAbb\u00e9 Liszt is used to carrying his suitcase himself through sleet and sunshine\nand when his time comes to die, there will be no one to meet him at the station.\nA mild breeze of gifted cognac carries him away in the midst of a commission.\nHe always has commissions.\nTwo thousand letters a year!\nThe schoolboy who writes his misspelled word a hundred times before he's allowed\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 to go home.\nThe gondola is heavy-laden with life, it is simple and black.\n\nVI\nBack to 1990.\n\nDreamt I drove over a hundred miles in vain.\nThen everything magnified. Sparrows as big as hens\nsang so loud that it briefly struck me deaf.\n\nDreamt I had drawn piano keys\non my kitchen table. I played on them, mute.\nThe neighbors came over to listen.\n\nVII\nThe clavier, which kept silent through all of Parsifal (but listened), finally has\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 something to say.\nSighs...ospiri...\nWhen Liszt plays tonight he holds the sea-pedal pressed down\nso the ocean's green force rises up through the floor and flows together with all the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0stone in the building.\nGood evening, beautiful deep!\nThe gondola is heavy-laden with life, it is simple and black.\n\nVIII\nDreamt I was supposed to start school but arrived too late.\nEveryone in the room was wearing a white mask.\nWhoever the teacher was, no one could say.\n\n\n", "title": "Sorrow Gondola No. 2", "id": 58614, "author": "Tomas Transtr\u00f6mer"}
{"poem": "The stones we have thrown I hear\nfall, glass-clear through the year. In the valley\nconfused actions of the moment\nfly howling from tree-top\nto tree-top, quieting\nin air thinner than now's, gliding\nlike swallows from mountain-top\nto mountain-top till they\nreach the furthest plateaus\nalong the edge of existence. Where\nall our deeds fall\nglass-clear\nto no ending\nexcept ourselves.\n", "title": "The Stones", "id": 58607, "author": "Tomas Transtr\u00f6mer"}
{"poem": "1\nThe white butterfly in the park is being read by many.\nI love that cabbage-moth as if it were a fluttering corner of truth itself!\n\nAt dawn the running crowds set our quiet planet in motion.\nThen the park fills with people. To each one, eight faces polished like jade, for all\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0situations, to avoid making mistakes.\nTo each one, there's also the invisible face reflecting \"something you don't talk about.\"\nSomething that appears in tired moments and is as rank as a gulp of viper schnapps \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0with its long scaly aftertaste.\n\nThe carp in the pond move continuously, swimming while they sleep, setting an \u00a0 example for the faithful: always in motion. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \n\n2\nIt's midday. Laundry flutters in the gray sea-wind high over the cyclists\nwho arrive in dense schools. Notice the labrinths on each side!\n\nI'm surrounded by written characters that I can't interpret, I'm illiterate through and \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0through. \nBut I've paid what I owe and have receipts for everything.\nI've accumulated so many illegible receipts.\nI'm an old tree with withered leaves that hang on and can't fall to the ground.\n\nAnd a gust from the sea gets all these receipts rustling.\n\n3\n\u00a0At dawn the trampling hordes set our quiet planet in motion.\nWe're all aboard the street, and it's as crammed as the deck of \u00a0a ferry.\n\nWhere are we headed? Are there enough teacups? We should consider ourselves lucky\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0to have made it aboard this street!\nIt's a thousand years before the birth of claustrophobia.\n\nHovering behind each of us who walks here is a cross that wants to catch up with us,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 pass us, unite with us.\nSomething that wants to sneak up on us from behind, put its hands over our eyes and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 whisper \"Guess who!\"\n\nWe look almost happy out in the sun, while we bleed to death from wounds we don't\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 know about.\n", "title": "Streets in Shanghai", "id": 58613, "author": "Tomas Transtr\u00f6mer"}
{"poem": "\u2022\n\n\nWell look, the wedding guests are here again.\u00a0\nWhy not just send a card?\n\nSnapshot. Snapshot. Smile and kiss.\nBut this bride has such a red face!\n\nLet her scramble past pardon en route to the loo.\nEvacuate the taffeta dire and paunchy.\n\nThe groom is erect.\nThe groom downed three pints\n\nand stole from the caterer.\nHe would never be no grown-up,\n\nThis part we'll remember. Dull and easy.\nBefore the spawning and apathy.\n\nBefore the dementia nurse\nand waiting for mama to die.\n\nSilverware. Cloth napkins. Carafes. Gather round.\nSit pious and clench yourself.\n\nWhat's within should be held in.\nChoke it down. Medicine for the long haul.\n\nNo more wildness is why\nI chose no more wildness.\n\nNow scurry ho, before someone else\ngoes down on the bride.\n\nIsn't that her in the distance, up the pole?\n\n\n\u2022\n\n\nBy pineapple, by pamplemousse,\nwe find ourselves\nback at the table armed with forks\n\nand particular ideas about what to drink.\nGo on, order what you want.\nTurn up the music, you.\n\nLucinda, you have a great voice.\nYou have a lovelygone face\nand teeth. O gums! Pink and alkaline.\n\nWe live in the city with crowds of fallen.\nSoon I am dead and soon you.\nWe'll all be dead together! Anne said. \n\n\u2022\n\n\nMarie, you are not unclean.\nYou are rose-oiled and shiny\nand ensconced in the corner\n\nwith the witty anesthesiologist,\ninhaling ladysmoke\nat the caf\u00e9.\n\n It's a pleasure\njust to watch you scratch the crud\noff your lotto ticket tonight.\n\nThen in comes Jackson, looking like\nhe's left his wife. And again Larry\nis extending his feelers toward Clarice.\n\nLarry, what gives?\nYou'll soon lose interest.\nEh, Mr Candlelight?\n\nI want to give you\na good close reading.\nCome this way.\n\n\n\u2022\n\n\nOh skin! What a cloth to live in.\nWe are not at the end of things.\n\nHe's tuxedoed and I'm in a cocktail dress.\nHow gussied up we get.\n\nDrink this, roll that.\nAnother sender different gender.\n\nWe're going to hit a winner.\nWe're going to swallow vodka\nand slap down money\n\nand stand around frocked and gossiping\nand bleed a little in the bathroom\nfrom earlier today when we were a little minx.\n\n(He really is of the masses, mama said.)\n\n\n\u2022\n\n\nLadies and gentlemen, introducing\nMr and Mrs of the moment now and dancing.\n\nMr and Mrs End of Suffering.\nMr and Mrs Safe and Headed Where.\n\nIn the reach of night she'll have him. He'll have.\n\nA series of days filled up and emptied.\nA welcome closeness and a womb.\n\nHe pours her a fizzy one. She pours him hers.\n\nLet's keep on doing this, let's do it\ntogether. A bit of drunk and full of wishing.\n\n(Two people jumping out of a building and holding hands, R said.)\n\n\n", "title": "The Wedding Party", "id": 58552, "author": "Deborah Landau"}
{"poem": "You can't argue beauty's not an accident, the particular heft and angle\nof a chromosome's spin. A tarted spangle, bright lanyard twist, the slip\nof cells weighting this boat uneven from stern to prow. We're all\n\nskittery as marbles on \u00a0a marble floor. Beauty stays, then goes;\nit fades, we say, something about years and sun, the nights we slept\nin makeup and left mascara like ashes on the pillowcase. We burned\n\nthrough every one of our dreams. I wasn't always a stepmother, you know.\nThere were whole years when I was a girl. But now, these ladies\nsell me moisturizer, stand close in their lab coats, pretending at science\n\nin a fog of perfume. They wield a contour brush and my cheekbone pops.\nThe magic settles uneasy; it turns out fairy dust was always \nfake. And the lipstick's made from beetles, shells crushed vermillion.\n\nMy color is Fleshpot, they say, it's Folie or Fixation. It's Wilderness;\nit's Artificial Earth. They can't quite make themselves care.\nWe'll waste it, they know, whatever we've been given.\n", "title": "The Wicked One Goes to the Makeup Counter", "id": 58557, "author": "Janet McNally"}
{"poem": "Let it be said\nthat Tim's year was divided\ninto two seasons: sneakers\nand flip-flops. Let us\nremember that Tim\nwould sometimes throw a football\nwith all the requisite grip, angle\nand spiral-talk. Let us recall\nthat for the sake of what was left\nof appearances, my mother\nnever once let him sleep\nin her bed; he snored all over\nour dog-chewed couch, and in\nthe mornings when I tip-toed\npast him on my way\nto school, his jowls\nfat as a catcher's mitt, I never cracked\nan empty bottle across that space\nwhere his front teeth\nrotted out. Nor did I touch\na struck match to that mole\nby his lip, whiskery dot that\u2014he\u00a0\nbelieved\u2014made him irresistable\nto all lovelorn women.\nStill, let us remember\nsweetness: Tim lying face down,\nMom popping the zits\nthat dotted his broad, sun-spotted back,\nwhich, though obviously\ngross, gets the January photo\nin my personal wall calendar\nof what love should be,\nif such a calendar\ncould still exist above my kitchen table\njunked up with the heretos and\ntherefores from my\nlast divorce.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Let us not forget\nhow my mother would slip\ninto her red cocktail dress\nand Tim would say,\n\"Your mother is beautiful,\"\nbefore getting up\nto go dance with someone else.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 In fairness, let me\nconfess that I pedaled\nmy ten-speed\nacross the Leaf River bridge\nall the way to Tim's\nother woman's house\nand lay with that woman's daughter\nbeside the moon-\ncold weight\nof the propane tank, dumb\nwith liquor, numb to\nthe fire ants that we spread\nour blanket over until\nI stopped for a second\nand looked up\nbecause I wondered if\nher mother could hear us,\nor if Tim might not\nhave stood in the kitchen,\nmaybe looked out\nthe window and saw\nmy white ass pumping\nin the moonlight,\nand whispered\nto himself, \"That's my boy.\"\n", "title": "Elegy for My Mother's Ex-Boyfriend", "id": 58536, "author": "James Kimbrell"}
{"poem": "It's all foreplay, really-this walk\nthrough the French Quarter exploring souvenir shops,\neach of them carefully deranged, as if dust were to settle\nonly at perfect intervals. Yes to the vetiver fan\nthat smells sweeter than sandalwood or cedar.\nNo to the mammy doll dinner bells.\nNo to the mammy dolls whose sewn smiles are as fixed\nas the lives of too many poor Black women here:\nmotherhood at twelve, drugged, abandoned by fifteen,\ndead by twenty (suicide, murder) so easily in Desire.\nAnd yet, their voices sweeten the snaking air,\nproviding the transvestites their proper Muses,\nall of whom have streets named for them in the Garden District.\n\nA soft heat settles on Terpsichore,\njust inside the gay bar where the owner's pink flamingos\ncomplement silly songs on the rescued Rockola.\nWho can dance to that Lorne Greene ballad, \"Ringo\"?\n\nDixie beer is the beer of choice; marijuana the cheapest drug.\nRelaxation is key, since it's all a matter of waiting\nfor the right body to stumble toward you.\nLust perfumes parties in the projects, barstool chatter at the Hyatt,\nlazy kissing on the median strip stretching down Tchoupitoulas.\nIf Professor Longhair were alive, he'd teach a lesson\nin seamless motion: the perfect slide of a man's hand down a \n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 woman's back;\n\na lesson you learned long ago before you met me. We are making love\nas we did before in Austin and Manhattan.\nBut in this room on this costly bed our lovemaking\nstarts out the slowest grind, then, like this city's weather,\ngoes from hot to hotter, from moist to rainstorm wet.\n\nYou're tall, A., and where there should be tribal markings\nthere are scars-football, basketball, mid-sixties grind parties\nwhere something always got out of hand. There's the perfect\namen. You're your own gospel.\nAnd you bring good news to me-the way you enter me\nLike grace, the way you say my name, a psalm.\nNo. That's not it. It's the engineer in you that\ngets me. Your search for the secret line that goes\nstraight to the center of the earth. Deeper and deeper\nyou go until there's no earth left in me. And we\nhum and moan a song as old as our selves gone back.\n\nThere are too many souvenirs in your eyes.\nGifts given too often, too hastily, never opened.\n\nOutside a city sprawls its heat, seeks out every pore,\nlicks every moment of sweat as we shiver in this chilly room\ntaking each other's measure. We say good-bye again and again.\nAs if every kiss, every touch we make will shadow\nAll our celebrations.\n\nAnd they do.\n", "title": "Encounter and Farewell", "id": 58617, "author": "Patricia Spears Jones"}
{"poem": "Fat, face the color of blanc on blanc,\nsmelling of cheap tobacco and many unwashed garments,\nfrom the other end of the car,\nthe unmistakable melody of La vi en rose\nscratched against tender ears of Parisian commuters.\nNot\u00a0La vi en rose again\", said the young Frenchman facing me.\nI understood every word he said.\n\nThe old woman singing was no tiny sparrow,\nno waif.\nHer corpulent canine companion was equally uncouth.\nShe sang Piaf's signature song with a hostile gusto,\neach syllable enunciated loudly.\n\nWe sniggered as the singing voice came closer.\nSo close we began to sing along, conspirators, smiling.\nAnd we welcomed the doleful silence at the song's inevitable end.\n\nI gave her a centime or was it two?\nShe deserved it.\nWas she blind?\nDid it matter?\n\nAs for me, I am weary of speaking shattered Spanish with\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Argentinean intellectuals\nand outmoded American slang with the Moroccan grocer and his\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 cousins\non the Boulevard Saint-Michel near rue du Val-de-Gr\u00e2ce\nAnd I cannot seem to count past the number, sept!\nGloved hands push apart the Metro's doors. It is journey's end.\n\nI try singing Piaf's mysterious refrain, grateful for my own\nsoulful silly version on the walk towards the rue Henri-Barbusse,\na short slice of street named for a revolutionary\nor was he a pirate philosopher?\n\nTired and cheered outside my American language, I am\npuzzled with the battered glamour of this city\nbuilt for electric illuminations, swift flirtations,\nas I follow the paths to dead poets shaped in solemn statuary\nharboring the austere lawns of the Jardin du Luxembourg.\n", "title": "Femme du monde", "id": 58618, "author": "Patricia Spears Jones"}
{"poem": "If I eat a diet of rain and nuts, walk to the P.O.\nin a loincloth, file for divorce from the world of matter,\nsay not-it! to the sea oats, not-it! to the sky\nabove the disheveled palms, not-it! to the white or green oyster boats\nand the men on the bridge with their fishing rods\nthat resemble so many giant whiskers,\nif I repeat this is not it, this is not why I'm waiting here,\nwill I fill the universe with all that is not-it\nand allow myself to grow very still in the center of\u00a0\nthis fishing town in winter? Will I look out past the cat\nsleeping in the windowsill and say not-it! garbage can,\nnot-it! Long's Video Store, until I happen upon what\nis not not-it? Will I wake up and BEHOLD!\nthe \"actual,\" the \"real,\" the \"awe-thentic,\" the IS?\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Instead I walk down the Island Quicky, take a pound\nof bait shrimp in an ice-filled baggie, then walk to the beach\nto catch my dinner. Now waiting is the work\nI'm waiting for. Now the sand crane dive-bombs the surf\nof his own enlightenment because everything\nis bait and lust and hard-up for supper.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I came out here to pare things down,\nwanted to be wind, simple as sand, to hear each note\nin the infinite orchestra of waves fizzling out\nbeneath the rotting dock at five o'clock in the afternoon\nwhen the voice that I call I is a one-man boat\nslapping toward the shore of a waning illusion.\nHello, waves of salty and epiphanic distance. Good day,\nbird who will eventually\ngo blind from slamming headfirst into the water.\nWhat do you say fat flounder out there\ndeep in your need, looking like sand speckled with shells,\nlying so still you're hardly there, lungs lifting\nwith such small air, flesh both succulent and flakey\nwhen baked with white wine, lemon and salt, your eyes\nrolling toward their one want when the line jerks, and the reel\nclicks, and the rod bends, and you give up\nthe ocean floor for a mouthful of land.\n\n\n\n\n", "title": "How to Tie a Knot", "id": 58535, "author": "James Kimbrell"}
{"poem": "I.\n\nHere is a place where declarations\nare made/where the heart takes precedence\nthe gleam goes bland\nThis is the heart part/intense improvisation\non the I/THOU axis\npity the poor actors (darlings)dust\nin their throats (choking) dialogue ancient\n(concentrated chatter dictated by clouds)\n\nclick of whispers\ndammed up phrases \u00a0 \u00a0 {mythologizing always)\nMoans move through their limbs like wind through\nTrees talking mad talk 'cross the illuminated\nAvenues of hard cities.\n\nII.\n\nTake the skin\nTake off the skin\nRemove the vital organs one by one\nespecially the heart\nWhat is left\nThe skeleton\nThe skeleton is made of calcium\nmagnesium, phosphorous et cetera:\nan amazing catalogue of chemicals\nYou are holding in your arms\nan amazing catalogue of chemicals\nThe elements clash tenderly\nSparking compounds that move like eels\nUnder touch.\n\nIII.\n\nDime falls, your voice rises (fevered)\nIt's keen, the way the wind whips this\nGarbage up and around like a father\nSwinging his baby we are holding hands\nAnd yes, giggling no force can stop us now\nWe are singing all the James Brown songs\nWe know helpess off-key, but exhilarated\nColumbus Avenue breakdown: how the puddles\nIn the sidewalks radiate splendor/glass\nBroken against high-rise buildings beckon\nWe are hungry the shifting children salsa\nAnd you may be our feast, please linger\nYou offer me your laughter\nI take the sweat from y our cheeks and hum.\n\nIV.\n\nTaste like tears\u2014sea flaked and heated\u2014\nTaste like try again and get nowhere,\nMaybe, this is the sonnet that mimes itself\nSequences silent and perceptive\nThe \"might have saids\"\nThe stomach-eating rage\nThe power of conversation is in its\nPossibilities of Interpretation\n(here's where the mime becomes important\nbecause the words sound so dumb)\nAnd here's where the anxiety dance gets choreographed.\nIt goes like this: You turn clockwise.\nI turn Counter-Clockwise. We stop, stumble\nResolve our steps. Begin again.\n\nV.\n\nYou slipped into something dangerous\nafter attending to your intimate conferences\nThirsty friends forever requesting water\nOr is it blood they want? \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Your blood.\u00a0\nSomebody's screaming. Is it me?\nHere on the side street being a sideshow\nFor passersby. You put on your silver armor.\nI have only my quaint devotion.\nIt is not enough. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0You say\nI can't eat your food, baby, but I sitll like your cooking.\nDid I trip? \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Did you? \u00a0 \u00a0That Mingus\nrecord is still revolving. You smile\nserenely. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I can barely breathe.\n\nVI.\n\nIf I could waste myself, I'd do it here\nIn public. Curse your name till my tongue bled.\nThe same tongue that searched out the\ndarkest spot on your back and licked it like chocolate.\nCurse your name like you were some\nBroken god in need of further profaning.\n\nBut I am no good at playing: victim.\nSadness is so private. These tears on the\nUptown Express. Take that tired song off\nthe constant stereo. It keeps reminding me\nThat what brought me to you was music.\nYou said you never lied to me. Fucker.\n\nYou take the exit sign home with you.\nBut I won't become invisible.\n", "title": "Mythologizing Always: Seven Sonnets", "id": 58616, "author": "Patricia Spears Jones"}
{"poem": "My memory of a perfect scent: pine, sage, and cypress;\nMy friends' faith in the power of rough and winding paths\nto take me up a mountain and bring me back.\n\nSpecimens plucked from that mountain's pastures:\nIndian paintbrush, sego lily, ordinary wildflowers.\n\nHow I got them is a story of friendship and passion\nNancy, now a doctor, once a shy sophmore in college\nHer husband Mike, the second, better one, and their obsession\nwith the Great Outdoors\u2014hence an Idaho address.\n\nBoise's Northend is a throwback to neighborhoods American\u2014nice\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0homes\nNext to two-story garden apartments down the street from a\u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0mansion.\nBikes and dogs and hand-pushed lawn mowers.\nWhere they dwell is a bungalow that spirits Memphis, Tennessee\ncirca 1971:\n\nThe Who blasting off a turntable, marijuana-scented air, boys with\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 long hair,\ngirls wearing their boyfriends' blue jeans, bourbon and acid.\nPaperbacks, record albums, text books piled up\u2014azaleas on the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 parkway;\na howl of buzzing bees late spring just before graduation.\n\nTheir bungalow has dueling computers and a real backyard.\nWhile Nancy and Mike's boxes are slowly being unpacked,\nTheir bicycles are carefully racked inside their front door.\n\nEveryone is a thief out West. If you leave your bikes on the porch\nThey disappear. If you find water, someone else will divert it.\nThere are those who fight about the wind. Others the sun.\nAll angling for rights\u2014mineral, water, air\u2014that only comes with\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 political power.\n\nOh, my friends who love to hike, to ski, to bike and me, they love\nAre driving me from Boise to Ketchum through mountain and\u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0valley beauty.\n\nHigh desert heat is clear, dry and when your body rises out of \u00a0a\u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0chilly car,\n\nBLAM.\n\nFrom there you enter another air conditioning zone:\na general store at the edge of mountain lore.\n\nThis place has everything from Bibles to good bourbon.\n\nI almost bought a foot long sausage. I almost bought a gun.\nI did buy cowboy postcards, mostly made for fun.\nFood and security. Winter just over the ridge, four weeks hence.\n\nI used to watch Death Valley Days.\nDeath was hinted, but not shown\u2014the wagon turned over,\nThe wagon train a going.\n\nO, those long-suffering white people fearful of Indians and scared of\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0bandits,\ndesperate for shade, for water, for land flowing milk and honey.\n\nHard-bitten men and sad-eyed women trekking.\nHow grand those verdant acres were to be.\nWhat they got was land just green enough for wandering herds of\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0long-horned beasts\nand no where to farm, no where to hide.\n\nToday, the wind machines whip around: \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 BIG ENERGY.\n\nHorses gambol and graze on that patch of land or this keen slope.\nNo wheat and corn, not even dope grows here.\nBut silver, gold, treasures unknown lode these mountains\ninviting speculation, misery, and bad legislation.\n\nA few miles up from Sun Valley, we enter a trail.\nMike and Nancy smile and cajole.\nStraw hat and baseball cap attest to sun's plenty.\nTheir walking sticks to the rocks' ready\nchallenge to ankles and limbs.\nOur water pouches are overflowing.\nWhat were my friends thinking?\n\nWe slip and slide on the side of this mountain and step aside\nfor the sculpted women in tank tops and biker shorts\u2014trotting as\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0fast as\nNancy and Mike's favorite dog\nShe runs ahead following the blonde beauties until all is shadow.\nWe greet each other with glee.\n\nI am the novice hiker. I am afraid of falling into thin air.\nOne large Black woman with a bum knee. What were they\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0thinking?\n\nShe will love the smell. Pine, sage, and cypress.\nShe will love the sound. Wind shakes aspens. Water crinkles rock\nShe will love the sight. Wildflowers\u2014whites, yellows, purples and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0reds:\nIndian paintbrush, sego lily, the wily cinquefoil.\n\nWhen friends give you what you need, what more can you ask?\nOh the pleasure in a mountain's power to quiet a panicked heart.\nThe glade refined.\nHawk's home, wolf's dream, bears far away.\n\nStewards of American beauty\u2014these are the paths my friends make\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in wild places\n\u2014the rise and fall of future walks.\n\nI salute their obsession for Idaho's red undulating hills.\nWhose mountain ranges east to west like those in the Himalayas\n\nsays a guidebook, but ours is a different story\u2014in this young\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 mountain,\non these new hills, circumspect is the American West.\n\nWhere people steal\na drop of ore,\na native flower,\na piece of splendor\nday in and day out.\n", "title": "What Beauty Does", "id": 58619, "author": "Patricia Spears Jones"}
{"poem": "The sensual sap ascends\nto summer us, and all\nfronds, greenwoods, lily bands\nattend our festival.\n\nA festival I had\nmore chaste and regular\nwhen with the greening globe\nI seasonally bore\n\nmy clocked and colored joys.\nNow, love, I stand exile\nin the shadow of your praise,\nerrant, unpunctual.\n", "title": "Prothalamium", "id": 25291, "author": "Julia Randall"}
{"poem": "I\u2019d have you known! It puzzles me forever\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nTo hear, day in, day out, the words men use,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nBut never a single word about you, never.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nStrange!\u2014in your every gesture, worlds of news.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nOn busses people talk. On curbs I hear them;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nIn parks I listen, barbershop and bar.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nIn banks they murmur, and I sidle near them;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nBut none allude to you there. None so far. \n\nI read books too, and turn the pages, spying:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nYou must be there, one beautiful as you!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nBut never, not by name. No planes are flying\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nYour name in lacy trailers past the blue\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nMarquees of heaven. No trumpets cry your fame.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\n\nStrange!\u2014how no constellations spell your name!\n", "title": "Strange!", "id": 47866, "author": "John Frederick Nims"}
{"poem": "Aphra Behn is not wearing all her clothes\n in some part of South America nobody knows.\n Everyone is polite, and not. Maybe she left off\n her petticoats, her skirts look limp. She coughs.\n Of course her bosom is bare. He's bats\n \u00a0\n about her, also noble and misunderstood \u2014 that\u2019s\n too much culture for you. His black \n skin is just skin, what with his wealth,\u00a0frisson,\nand all those bearers and banners.\n The play is predominant, the manor-\n \u00a0\n house-reach. What she makes of it \u2014 not of husbands,\n not even of the rights of humans richer-than-\n thou, the local gentry who scheme more\n than they breed \u2014 is insolence, not to bore\n us. What is real is real, she says, wearing\n \u00a0\n what he wants with Damn the insects biting.\n His type tends to the florid\u2014strange \n how everyone speaks well of him, then how chains\n become him \u2014 who says that? \u2014 and someone dies,\n someone like her father who fueled a nice\n \u00a0\n plantation with witty wives and loneliness and slaves\n enough to drive the horses into pantaloons and full sleeves\u2014\n or play. Aphra grins at us, in disrepute\n as always, sailing to England on a petticoat.\n", "title": "Aphra Plays", "id": 58604, "author": "Terese Svoboda"}
{"poem": "The bleachers are packed full.\n Everyone\u2019s watching.\n What if I fall?\n What if my time is too slow?\n One more rider, then\n me.\n \u00a0\n\"Next rider up!\"\nI click my tongue,\n push my boots hard in the stirrups,\n heels down.\n My hands are sweaty,\n but I hold the reins right.\n Ready, girl.\n Ride!\n \u00a0\n I bust through the gate,\n spin round the first barrel,\n shoot to the second\n and circle around tight,\n leaning so hard, my stirrup kicks dirt.\n Streak to the last barrel\u2014\n spin, fly, race down the middle.\n Home!\n", "title": "Barrel Racer", "id": 58598, "author": "Nancy Bo Flood"}
{"poem": "Quickly and quietly,\n the bat patrols the night,\n sending an invisible song\n echoing like ripples on a pond,\n chasing moths around a streetlight.\n Quickly and quietly,\n the bat patrols the night.\n\n\u00a0\n\u00a0", "title": "Bat Patrol", "id": 58594, "author": "Georgia Heard"}
{"poem": "On thin golden poles\n gliding up, sliding down,\n a kingdom of horses\n goes spinning around.\n \u00a0\nJumper, Brown Beauty,\nDark Thunder, Sir Snow, \n a medley of ponies\n parade in a row.\n \u00a0\n Settled in saddles,\n their riders hold on\n to reins of soft leather\n while circling along\n \u00a0\n on chestnut or charcoal,\n on sleek Arctic white,\n on silver they gallop\n in place day and night.\n \u00a0\n Such spinning is magic,\n (to dream as you sail)\n with lavender saddle\n and ebony tail,\n \u00a0\n whirling to music\n in moonlight, spellbound,\n galloping, galloping,\n merrily go round.\n", "title": "Carousel", "id": 58537, "author": "Rebecca Kai Dotlich"}
{"poem": "The boss is sitting at the desk the boss doesn\u2019t look\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 at her the boss is waiting for the black telephone\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 to ring she also waits for a ring from the boss he is\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 waiting for the files from her\n \u00a0\n her blue dress like a reused file folder around\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0her body her hands tight around the files\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0the filing cabinet might eat her might take her hand off\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0the boss might eat her the boss\n \u00a0\n wants her but the boss wants money more just a little bit\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0more the boss always seems to want\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0the money a bit more the boss doesn\u2019t hear\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0there are taxis outside waiting\n \u00a0\n for all the women down on the street across the street\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0a boss prepares for bed another boss above him\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0in apartment X rotates a Q-tip in his ear before sex\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0despite instructions on the box we took\n \u00a0\n my father out of the paper the living will the letters\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0with their little capes will leave the paper\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0who will take care of my children later who will take care\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0of my father the will will take care\n \u00a0\n of no one a piece of paper cannot take care of anyone I\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0cannot take care of everyone on some nights\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I wake in a panic and can\u2019t tell if I am dead or alive\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0this year I dye my hair so I won\u2019t have to die\n", "title": "Edward Hopper's Office at Night", "id": 58603, "author": "Victoria Chang"}
{"poem": "He laughed with a laugh\n that he wished was his laugh,\n but everyone knew it wasn\u2019t.\n \u00a0\n When he laughed he would ask,\n\"Does that sound like my laugh?\"\n and everyone said, \"It doesn\u2019t.\"\n \u00a0\n The laugh that he laughed\n that wasn\u2019t his laugh went\n\"Hardy har har, guffaw!\"\n\n The laugh that he laughed\n that he wished wasn\u2019t his went,\n\"Hruck, sniffle-hick, hee-haw!\"\n", "title": "He Laughed with a Laugh", "id": 58596, "author": "JonArno Lawson"}
{"poem": "I once was a child am a child am someone's child\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 not my mother's not my father's the boss\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0gave us special treatment treatment for something\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 special a lollipop or a sticker glitter from the\n\ntoy box the better we did the better the plastic prize made\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 in China one year everyone got a spinning top\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 one year everyone got a tap on their shoulders\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 one year everyone was fired everyone\n\nfired but me one year we all lost our words one year\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 my father lost his words to a stroke\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 a stroke of bad luck stuck his words\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 used to be so worldly his words fired\n\nhim let him go without notice can they do that\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 can she do that yes she can in this land she can\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 once we sang songs around a piano\u00a0this land is your land\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 this land is my land in this land someone always\n\nowns the land in this land someone who owns\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the land owns the buildings on the land owns\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the people in the buildings unless an earthquake\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 sucks the land in like a long noodle\n", "title": "I Once Was a Child", "id": 58602, "author": "Victoria Chang"}
{"poem": "Indigenous Elvis works security:\n Chief Joseph hair, blue-black and pomped,\n turquoise and shell dangling from one ear,\n silver chunks of rings on every bronze knuckle.\n \u00a0\n Indigenous Elvis works security:\n X-ray glances at your backpacks,\n laptops, empty still-moist shoes.\n \u00a0\n Indigenous Elvis waves me to his line.\n A perfect gentlemen\u00a0at all times,\n gingerly lifting my naked phone,\n holding the line as I return my computer\n and extra undies to my briefcase.\n \u00a0\n Next line, next flight, Indigenous Elvis eases in\n too close, asks, \"Where you headed\n this time?\"\n Subtle tango, I lean away, wondering what it is \n he saw first gave me away\u2014\n My beaded barrettes in their travel case?\n A slight turn to my eyes?\n \u00a0\n Oh, mortification when I get him!\n Indigenous Elvis, at security, a third time.\n He lifts my carry-on,\n maneuvers my hand, gestures me close to ask,\n\"How is my sweetheart?\"\n Then against my neck, so my hairs rise\n with his sight, \"How\u2019s my sweetheart doing \u2026\u00a0\n your sister \u2026 ?\n... the one that got away.\"\n", "title": "Indigenous Elvis at the Airport", "id": 58601, "author": "Heid E. Erdrich"}
{"poem": "The jay streaks through the lilacs\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in color clash.\n I note down: Invent\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 outdoor birdswing\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0so birds drunk\n on berries fall off in plaid\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in front of my window.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I file it.\u00a0 After all,\n \u00a0\n the pussy willow\u2019s barely tufted\u2014\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I have time.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At the drain, lifting its feet,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a Modigliani bird\u2014another invention?\n The brook agrees\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 so brookishly, gulping at runoff\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 like a bear in spring,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 like my husband. He didn\u2019t trust my patents:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the squirrel-free gutter chain\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the collapsing arthritic\u2019s cane\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a lever for pulling old stumps\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in heavy rain.\n \u00a0\n But every act harbors a corresponding gadget.\n \u00a0\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is that way with God:\n adjusting the acorn, locking the tree.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 With the womb, He was clearly Italianate,\n the bulbous lines, the excess.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I often think of Him\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 humming Beatles songs like me, over\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 six Mason jars of pickling\u2014\n my offspring?\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The dog laughs. You heard it:\n a choke, then black gums, a frothing irony.\n\u00a0\u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s all wet from rescuing bones\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0from the brook. He drops them in,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 then goes in after.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The brook\u2019s rising with bones and I\u2019m afraid\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0the electricity will fail. Will the dog\n\r \u00a0\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 save me with his laughing?\n\r \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s what this invention\u2019s for:\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0the automatic rosebush waterer,\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 hooked to the sun and this wheel,\n in perpetuity. Once a pirate working\n on my outboard told me, Betty, better sand\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 trickling in the hourglass than a shifting dune.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Even the Sudanese\n plant borders of aloe against the drifts.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 But I like the look of roses.\n \u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Oh, that\u2019s the husband at the door, scratching.\n Nights his furry self stands naked\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 before me, until the dog\n removes his stuffing.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0O bear! Only by opening\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the blinds do I see he\u2019s bleeding.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 It\u2019s him, not me, aching\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 with overdue maternity.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 A simple drawerful of cobwebs\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 kept for emergency does for him,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 self-sticking,\n \u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0then together we apprise\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the chimney,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 holding hands and chatting about the soot stains.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That was in winter before he died, the deft\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 air stealing all we were speaking.\n \u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Yesterday\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 a patent came for my speech retrieval unit,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 an unusual event, even for me, because\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the government usually can\u2019t get\n past the drawings. And these were intricate:\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I had the duck by the neck, her feet\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 in food coloring, each step\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 inked in. It all made sense\u2014listen\n to the ducks now. And just in time for the aspect\u2014\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ghosts are aspects, aren\u2019t they?\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Of all but speech I have memory,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 that one sense shy of mimicry.\n \u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In the spring, now, in fact,\n I take the blackfly larvae off rocks\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in the rapids.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0On toast, pre-maggot, the very eggs\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of mortality, eating them I figure\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I can lure Death itself, a raccoon\n washing and washing in the dark,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and from there, patent the trap.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019ll be rich if its works.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Works, go the frogs, works, works.\n", "title": "Inventor", "id": 58609, "author": "Terese Svoboda"}
{"poem": "Jack was quite nimble,\n Jack was quite quick,\n Jack gave the beanstalk\n A mighty big kick.\n \u00a0\n Down came the giant\u2014\n GIGANTIC fall\u2014\n Bottoms up in a crater,\n Thus ending it all.\n", "title": "Jack", "id": 58599, "author": "Jane Yolen"}
{"poem": "Over the waves of his chest, \n you watch the sun go up, again. How \n accidentally the birds cross it!\n How seemingly accidental.\n \u00a0\n What random choices led you\n to him\u2014your darling \n from the same steppes\nas Zhivago's, and your own.\n \u00a0\n Then he's dressed, and you're almost.\n Leaning over, he pulls your slip up\n to put his hand over that fat part of you,\n where swims the swimmer. Enter\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Tay and Sachs,\n\n two men good at identifying\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a certain kind of certain death\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 due to a certain mix of genes\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 of children with certain parents.\n \u00a0\n Today you go to determine your chances,\n rather, its chances,\n all euphemism unable to cover\n the chance red spot on the growing retina.\n \u00a0\n After your doctor has his way,\n you can see on the screen\n the little swimmer trying to escape,\n holding the needle with both hands,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0just reflex.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The verdict\n takes time to swell and ripen.\n The doctor offers his only balm, a curse:\n knowledge without antidote. All you know\n \u00a0\n is that the immortals throw no bones,\n that you inherit nothing\n but genes and bravery, both faltering.\n You trot back\n \u00a0\n to work and your new belly\n swirls with the fetal pig you took the eyes from,\n grade ten. To market, to market.\n You pull your goddamn shrinking coat\n \u00a0\n around you. Nothing like\n the stir of life that has no chance.\n You shrug. It\u2019s only the size of your finger,\n you don\u2019t care\u2014\n \u00a0\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But knowing at the end\n of ten hours\u2019 pitched screaming,\n your insides reversing, you get\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0nothing\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What goes where with death?\n You know all about life.\n You majored in biology, pirouetted\n through the wedding night.\n \u00a0\n Does it make sounds yet?\n Choose happiness but accept the truth:\n the child might die, you tell your husband.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Suffer and die.\n \u00a0\n In the three-week wait you type \n and each hammer moves the days along.\n Waiting, every word from everyone hurts,\n every Good day,\n \u00a0\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 careless or concerned,\n every word. The only sympathy you want \n is the same cruelty shared, all else\n grates. Inside, it spins\u2014in fear?\n \u00a0\n What you must swallow\n is the sugar cube of your continuing,\n the inescapable desire to pee\n that stirs you mornings, hours before dawn.\n \u00a0\n But if,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 at the end of these weeks of waiting,\n the white-masked priests come back bearing\n no news, which is their best,\n \u00a0\n you will have brushed off death,\n rimed him bright and acceptable\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and seen it slant.\n Either way.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 That is, what happens\n doesn\u2019t matter. You eat.\n You lie down. The sun shrinks.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The daily din you\u2019re thankful for\n \u00a0\n rescinds its paper currency that nothing backs up.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Your husband puts on a pot to boil, and another. He can\u2019t \n feel it inside, though he\u2019s eaten the same sour apple,\n bearing half the genes,\n \u00a0\n those underclothes, the bra, the brief\n of the body. You are dumb\n before his helplessness. The cord to belly to cord \n will not be broken,\n \u00a0\n ripped untimely as it may be.\n Mama has happened\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and the rocking horse of your heart\n heaves on.\n", "title": "The Needle with Both Hands", "id": 58605, "author": "Terese Svoboda"}
{"poem": "The exhausted dream I live in\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 is scattered with teeth, the little\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0tombstones of Freud that,\n plowed under,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0grow up warriors.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 My son buries his\n between pillow and case so no one\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 can exchange them for\n foundling dollars\u2014\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 he wants to string them together,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the miser.\n \u00a0\n The rule is you lose a tooth for every child.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The new baby grinds,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 gnashes, butts\n at the inexplicable ache inside\u2014\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the dog that won\u2019t shake off.\n\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yet he gums prettily between howls.\nSo smile! repeats his jack o'lanterned brother,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 as I do, falsely,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0as Death does.\n", "title": "Root Canal as a Venetian Idyll", "id": 58606, "author": "Terese Svoboda"}
{"poem": "Gather 'round, ye scurvy mates,I'm signing on a crew.\u00a0You there! Can ye tie a knot?Ye\u2019ll do.\u00a0I'd say you've snatched a purse or two.Ye'll do.\u00a0Does the thought of plundered goldmake ye shiver?Make ye bold?Ye'll do.\u00a0Ha! You\u2019re rotten through and through!Ye'll do.\u00a0Phew! You stinking, drunken lout!You'd whack your uncle\u2019s gizzard out!Well step right up!Beyond a doubtye\u2019ll do!\nGather 'round, ye scurvy mates,\nI'm signing on a crew.\n\u00a0\nYou there! Can ye tie a knot?\nYe\u2019ll do.\n\u00a0\nI'd say you've snatched a purse or two.\nYe'll do.\n\u00a0\nDoes the thought of plundered gold\nmake ye shiver?\nMake ye bold?\nYe'll do.\n\u00a0\nHa! You\u2019re rotten through and through!\nYe'll do.\n\u00a0\nPhew! You stinking, drunken lout!\nYou'd whack your uncle\u2019s gizzard out!\nWell step right up!\nBeyond a doubt\nye\u2019ll do!", "title": "Signing on a Crew", "id": 58600, "author": "David L. Harrison"}
{"poem": "Her\n Focusing on blanks,\n A, B, C, all of above.\n Your eyes lock on mine.\n Brain now a washing machine\u2014\n facts, letters tumble and spin.\n \u00a0\nHim\n Tests are less trouble\n for me since I have met you.\n Is it possible?\n Can having you in my life\n increase the size of my brain?", "title": "Tests", "id": 58595, "author": "Sara Holbrook"}
{"poem": "I sang my songs so much\n that they became\n the soundtrack for my dreams,\n the melody of my moods,\n a room I lived in,\n and a balm for my wounds.\n \u00a0\n I sang my songs enough \nto know them backward\n and forward, enough\n to wonder if they could lift me\n from hometown haunts\n to center stage.\n \u00a0\n I\u2019d sung my songs enough \n to think I could take on\n Baltimore\u2019s best talent\n at the Harlem Theatre\n Amateur Hour\n and maybe even win.\n \u00a0\n If you sing a song enough,\n it can go to your head that way.\n", "title": "You Go to My Head", "id": 58597, "author": "Carole Boston Weatherford"}
{"poem": "\"Go ahead,\" I say to my neighbor at the Putney Co-op who tells\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0me he can't complain. \"Let it out. It's mid-March and there's still\ntwo feet of snow on the ground. Fukushima has just melted down and\nthe Washington Monument cracked at its pyramidion. Put down your\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0bags and sing. How many times\u00a0dear father, graybeard, lonely old\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0courage teacher\u00a0must you walk down the aisles as a randy eidolon\nhumming your tunes for us to start? Our song begins in silence and grows\nto a buzz. We make it up as we go along, then watch our numbers swell\u2014\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0ten thousand members who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Who fly\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0like a swarm to join us in our chambers, which are these aisles.\"\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I'm singing without knowing it, carrying the tune of\u00a0main things,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0lamenting the prices with Bernie Sanders. My neighbor joins me\nfor no other reason than singing along as a member of the cast we call\nthe multitudes of lonely shoppers. I roam the aisles with the sadness\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of America, juggling onions, blessing the beets. It's a local stage on\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0which the country opens like a flower that no one sees beside the road.\n\nIn my hungry fatigue, I'm shopping for images, which are free on the highest\nshelf but costly in their absence\u2014the only ingredient here that heals my sight\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of blindness. I see you, Walt Whitman, pointing your beard toward axis\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0mundi by the avocados, reading the labels as if they were lines, weighing\nthe tomatoes on the scale of your palms, pressing the pears with your thumbs\nthe way you did in Huntington, Camden, and Brooklyn. And you, also, Ruth\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and Hayden, at the checkout counter with empty bags you claim are full\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of apples, almonds, and bananas. What can you say to those outside who\nhaven't read your poems? Who find it hard to get the news from poetry\nbut die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0It's night. The Connecticut slips by across Rt. 5. The moon is my egg\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and stars, my salt. I score the music of the carrots, scallions, and corn in\nthe frost of the freezer windows. The sough of traffic on 91 washes my ears\nwith the sound of tires on blue macadam.\u00a0The doors close in an hour....\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0We'll both be lonely\u00a0when we return on the long dark roads to our silent\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0houses.\u00a0I touch your book and dream of our odyssey westward\u00a0to a field\nin Oregon, Kansas, or California where we plant our oars and die ironically.\nWhere we finish our journey as strangers in our native land. These are the \n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0lyrics to our song in the aisles\u2014the buzz of the swarm with our queen\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0at the center.\u00a0What America did you have,\u00a0old howler, when you scattered\ninto the sky, then floated like a cloud as another form in the making outside\nof time, forgetful at last and empty of all you sang?\n", "title": "At the Putney Co-Op, an Opera", "id": 58550, "author": "Chard DeNiord"}
{"poem": "The windows are dressed in feathers where the birds have flown against\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0them,\nthen fallen below into the flowers where their bodies lie grounded, still,\nslowly disappearing each day until all that is left are their narrow,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0prehensile bones.\nI have sat at my window now for years and watched a hundred birds\nmistake the glass for air and break their necks, wondering what to do,\nhow else to live among them and keep my view.\nNot to mention the sight of them at the feeder in the morning,\nespecially the cardinal in snow.\nWhat sign to post on the sill that says, \"Warning, large glass window.\nFatal if struck. Fly around or above but not away.\nThere are seeds in the feeder and water in the bath.\nI need you, which is to say, I'm sorry for my genius as the creature inside\nwho attracts you with seeds and watches you die against the window\nI've built with the knowledge of its danger to you.\u00a0\nWith a heart that rejects its reasons in favor of keeping what it wants:\nthe sight of you, the sight of you.\"\n", "title": "Confession of a Bird Watcher", "id": 58549, "author": "Chard DeNiord"}
{"poem": "As a kid I tried to coax its coming\nBy sleeping beneath light sheets\nWeeks before\nThe funeral of the summer locusts in the yard;\nThen when Granny peeled down the crucifix of\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0flypaper that dangled from the ceiling of the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0kitchen\nMagic wasn't needed any longer\nTo fill the air with pigskins. \u00a0 The air itself\nAcrid, lambent, bright\nAs the robes of the Chinese gods inside their\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0house of glass\nIn the Field Museum by the lake.\nEven practice could be fun\u2014\nThe way, say, even sepia photographs of old-time\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0All Americans could be pirates' gold\nLike my favorite Bill Corbus, Stanford's \"Baby-\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Face Assassin\" crouching at right guard, the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0last to play without a helmet on\u2014\nAnd the fun of testing muscles out\u00a0\nLike new shoes; the odor of the locker room\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0pungent\nAs the inside of a pumpkin;\nAnd the sting of that wet towel twirled against\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0bare butt by a genial, roaring Ziggy, Mt.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Carmel's All State tackle from Immaculate\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Conception Parish near the mills;\nAnd then the victory, especially the close shaves,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0could feel\nLike finally getting beneath a girl's brassiere\nShe'll let you keep\nUnhooked for hours while you neck\nUntil the windshield of your Granddad's Ford V-8\nBecomes filled by a fog\nNot even Fu Manchu could penetrate. \u00a0 Jack,\nNext football weather my son Luke will be in high\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0school,\nBigger than I was and well-coordinated\u2014but\nCouldn't care a plenary indulgence\nIf he ever lugs a pigskin down the turf\nOr hits a long shot on the court. \u00a0 At times, I wish he\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0would.\nSo he might taste the happiness you knew\nSnagging Chris Zoukis' low pass to torpedo nine \n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0long yards to touchdown\nAnd sink archrival Lawrence High\n45 years ago come this Thanksgiving Day. \u00a0 Still,\nHe has his own intensities\nAs wild as sports and writing were for us:\nLuke's the seventh Rolling Stone,\nHis electric guitar elegant and shiny black\nAs a quiet street at night\nGlazed by rain and pumpkin frost.\n", "title": "Football Weather", "id": 58532, "author": "Paul Carroll"}
{"poem": "My mouth is snow slowly caking that stiff pigeon.\nMy mouth, the intricately moist machinery of a plant.\nI have forgotten if I ever had a mouth.\n\nI have two mouths.\nOne like warm rain;\nor wind manipulating the worn limbs of an elm.\n\nMy mouth knows nothing of music.\nOr of the oils of love.\n\nIts shape is the shadow of innumerable pigeons;\nits words, at times, their bones.\n\nMy eyes too know of shadows.\nAnd of the delicate hairs of my grandmother's heart.\nAnd of the plums of puberty. \nAnd the shadow of the eggs inside the woman who moves\nimmemorially through clover\npast the wheat field and alfalfa\nand the 1890 Roman Catholic cemetary near the farm in Palos \n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Park.\n\nMy eyes know of the blue shadow of the one desire. \n\nThe mind does not;\nit is an animal, ignorant, ambiguous, talking,\nas it must, with many voices.\n\nI walk toward you as if wading through the waves in somebody\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 else's dream.\n\nI walk toward you as if wading through the waves in somebody\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 else's dream.\n\nI shall survive this death, even though the heart is\na shadow of a bone.\nOr thick glass.\n\nMy mouth quick with many bees.\n", "title": "My Mouth Quick with Many Bees", "id": 58546, "author": "Paul Carroll"}
{"poem": "Were you guys lucky, too, to caddy, the light\non freshly-sprinkled fairway delicate and bright as eye of an\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Indiana owl\nor glitter of fish flickering in the Shedd Aquarium of the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0imagination,\nthe tough but tender touch of leather socks covering the cobra-\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0headed clubs, the crack\nof brassie on golf ball like whip of mule skinner filling all Death\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Valley;\nor to anoint oneself in grease and oil, sweating\nbeneath the belly of a car or truck in the pit in Shimskis' Garage\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in Homewood;\nor to find felicity at Marshall Field's as a stockboy numb and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0dazed by rawboned, adolescent lust, stumbling about\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0beneath a pyramid of boxes past models cooly on parade\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0among the customers all day, filling immaculate brassieres\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0with flesh like fortune cookies and in silken Oriental half-slips\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0as I sweat like Sydney Greenstreet examining the statue of the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Maltese Falcon in his hotel suite;\nand to fight, like a goddamn fool, in Navy alleys behind\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0black-and-tan saloon in Minneapolis, my iron ring, its\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0longhorns, slashing, can open up a cheek;\nand to sweat out a basketball game of one-on-one, the comments\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0cryptic and intense as a fragment by Archilochos;\nand to pitch papers onto porches on a bike route as if your arm\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0were Bobby Feller's blazing corncobs at a knot-hole in Des\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Moines;\nto cut the uncut hair of graves beneath an R. Crumb \"Keep on\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Truckin'\" sun large as a lemon drop, and to hawk cufflinks\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0made by Swank as well as cashmere sweaters from the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Shetland Isles, to scrub as if they had the London Plague of\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Robert Greene dying in a bed of straw in Cheapside Gran\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Canyons filled with dirty dishes in the Phi Gam kitchen in\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Bloomington, to tool around behind wheel of Checker taxi as\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0if it were a chariot in a race in Babylon, to tote the 85\u00a2 YWCA\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Blueplate Special to the widows of the ghosts of pioneers, to\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0mix drink behind the bar as if concocting cocktails for Long\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0John Silver and Blind Pew or Bathhouse John and wee,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0shrewd Hinky Dink, to create a 100 half-moons in a night by\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0manipulating the control box in this elevator roomy as a\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0shoebox purchased by Paul Powell here in a hotel with its 50\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0bags full of the fleas of Illinois\u2014\nthis great, unique chance to hear the language where it lives.\n", "title": "Ode to an All-American Boyhood", "id": 58534, "author": "Paul Carroll"}
{"poem": "I sat on the dock at dusk and spoke\nto the fish who swam beneath me\nlike ears with fins to hear my secrets.\n\u201cThat words come close?\u201d I whispered.\n\u201cThe sky enters me like a sword\nwith my own hand on the hilt.\nHow to witness what I can't express\u2014\nthe smell of lilacs, the dirge of loons.\nMake up the rest if you wish.\nLess is enough.\nSay I sound like one of the Hosts.\nThat I'm crying also and there's nothing\nyou can do to make me stop.\nThat I'm like the peepers, katydids, and thrush\nwith my own song\u2014 all call in the opera of dusk.\u00a0\nOr is it response?\u201d\n", "title": "The Singer", "id": 58551, "author": "Chard DeNiord"}
{"poem": "Our matchbox bedroom in the loft above your\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0sculpture factory\nTurns magical at times\nBehind its dark blue Druid door. \u00a0 Last night,\nInside you, sweetheart,\nIt felt as if I were coming from the soul itself.\n\nAnd that Indian Summer Sunday afternoon a year\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0ago\nWhen the bed became a meadow\nOf purple thistles, the honey hidden at the bottom\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of the stem\nFarm kids know to find\nFor the sweetest suck of all.\n\nAnd sometimes in the winter when the room turns\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0into a Cornell box\nFilled with the everyday miracles\u2014\nSoap bubble pipe and thimble, wooden rabbits\nAnd old tan magazine illustrations of the Zodiac.\nOr turns into an igloo in which the only place to\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0go\n\nIs to burrow here below the yellow blanket and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the pillows\nTo the South Pacific\nOf ourselves. \u00a0 And then those mornings on\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0vacation\nGentle as the feathers of a light spring rain, and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0at the same time hard, like the beak\nOf a hawk. \u00a0 You are where I belong.\n", "title": "Valentine", "id": 58533, "author": "Paul Carroll"}
{"poem": "", "title": "The Act of Counting", "id": 58507, "author": "Nathalie Handal"}
{"poem": "Calm appeared, his soul stopped, a crow\nstaring as he snatched down miniature angels,\ntrapped them in jars, capping the light away\nto make a hush out of glory songs, a crying out\nfrom the joyful aubades they breathe as easy\nas moonlight on jars of preserves, their throats\nfull of fear now, the brave breast crumpled\nin his child fingers, their prisons invisible\nto the cherubim searching for heaven's missing\nsongsters trapped in blind ways of getting even\nat a world that would make him small, make\nhim an impotent wonder, curl his genius under\nlike a witch's toes when his father died\nchewing on cheese and cornbread, chocolate\nsurprise in the sun, an unkind ending.\n\nHe grew in the way of genius, no charts\nshowing where he ended and the world began,\nhow cities figure in the jagged sweep of cornfields,\nendless thousands of shouts up into the evening,\nlistening to the future speaking, like the old man\nin the schoolyard, a stranger by the wishing pond\nin the woods, or dogs that stand up like men in hats\u2014\nthese the Corinthian signs he mistook\nfor an alphabet giving the right to molest children.\nNow wisdom is sour rubbing medicine pasted\nover nightmares, not the proper wealth of an old man,\nthe arms of his neighbors around him like laurels.\n", "title": "The Ancestors Explain How Envy Grew", "id": 58511, "author": "Afaa Michael Weaver"}
{"poem": "In Los Angeles airport I sit\nstunned by the English, letters\nharsh things with no stories\nI know. The food smells dead,\nmetal forks and knives set\nfor making war against food.\n\nI am undone and done again,\nbroken off from narratives\nof birth and being, of limits\nbroken by the genius of slaves.\nI stand here where I was born,\nand the masks wait for me.\n", "title": "Being Chinese", "id": 58516, "author": "Afaa Michael Weaver"}
{"poem": "Carole Robertston,\nWho loved books, earned straight A's,\nAnd took dance lessons every Saturday.\nWho joined the Girl Scouts and science club\nAnd played clarinet in the high school band.\nA member of Jack and Jill of America.\nCarole, who thought she might want\nTo teach history someday\nOr at least make her mark on it.\n", "title": "Carole Robertson", "id": 58542, "author": "Carole Boston Weatherford"}
{"poem": "Who are these masked birds?\nNot Robin Hoods,\nfor they live in\nthe open woods.\nThey only deal\nin stolen goods\nlike berry futures,\ncedar cones,\nand sweet, sweet, fruit\n(but leave the stones).\nInsects they catch \non the fly\nwhen swarms of them\ngo buzzing by.\nNo need to worry,\nmoan. or fret.\nYour valuables\nthey will\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0not\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 get.\n", "title": "Cedar Waxwings Unmasked", "id": 58541, "author": "Jane Yolen"}
{"poem": "Aliens have inhabited my aesthetics for\n\r decades. Really since the early 70s.\n\n\r Before that I pretty much wrote\n\r as myself, though young. But something\n\n\r has happened to my memory, my\n\r judgment: apparently, my will has been\n\n\r affected. That old stuff, the fork\n\r in my head, first home run,\n\n\r Dad falling out of the car\u2014\n\r I remember the words, but I\n\n\r can't get back there anymore. I\n\r think they must be screening my\n\n\r sensations. I'm sure my categories have\n\r been messed with. I look at\n\n\r the anthologies in the big chains\n\r and campus bookstores, even the small\n\n\r press opium dens, all those stanzas\n\r against the white space\u2014they just\n\n\r look like the models in the\n\r catalogs. The models have arms and\n\n\r legs and a head, the poems\n\r mostly don't, but other than that\n\n\r it's hard\u2014for me anyway\u2014to\n\r tell them apart. There's the sexy\n\n\r underwear poem, the sturdy workboot poem\n\r you could wear to a party\n\n\r in a pinch, the little blaspheming\n\r dress poem. There's variety, you say:\n\n\r the button-down oxford with offrhymed cuffs.\n\r The epic toga, showing some ancient\n\n\r ankle, the behold! the world is\n\r changed and finally I'm normal flowing\n\n\r robe and shorts, the full nude,\n\r the scatter\u2014Yes, I suppose there's\n\n\r variety, but the looks, those come\n\r on and read me for the\n\n\r inner you I've locked onto with\n\r my cultural capital sensing device looks!\n\n\r No thanks, Jay Peterman! No thanks,\n\r \"Ordinary Evening in New Haven\"! I'm\n\n\r just waiting for my return ticket\n\r to have any meaning, for those\n\n\r saucer-shaped clouds to lower! The authorities\n\r deny any visitations\u2014hardly a surprise.\n\n\r And I myself deny them\u2014think\n\r about it. What could motivate a\n\n\r group of egg-headed, tentacled, slimier-than-thou aestheticians\n\r with techniquies far beyond ours to\n\n\r visit earth, abduct naive poets, and\n\r inculcate them with otherwordly forms that\n\n\r are also, if you believe the\n\r tabloids, salacious? And these abductions always\n\n\r seem to take place in some\n\r provincial setting: isn't that more than\n\n\r slightly suspicious? Why don't they ever\n\r reveal themselves hovering over some New\n\n\r York publishing venue? It would be\n\r nice to get some answers here\u2014\n\n\r we might learn something, about poetry\n\r if nothing else, but I'm not\n\n\r much help, since I'm an abductee,\n\r at least in theory, though, like\n\n\r I say, I don't remember much.\n\r But this writing seems pretty normal:\n\n\r complete sentences; semicolons; yada yada. I\n\r seem to have lost my avant-garde\n\n\r card in the laundry. They say\n\r that's typical. Well, you'll just have\n\n\r to use your judgment, earthlings! Judgment,\n\r that's your job! Back to work!\n\n\r As if you could leave! And\n\r you thought gravity was a problem!\n", "title": "Confession", "id": 58547, "author": "Bob Perelman"}
{"poem": "Tonight's your lucky night, boys.\nLook what I fixed for you!\nStood all day in the burning sun\nto make this son-of-a-gun stew.\n\nLonghorn steaks two inches thick,\ndig in while they're hot.\nThe coffee'll keep you up all night,\nbelly up to the pot.\n\nYou know your Cookie loves you, boys,\nloves to see you fed.\nStood all day in the burning sun\nto bake this sourdough bread.\n\nSop up all the stew, boys,\ntake another steak.\nHave another hunk of bread.\nYou know I love to bake.\n\nYou know your Cookie loves you, boys,\ntell you what I'll do\u2014\ntomorrow I'll fix steak and bread\nand a big old pot of stew!\n\n\n", "title": "Cookie", "id": 58544, "author": "David L. Harrison"}
{"poem": "The humid nights are best and worst, best\nbecause the birds sing at two in the morning when\nyou cannot get back into the other world, worst\nbecause it is the moist heat that makes the skin supple,\nmakes you want to rub against someone else, a woman,\nand there is nothing but the long list of lost chances,\nthings you could have said, perhaps the simple question\u00a0\nof will you sleep with me so that it is not just you\nand this shell of a home, this place where it feels\nthe walls are another layer of my skin, and that is neither\nbest or worst. It is the holding of the dead stink,\nthe memories that was over him, holding them back.\n\nIt is the utter singleness of being the only person\nhere, the way the thoughts think themselves down to\naccepting that this is really just me here wondering who I am,\njust me here wondering why I am awake at two,\nwhich trigger it was, knowing all the time all too well\nthe way the war of life is connected to the nervous system\nof the world, the ganglia of our shared horrors, either\nmine so large, or so people tell me, and here it seems\nto be the membrane between the skin of my bones\nand the skin of this home, the absorbing shock of space\nthat gives when the memories burn their way in or\nout of me. I would lie here wondering how to tell her\nI am wrestling with the angel, wrestling with memories\nin the crevices and cracks of my body, of how I feel\nright now, what it felt like then, in those times, and I am\nglad she is not here, and I wish she were here, and she\nhas no name because this is some woman I do not know.\n\nI practice in the silence of my thoughts the different pitch\nand rhythm of how I might ask will you sleep with me,\u00a0\nafraid of what to say should she say\u00a0yes and this decade\nof my monkish life should lie open and I have to say why\nI am sitting on the edge of the bed, why I have woke her from\nthe sweet smile I assume she has when I assume her horror\nis smaller than mine.\n", "title": "Evening Lounge", "id": 58510, "author": "Afaa Michael Weaver"}
{"poem": "I came hungry\ninto the world,\nand for that,\nlook no further\nthan my Pa.\nA history buff\nand a small-p\npoet, he built\nso many book-\nshelves, our house\nbecame the local\nlending library.\nAt least to those few\nwho knew a book\nto be a friend.\n", "title": "My Pa", "id": 58545, "author": "J. Patrick Lewis"}
{"poem": "A thing as delicious as turning the last sound I heard\ninto a word it cannot be or calling your hidden wish\nout into the broad space of the public to make you touch\nme instead of asking that I go naked, a thing as delicious\nas any of that would not be as safe as a dumb silence.\n\nI am resting my back with a cushion against the chair,\nsitting inside the ache when I soaked myself in a balm\nthe way women went to the river and held things down\nuntil they were as wet as Jesus hanging in the rain,\nhis pain the invocation of roars destroying the temple.\n\nThe things I know are not the things you wish to know,\nor they are and I cannot give them to you until I see\nwhat you think of contracts, of what binds the mornings\nto unkind sunlight, what takes a hawk and lets it know\nthere are things less grand than flying, things that crave.\n", "title": "Nice to Meet You", "id": 58514, "author": "Afaa Michael Weaver"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Noir, une lumi\u00e8re", "id": 58508, "author": "Nathalie Handal"}
{"poem": "Oh, fly,\nyou flew\nonto\nmy leaf\nand not\nmy food.\nWhat a relief!\nFor on my food\nyou'd bring me grief\nas you're\na vector of\ndisease.\nBut you on leaf?\nMy mind's at ease.\nAnd there is much\nto please\nmy eye.\nFor oh, you are\na lovely fly.\nJust\ndo not go\nand multiply.\n", "title": "Oh, Fly", "id": 58543, "author": "Jane Yolen"}
{"poem": "The regal eagle sits alone\nupon a tree that serves as throne.\nBut sometimes when the eagle flies\n(though this might come as some surprise)\na mob of crows may\u2014wing to wing\u2014\ntogether drive away that king.\nDemocracy in beak and claw\nfinds regal eagle's fatal flaw.\nAnd is that legal? I don't know.\nYou'll have to ask a mobster crow.\n", "title": "The Regal Eagle", "id": 58540, "author": "Jane Yolen"}
{"poem": "It was cousin Alvin who stole the liquor,\nslipped down Aunt Mabie's steps on the ice,\nfresh from jail for some small crime.\nAlvin liked to make us laugh while he took\nthe liquor or other things we did not see,\nin Aunt Mabie's with her floors polished,\nwood she polished on her hands and knees\nuntil they were truth itself and slippery\nenough to trick you, Aunt Mabie who loved\nher Calvert Extra and loved the bright inside\nof family, the way we come connected in webs,\nborn in clusters of promises, dotted\nwith spots that mark our place in the karma\nof good times, good times in the long ribbon\u00a0\nof being colored I learned when colored\nhad just given way to Negro and Negro was\nleaving us because blackness chased it out\nof the house, made it slip on the ice, fall\ndown and spill N-e-g-r-o all over the sidewalk\nuntil we were proud in a new avenue of pride,\nas thick as the scrapple on Saturday morning\nwith King syrup, in the good times, between\nthe strikes and layoffs at the mills when work\nwas too slack, and Pop sat around pretending\nnot to worry, not to let the stream of sweat\nhe wiped from his head be anything except\nthe natural way of things, keeping his habits,\nthe paper in his chair by the window, the radio\nwith the Orioles, with Earl Weaver the screamer\nand Frank Robinson the gentle black man,\nkeeping his habits, Mama keeping hers,\nthe WSID gospel in the mornings, dusting\nthe encyclopedias she got from the A&P,\ncollecting the secrets of neighbors, holding\nmarriages together, putting golden silence\non children who took the wrong turns, broke\nthe laws of getting up and getting down\non your knees. These brittle things we call\nmemories rise up, like the aroma of scrapple,\nbeauty and ugliness, life's mix\nwhere the hard and painful things from folk\nwho know no boundaries live beside\nthe bright eyes that look into each other,\nsearching their pupils for paths to prayer.\n", "title": "Scrapple", "id": 58512, "author": "Afaa Michael Weaver"}
{"poem": "We practiced together,\nsweat and stained.\nWe pummeled each other \nand laughed off pain.\nTeams may disagree,\nmay tease,\nmay blame.\nTeams may bicker and whine,\nbut get down for the game.\n\nYou had my back.\nWe fought the fight.\nAnd though our score\nwas less last night,\nwe're walking tall.\nOur team came through\nand stuck together like Crazy Glue.\nI'm proud to say\nI lost with you.\n\n\n", "title": "Taking One for the Team", "id": 58548, "author": "Sara Holbrook"}
{"poem": "It was as hot as what\nstars must feel like\nso far away, certainly\u00a0\nthere, inside me.\n\nI took it in my hands,\nput it where it should be\nin the wet softness\nwhere my heart sits.\n\nUgly things came\nto threaten me, to say\nI had lost the last lock\nholding me to truth.\n\nThat was not true,\nbecause old truths\nwere now lies, I saw\nfamilies as human.\n\nI found the goodness\nin what is not perfect,\nand a new perfection\nin what is not good.\n\nThis happened in\na new home twelve\ntime zones away, as\nthe world collapsed.\n\nin a clitter clatter\nlike a busy kitchen,\nthe universe forming\nnow inside all of me.\n", "title": "Truth", "id": 58515, "author": "Afaa Michael Weaver"}
{"poem": "It is the twilight blue Chevrolet,\nfour doors with no power but the engine,\nwhitewall tires, no padding on the dashboard,\nthe car I drive on dates, park on dark lanes\nto ask for a kiss, now my hand goes along\nthe fender, wiping every spot, the suds\nin the bucket, my father standing at the gate,\npoor and proud, tall and stout, a wise man,\n\na man troubled by a son gone missing\nin the head, drag racing his only car\nat night, traveling with hoodlums to leave\nthe books for street life, naming mentors\nthe men who pack guns and knives, a son\ngone missing from all the biblical truth,\nten talents, prophecies, burning bushes,\ndirty cars washed on Saturday morning.\n\nHe tells me not to miss a spot, to open\nthe hood when I'm done so he can check\nthe oil, the vital thing like blood, blood\nof kinship, blood spilled in the streets\u00a0\nof Baltimore, blood oozing from the soul\nof a son walking prodigal paths leading\nto gutters. Years later I tell him the stories\nof what his brother-in-law did to me, and\n\nhe wipes a tear from the corner of his eye,\nwraps it in a white handkerchief for church,\nwalks up the stairs with the aluminum\ncrutch to scream at the feet of black Jesus\nand in these brittle years of his old age we\ngrow deeper, talk way after midnight,\npeeping over the rail of his hospital bed\nas we wash the twilight blue Chevrolet.\n", "title": "Washing the Car with My Father", "id": 58513, "author": "Afaa Michael Weaver"}
{"poem": "Who needs to be at peace in the world? It helps to be between wars, to die\na \u00a0few \u00a0times \u00a0each day to understand your father's sky, as you take it apart\npiece \u00a0by \u00a0piece \u00a0and can't feel \u00a0anything, \u00a0can't \u00a0feel the tree growing under\nyour feet, the eyes poking night only to find another night to compare it to.\nWhoever \u00a0 heard \u00a0 of \u00a0 turning \u00a0 pain \u00a0 into \u00a0 hummingbirds \u00a0 or \u00a0 red \u00a0birds\u2014\nhaven't \u00a0we \u00a0grown? \u00a0What \u00a0does \u00a0it mean to be older? \u00a0Maybe a house with-\nout \u00a0doors \u00a0can \u00a0still \u00a0survive \u00a0a \u00a0storm. Maybe I can't find the proper way to\nrebel \u00a0or \u00a0damn it, \u00a0I can't \u00a0leave. \u00a0I want to, \u00a0but you grow inside of me. And\nas \u00a0I \u00a0watch \u00a0 you, \u00a0before \u00a0I \u00a0know \u00a0it, \u00a0I'm \u00a0too \u00a0heavy, \u00a0too full \u00a0of \u00a0you \u00a0to \u00a0move.\nMaybe \u00a0that's what they meant when they said you shouldn't love a country\ntoo much.", "title": "Ways of Rebelling", "id": 58509, "author": "Nathalie Handal"}
{"poem": "He lowered his head and darted through\nthe grass, flushing a hen from off her nest,\nthen zeroing in on the day-old chicks\ninstead of the mother whose decoy trick\nhad failed to lure him away. In the time\nit took for me to notice this, he'd broken\nthe necks of two of the chicks and torn\nthe skin from off their backs and heads.\nThe taste of their blood had deafened him\nto my commands, so I went to him\nlike an angry god and chased him away\nwith my staff and rod, inflicting a wound also\nin his side for him to go on licking, to wash\ntheir blood from off his tongue with his own blood,\nand then I kneeled in the grass to regard his kill\nwhile the mother keened inside the woods\nnot far away. Oh, what a mess they were\nwith their heads snapped back and wings\nunhinged. I picked up the bodies\nlike bloody socks and prayed to the god\nin charge of this field for my own weakness\nto feel this much for slaughtered chicks.\nFor an understanding of his need to kill\nthe most vulnerable thing, whether hungry or not.\n", "title": "In the Grass", "id": 58517, "author": "Chard DeNiord"}
{"poem": "All we know of history\nwe learn from scenes in the mosaic of bone\non the Senate floor:\n\nThe Flood makes graves of the fields,\nand the angels harvest enough suffering\nto live for another thousand years.\n\nMoses pulls off his beard and lights a cigarette,\nI\u2019m tired of pretending.\nHe pushes his box of spare commandments under his bed,\nand as he drifts to sleep, his eyes, like caves,\nfill with paintings of woolly rhinos.\n\nSailing ships forest a small island.\nOne light shines from a caravel\u2009\u2014\u2009captain\u2019s quarters.\nIt\u2019s Christopher Columbus.\nAll night he\u2019s been sewing shrouds\nas arrival gifts for the natives.\n\nLittle Chris presses his bleeding fingers to his mouth\nand cries quietly, No one appreciates me.\nGod and the devil tuck him into bed.\nIt\u2019ll get better, they say.\nTogether they complete the shrouds for him,\nwhile he dreams of golden nipples.\n\nAs it was, it is now.\nSpring translates the earth into hope\u2009\u2014\u2009\ntongues of grass taste the sea salt on the west wind\nand the blood on soldiers\u2019 boots.\n\nThis morning, one of the old poets\u2009\u2014\u2009unkillable cockroach\u2009\u2014\u2009\ncycled past me, yelling,\nYou have the brightest light in America! Ha ha!\n\nOn my dresser, a spider makes a web\nalong the contours of my bra.\n\nWe lie on the bed together;\nI run my hand up the muscles of your leg\nand feel its eons of evolution,\nnow outlawed by the Senate.\n", "title": "A Lullaby, for the Fir Tree Growing in My Left Lung", "id": 58488, "author": "Lisa Grove"}
{"poem": "They were travelers, plotting river courses,\nwriting the genesis of unknown people,\nfugitives with a revolver in one hand, reins in another,\nmerchants among the olive trees, euphorbias, mimosas,\nemissaries, deserters. Some knew the native tongues;\nthey called themselves by new names\nin the eastern twilight, different parts of their soul\nnever having learned to live together.\nSkies burned. Dust covered the palms\nand minarets as they arrived by the incandescent shore\nof our city, each with his own little dreams and disasters.\nSome remained, never to be heard of again.\nSome left with caravans, wearing native dress\u2009\u2014\u2009ephemerids.\nWhere are they? What are they used to?\nThe only preserved interview\u2009\u2014\u2009concerning an artist and explorer.\n\nDid he ever speak of his friends in X?Never. The only thing he liked in X was his sister.But did you know that he painted?Oh yes!\u2009\u2014\u2009some fine things: stemware,a series of watercolors of shoebills and Abdim\u2019s stork.\nDid he ever speak of his friends in X?\nNever. The only thing he liked in X was his sister.\nBut did you know that he painted?\nOh yes!\u2009\u2014\u2009some fine things: stemware,\na series of watercolors of shoebills and Abdim\u2019s stork.", "title": "Alias City", "id": 58467, "author": "Carol Frost"}
{"poem": "One way to erase an island is to invent\na second island absolved of all the sounds\nthe first one ever made. We don\u2019t know\nwho concocted this one, where the triggerfish\nand clowns fade to inky neon dashes under\na fisherman\u2019s skiff. A few plastic pontoons\nknock around makeshift slips. Dusk coaxes\nfrom the shore the small, dull chime\nof a spoon against a pot. And TV voices\nflash slow across a cliff where two pink lovers\nin matching swimwear kiss their glasses\nat the edge of a blue pool built just low enough\ninto the hill so the couple can gaze into the sea\nand think of infinity. Many, many years ago,\na great emperor wiggled his finger\nand commanded his army to corral all the lepers\nin his domain then pack them into a sailing ship\nto be delivered to the missions on this cluster\nof verdant volcanic rock. The emperor\u2019s orders\nto his captain were clear: if the monks refused\nthe ship\u2019s freight, the skipper was to simply\ndump the whole sick cargo far from any shore.\nOther incurables followed in lots over time,\nor trickled in, hiding from nearby tribes,\nor banished from other lands to live among these\nlush slopes of mahogany, papaya, and weeds.\nTwo women, Filomena and Josefa, arrived\nwithin days of one another. By then, each had lost\nmost their toes, though they had ten\nfull fingers between them, each woman\nwith one hand still intact. No one is sure\nhow it began, but once a week the pair\nwould knock on the door of the scowling\nMadre Clementina to borrow the hospital\u2019s\nonly guitar, carved from jackfruit and cracked\npretty bad along the back. To these women\u2009\u2014\nno big deal, for Filomena once transcribed \nthe early moonlight serenades of the horny friars\nin the Royal South for the brats of an Andalusian \nduke. Josefa was the daughter of a carpenter, \na maker of tables to be exact. She learned \nto play a harana\u2019s tremulous melodies \non her mother\u2019s bandurria at the age of three. \nThe pair of outcasts would stifle laughs, thrilled \nto earn the crusty nun\u2019s grudging Yes, then \namble out to low tide and find a flat rock to share\nso they could prop the old guitar on both \ntheir laps, the one bad wrist of each woman \nunwrapped to their stumps, pulled for now \nbehind their backs as they looked past the bay \ntoward the violent waters that first carried them \nhere. And they jammed. Filomena with the five \ndeft hammers of her left and Josefa with her right,\nthick-muscled\u2009\u2014\u2009both blue-veined and furious, \nscrubbing from the instrument all those wicked \nrhythms from Castile to Nowhere on a fragile \nscrap of furniture that could barely hold its tune. \nThey sat shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh, \ntheir good hands brushing from time to time. \nWhat they couldn\u2019t remember, they made up, \nand everything they made up disappeared \nover the lagoon and over the ocean, every note \nin every run, every lie and desire, every nick \nand crack in the jackfruit, the fat harmonics \nplucked from the old nun\u2019s grunts, six taut strands\nof gut whose chords skimmed the water \nlike night locusts in bursts of low clouds \nand which bore everything in front of them and behind,\nthe brine of the women\u2019s necks mixed with the salt\nof the lagoon, the cliffs, the spoons, the bright \nnimbus of the West dipping like a noose, \nthe future of pontoons and fake tits, the history\nof nifty crowns pried loose of their jewels, \nthe jiggle of a little finger gone still. \n\nOne way to erase an island is to invent the waters\nthat surround it. You can name the waters\nthat will turn all the sounds the island makes into salt.\nIt will teach you to listen to everything you love \ndisappear\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200aor you can invent a song so big \nit will hold the entire ocean. \n\nJosefa and Filomena\nJosefa and Filomena\nrocked in the dark, hip to hip, joined by that third \nbody of wood, which made sure there was \nnothing left in the unbroken world \nto possibly make them whole.", "title": "An Instance of an Island", "id": 58473, "author": "Patrick Rosal"}
{"poem": "Angelfish perturb\nthe area\naround pink gauze,\nare the details \nof a threaded\ndiamond string\nand its fake \ncatachrestic applause.\nLike that of the angelheaded\nbeast spreading\nits wings, as if to swim\nunder the light\nof the glowworm\nand hyacinth, \nthe fish are oratory \nand not.\nThe pulchritude\nof bombazine\non a shattering\ngeoidal mid-afternoon,\ndribbling from\nsea rock to splint,\nthe wing tips\nare hardly bleak\naccoutrements,\ntheir own swinging\nby the bay of a chest\nand a previous rock.\nHere we are stranded,\npelagic with clot,\nand the fish\nburble with oratory\nand I kind of like them\na lot.\n", "title": "The Angelfish Greet Odysseus", "id": 58474, "author": "Eisder Mosquera"}
{"poem": "I came to light a candle for a friend\nbut Jesus had a really bad mustache\nand those were only pinpricks in his palms\nso I passed on.\n\nI came to light a candle for a friend\nbut Joseph\u2019s hands were manicured\nand soft as Fairy Liquid hands\nI could not light one there so I passed on.\n\nIn the corner was a fellow with a cowled robe\nand a tonsure like a saucer\u2009\u2014\u2009he palmed\na young and curly blonde Adonis\u2009\u2014\u2009so I\npassed on then to Beno\u00eet-Joseph Labre,\n\na tattered man whose wide eyes blazed,\nhe looked quite mad, had beggar\u2019s hands,\nI liked him. I lit two dozen candles, didn\u2019t pay,\nand nicked this book on him before I left.\n\nI did all this in honor of my matchless absent friend,\nwhose honest calloused workman\u2019s hands\nmaintained the half of Belfast,\nand nothing\u2019s been the same since he passed on.\n", "title": "At St. Malachy\u2019s Church", "id": 58476, "author": "Paula Cunningham"}
{"poem": "She would post herself in the way\nin lines headed to transfer stops, to change,\nor haunt intersections with four way full\nscarecrow indecision, stop\n\non the corners of streets, and in the aisles\nof buses, preaching only that\nwhich has never left these crossings for road,\nfor choice \u00a0 \u2009\u2014\u2009the angry fear. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 She seats\n\nat the feasts \u00a0\u2009\u2014\u200aThanksgiving, any\nholiday, any family place\nsetting \u2009 \u2014\u2009the hunger of others\u2019\nsatisfaction for herself, she seeks it\n\nsaid this is what she deserves, if only\nof herself. What she thinks she thinks\nneeds to be said whatever anyone \nelse thinks to be honest. So there\n\nshe sings from that part of the door\nshe\u2019s never got through, the eye\nwhich requires it all taken \u00a0 off \u00a0 \u00a0down\nall blown away \u00a0 \u00a0to get through to\n\nthat still naked-ness of clear again\neven if she\u2019s not \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0still, the voice comes through\nthat if we could listen as she is equally\nraw \u00a0 \u00a0hear with meat and gut below the skin,\n\nbeyond the last violence,\nto the silence just before\nthe bone \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0if we could still hear there\nwe\u2019d hear\n\n\n\n2\n2\n\nWhat hand can you offer one wanting\n just to get even for what it doesn\u2019t know what,\n\n just to take out what it feels on someone else\n to hurt because it can\u2019t get at where it hurts \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0itself\n\n to have to see to clear like a movie fakes\n done seeing sharper than thought can cut to it;\n\n what hand can you offer one that doesn\u2019t know even\n as a balance any other than more as my half and\n\n who counts itself that much \u00a0 \u00a0 more\n and that more proofless \u00a0 \u00a0 multiple unanswerably human hurts\n\n because it can\u2019t figure out a figure to answer how it wants\n so count doesn\u2019t count higher than want\n\n and want also falls short enough to take someone down\n for it\n\n but there is no size for another to be cut down to but none\n but death \u00a0 \u00a0this is so frustrating\n\n\n3\n3\n\n You see me get the hell away from her\n don\u2019t you \u00a0 \u00a0 quick as I can \u00a0 \u00a0and I bein nice\n she act all girlfriend but that bitch dangerous\n\n she pull so much rotten shit on peoples\n she due to get her ass killed anytime\n and I don\u2019t tend to be nowhere near round\n\n I ain\u2019t getting cut down just for standin\n next to her \u00a0 \u00a0 I ain\u2019t all that innocent\n but I don\u2019t be lookin for nothing I don\u2019t deserve", "title": "Aunt Haint", "id": 58460, "author": "Ed Roberson"}
{"poem": "The barnacle is rather odd\u2009\u2014\nIt\u2019s not related to the clam\nOr limpet. It\u2019s an arthropod,\nThough one that doesn\u2019t give a damn.\n\nCousin to the crab and shrimp,\nWhen larval, it can twitch and swim,\nAnd make decisions\u2009\u2014\u2009tiny imp\nThat flits according to its whim.\n\nOnce grown, with nothing more to prove\nIt hunkers down, and will remain\nStuck fast. And once it does not move,\nHas no more purpose for a brain.\n\nIts one boast is, it will not budge,\nCemented where it chanced to sink,\nSclerotic, stubborn as a grudge.\nSettled, it does not need to think.\n", "title": "The Barnacle", "id": 58463, "author": "A. E. Stallings"}
{"poem": "we were riding out to an abandoned farmhouse\non his pearl black Triumph\n\ndeaf to the sound of bleating sheep\n\nthat was when he told me it was the same model\nJames Dean had swapped for\nthree days after\n\nthey\u2019d finished filming East of Eden\n\nI tried to tell him that was cool but he didn\u2019t act\nlike he\u2019d heard me\nso I hugged him tight\n\nand set my head on his shoulder\n\nand watched how the yellow moon was shifting\nbehind the pines\nlike the face of a jailbird\n\nhe\u2019d told me before that his wife knew he didn\u2019t\nswing her way\nbut she was keeping quiet about it\n\nfor their kid\u2019s sake\n\nwe rumbled into the dry grass and started cutting\nthrough the cornstalks\n\ninto a big clearing where he kicked\nthe bike stand\nand told me to get off\n\nhe tossed his chrome aviators and then we started\nour hike to the farmhouse\nwhich was sagging in the field\n\nopposite of us\n\nwe were quiet on the way like a couple of thieves\nabout to rob someone blind\n\nI stood back as he tore a warped door\noff the barn\nand flung it into the gravel\n\ninside the air was dusty and thick and the moon\nwas still with us\ncocked behind a streaked window\n\nlike we\u2019d traded places\n\nand now we were the jailbirds serving a lifetime\nsentence without parole\n\nJohn pulled off his steel-toe boots\nand told me to wait for him\nup in the hayloft\n\nI left my loafers there and climbed a wood ladder\nuntil I was looking into the eyes\nof a great horned owl\n\nhe kept shaking his head\nlike he couldn\u2019t believe what was about to happen\n\nI was going to be John\u2019s first\n\nbut while I was gathering the wet straw\nI smelled smoke\nand slid back down the ladder\n\nthat was when I saw the fire licking the crossbeams\nand ran outside\n\nJohn was passing through the wheat\nlike a final judgment\n\nhis figure was muscled with flame and I kept silent\nas he reached for a head of grain\n\nand burned it to the ground\n", "title": "Blaze", "id": 58457, "author": "Zack Strait"}
{"poem": "I thank the spiders\u2019 webs and the circus dancers who stain our eyes with\nRapid movements and authorize our handcuffs to make no distinction\nBetween night and day or love and hate.\nNo one will know the sum of our arduous daily separations from bed to\n\nWork. These pillars actually belong to you since I have not counted them\nOr know any more than you do where they are or in what country they\nStill exist. We can put all our concerns into a loaf of bread and French\nKisses, go to movies and watch the splashing milk on the screen imitate\n\nthe forest in the moonlight. Why all the fuss about the patrons becoming\nFeathers, discharging their ideas of nobility on the evening news? There\nAre no lights in the theater just soft snow from the balcony that is the\nLittle red schoolhouse where all this began.\n\nActually it was because of you I did not attend as often as I should have.\nI was too embarrassed to face you across the clay modeling tables since I\nAlways felt like the clay in your hands was a cartoon version of my teen\nYears, dear slippery-fish ladies of the sleepy west.\n\nDon\u2019t forget, my early life will be yours, too,\nWith its self-descriptions of poetic justice,\nThe tiny creatures we write about can describe themselves in the moss\nWe leave behind.\n", "title": "Bright Blue Self-Portrait", "id": 58497, "author": "Frank Lima"}
{"poem": "Now the passenger pigeons flock across the sky,\nPlunging the Central Valley grasshopper into darkness\nAs the Snake River sucker pushes upstream\nAnd the golden toad relaxes. A passing skiff\nStartles a lone gravenche in Switzerland,\nJust as a pair of blue pike swerve\nTo avoid an anchor. The harelip sucker\nStays on course. A phantom shiner\nMight have swerved to snap up a three-tooth caddisfly,\nOr even Blackburn\u2019s weevil, but it\u2019s hard to tell\nWhy the white-winged sandpiper wheels\nAt the distant warble of a black-footed parakeet.\nGould\u2019s emerald has a tiny, ferocious heart.\nDomed Mauritius tortoises are clannish,\nOften clashing with saddle-backed Mauritius tortoises,\nThough the saddle-backed Rodrigues tortoise\nEnjoys friendly relations with the domed Rodrigues tortoise.\nThe Santa Fe Island tortoise keeps to itself, brooding\nOver its sufferings. The Japanese wolf sniffs the air.\nThe Tasmanian wolf bursts into a sprint,\nThe Arabian ostrich could outpace a sprinting bicyclist,\nAnd the legs of the sprinting red gazelle blur beneath it,\nLike the rapidly beating wings of the Kosrae crake.\nThe Kosrae starling is nesting. In one tree\nThe Cascade funnel-web spider lays a trap,\nWhile in another, the American chestnut moth\nSleeps fitfully. The dodo is too trusting.\nThe laughing owl can be heard across the island.\nThe roar of the Caspian tiger resounds in a canyon.\nChildren shudder at the sound of the Bombay lion.\nBut not even the Caribbean monk seal\nHears the Caribbean monk seal mite silently make\nIts home in the manner of the passenger pigeon mite,\nBurrowing into the ear canal.\n\nThe warm river water\nThe warm river water\nThrough which the Durango shiner darts\nReflects a spectacled cormorant. On drafts of air\nA dusky seaside sparrow rises. Its shadow falls\nOn a school of stumptooth minnows. The sunlight\nBarely filters down to a Bodensee-kilch,\nBut a red-headed green macaw glimmers.\nThe Kona grosbeak filches fruit from volcanoes\nSloping down to the shore where Gal\u00e1pagos damsels\nFrolic and spawn. The bezoule makes a rare\nAppearance. Heath hens gather by the pond.\n\nOnly when the North Island giant moa starts to wonder\nAbout what happened to the South Island giant moa\nDoes the upland moa give any thought\nTo the whereabouts of the eastern moa. Meanwhile,\nThe coastal moa seems to have gone off\nAfter the heavy-footed moa, which follows\nIn its turn the tracks of the crested moa,\nWandering the islands looking for Mantell\u2019s moa.\nNone of them have seen a bush moa in a while.\n\nEven as the quagga poses for its photograph,\nThe St. Croix racer is slithering out of the frame\nIn eager pursuit of a big-eared hopping mouse.\nThis may be the moment the Queen of Sheba\u2019s gazelle\nTakes its leave, along with the Atlas bear,\nThe Palestinian painted frog, and several others.\nThe aurochs left long ago. The lapping waves\nEcho the strokes of the sea mink, but like\nThe Japanese river otter, it\u2019s nowhere\nTo be seen. What will the confused moth do?\nThe same as Darwin\u2019s rice rat. Years go by,\nAnd the Martinique macaw flies through none of them.\nMelville might have encountered a Nuka Hiva monarch,\nBut Nabokov never pinned a Xerces blue.\nCloned, the Pyrenean ibex lived\nA few seconds more. The paradise parrot\nSported the spectrum on its plumage. Bluebucks\nOnly looked blue while alive. The Miller\u2019s rail\nSurvives in a painting. Labrador ducks ate mussels.\nThe crescent nail-tail wallaby once was common.\nThe thylacine appeared four million years ago.\nRats killed off the mysterious starling.", "title": "By and By", "id": 58462, "author": "John Beer"}
{"poem": "I put my hand\nInto the dream\nThat falls upon\nThe air. It\nTouches me a little,\nBut I don\u2019t complain.\nI\u2019m almost asleep\nWhen I get there.\nWhere Byron\nLost the scent of his\nLife, over there,\nWhere the dreams are.\nIt\u2019s always\nHot, like\nThe eyes of the\nDream. Sometimes\nThe dream is\nOn the dunes\nWatching the molten\nOcean burn the sun.\nThe dream scours the\nSand in your fish\nTank for the plastic\nMermaid who is gaining\nweight. Nevertheless,\nWe go to the edge\nTo watch the dream\nAnd the repetition being\nHurled ashore like\nA drop of blue,\nYou wrote in a poem,\nIn a language\nYou alone\nUnderstand\nIn the dream.\n", "title": "Byron", "id": 58494, "author": "Frank Lima"}
{"poem": "Words from a leaf on the shell of a snail?\nTendency as reciprocity etched in shale.\n\nCider vinegar wrapped in sealskin?\nAccept it, so little is genuine.\n\nA box on a meteor compelled by earth?\nLies, emptiness, grief: it\u2019s not a first.\n\nFrost on the dock at Penetanguishene?\nTears from Lake Huron, Erie, and Michigan.\n\nNot a moment to yourself? \nDon\u2019t let love put you on a shelf.\n\nA preponderance of errors? \nThe soft one sucks her rivers.\n\nLove, love, needs no reason.\nYes, yes, yes, is my season.\n", "title": "The Couriers", "id": 58475, "author": "Sina Queyras"}
{"poem": "It wasn\u2019t a man \nThat knocked me down \nWith the thrill of a slice\nOf my will. \n\nShe was mannish, \nChilled, flung\nHer will across\nMine then laughed\n\nAt my shock, when she\nGripped my neck while\nLingering over a request\nFor the evening meal. \n\nLater I sliced a tomato\nClose to my wrist. \nThe door was open. \nShe had warned me: \n\nNever shut it against\nHer. Otherwise \nI was free to come \nAnd go. Maybe she was\n\nRight: I was zero \nTo the bone. Meanwhile,\nI had left the hose \nIn the pond. The goldfish\n\nCowered in the reeds. \nWhose side were they on?\nI am ill, I thought, \nSlogging across\n\nSoggy green.\nIf I bow any lower\nI will be looking up\nAt moss.\n", "title": "Cut", "id": 58477, "author": "Sina Queyras"}
{"poem": "My story\u2019s told in the mis-dial\u2019s\nhesitance & anonyms of crank calls,\n\nin the wires\u2019 electric elegy\n& glass expanded by the moth\n\nflicker of filament. I call a past\nthat believes I\u2019m dead. On the concrete\n\nhere, you can see where\nI stood in rust, lashed to the grid.\n\nOn the corner of Pine & Idlewood,\nI\u2019ve seen a virgin on her knees\n\nbefore the angel\nof a streetlight & Moses stealing the Times\n\nto build a fire. I\u2019ve seen the city fly\nright through a memory & not break\n\nits neck. But the street still needs a shrine,\nso return my ringing heart & no one\n\nto answer it, a traveler whose only destination is\nwaywardness. Forgive us\n\nour apologies, the bees in our bells, the receiver\u2019s\ngrease, days horizoned\n\ninto words. If we stand\nmonument to anything,\n\nit\u2019s that only some voices belong\nto men.\n", "title": "Dream of the Phone Booth", "id": 58465, "author": "Emilia Phillips"}
{"poem": "In the earthquake days I could not hear you over the din or it might have been\nthe dinner bell but that\u2019s odd\nbecause I\u2019m usually the one\ncooking if not dinner then\na plan to build new fault lines through the dangerous valley.\n\nI can\u2019t give you an answer right now because I\u2019m late for my \u2028resurrection,\nthe one where I step into my angel offices and fuck\nthe sun senseless.\nThat eclipse last week? Because of me. \nYou\u2019re welcome.\n\nThe postman rattles up with your counter offer and I\u2019m off\nto a yoga class avoiding your call yes like the plague\nbecause son you can read\nin the dark and I have no\nhiding place left.\n\nYou know me too well and you know it.\nWe walk hand in hand down the hill \ninto the Castro\navoiding the nudist protest not because we are afraid but\nbecause we already know all about this city, its engineered \u2028foundations,\nthe earthquake-proofed buildings, the sea walls.\n\nNo tempest will catch us unaware\nwhile we claim our share of\nthe province of penumbral affections.\nYou have no reason \nto trust me but I swear I lie\n\ndown in this metal box as it thunders and looks\ninside my brain. I am terrified nothing\nis wrong because otherwise\nhow will I rewrite the maps unmoored\na deep sea a moor a cosmonaut\n\nWho needs saving more\nthan the one who forgot\nhow the lazy cartographer mislabeled\nhis birthplace as Loss?\nRiding the bus out to the end of the lines and back\n\nI collect trash for art, oil spill, spent forest, the mind\nis at work and everything is at stake. I demand\nstatehood for my states of mind, senators\nfor my failure, my disappointment, the slander\nand my brain unmapped reveals no\n\nexplanation for danger the ground untamed.\nI make paintings of nothing and\nstand before them like mirrors.\nI recently became a man but I do \nnot want to let go of my weakness,\n\ninstead want to meet God in heaven and in long psychotropic odes\nhave Him send me again digging in the dirt to unleash\ntantric animal governors to lay down \nthe orgasmic law twice skewered and miserable\nin the old photographs, miserable in my body, huddled\n\nnext to my mother, recently permed and aglow so unaware\nof what is about to hit her. I am the answer to Bhanu\u2019s question: \n\u201cWho is responsible for the suffering of your mother?\u201d and so sick\nI considered that sickness\n\ncould bring us closer and Shahid and Allen in heaven\nslap me silly because they want me to know that\nthis world is worth its\ntrembling. At the next table over a mother\ntries to reconcile her bickering sons. I have\nno brother but the one\n\nI invent has always got my back, he drowns\nout the mullahs so my mother can\nhear me finally. In a different book Jesus\nnever suffered, never was flogged or died\nwent whole into heaven without passion.\n\nShall I then deny myself passport through the stark places\nunsalvageable, imagine it, the Mother\nof Sorrows did never grieve in the new season\ntrees smell of semen and the tectonic plates\nmake their latest explosive move:\n\nto transubstantiate my claim\nby unveiling this city down to its stone.\n\nEveryone I know wants to douse\nthe hungry flames, flee the endless aftershocks,\nunravel every vexing question.\n\nYou owe me this witness.\nI owe you the fire.\n", "title": "The Earthquake Days", "id": 58470, "author": "Kazim Ali"}
{"poem": "My father was\nA blossom,\nAnd I was his fragile\nEpiphyte on his\nDays off.\nThe purple\nDogs of years\nGone by\nWatch him smile\nAt the horizon.\nHis feretory\nCatches the\nRain from the\nSmoldering sky.\nThese fields are\nFallow and dried\nGullies where gin\nSparkled\nIn the morning.\nMy father\u2019s remains\nAre smooth like the\nStarlight that\nMakes my life\nSlightly yellow.\n", "title": "Epicedium to Potter\u2019s Field", "id": 58492, "author": "Frank Lima"}
{"poem": "I need more time, a simple day in Paris hotels and window shopping.\nThe croissants will not bake themselves and the Tower of London would\nLike to spend a night in the tropics with gray sassy paint. It has many\nWounds and historic serial dreams under contract to Hollywood.\nWho will play the head of Mary, Queen of Scots, and who will braid her\n\nHair? Was it she who left her lips on the block for the executioner,\nWhose hands would never find ablution, who would never touch a woman\nAgain or eat the flesh of a red animal? Blood pudding would repulse him\nUntil joining Anne. That is the way of history written for Marlow and\nShakespear. They are with us now that we are sober and wiser,\n\nNot taking the horrors of poetry too seriously. Why am I telling you this\nNonsense, when I have never seen you sip your coffee or tea,\nIn the morning? Not to mention,\nNever heard you sing, although some claim it is quite grand.\nWill you teach me to sing like Chaliapin? Will I impress you with my\n\nCartoon Russian accent? I like sour cream and borsht;\nWe went to school together. My minor was caviar and blinis.\nThis is what it means to listen to Boris Godunov late at night.\nCool mornings are for Lakm\u00e9 and songs of flowers for misplaced lovers.\nBut why should we speak in a foreign language to each other,\n\nWe are not birds. I have other stories too strange and beautiful to be\nTold. They have no sound or memory. They will rest on your lips when\nYou bring your hands to your mouth to stop their gush of air against your\nFace. We should go back and meet again at the street fair of cufflinks.\nOur hearts teach us how to fly with wings of pain.\n\nThat is the price of the disarticulated lessons we should not abstain from\nPlaying. The accumulated misdemeanors add up to the most egregious\nFelony: ignoring the demands of the heart. We remain in abeyance to\nThe muses who are only interested in their outcomes,\nWe are just the worms on their hooks of selfishness.\n\nWhat do they care, we are not Greek. We are just a dream of pleasant\nComic arias that suffice as whims in the morning.\nWe are small enemies to them with strange large hearts that control the\nWeather in the heavens. They cannot change or unteach us not to\nTrespass their quarters of endowment. Perhaps, after all, you are an\n\nAffable spirit bubbling over with your own deductions to minimize the\nPointed dots in your beautiful endeavors.\nAlthough I feel like a bird with a broken wing,\nEach day I think of you I fumble an attempt to fly to impress you with\nThe color of my paper wings.\n", "title": "Felonies and Arias of the Heart", "id": 58496, "author": "Frank Lima"}
{"poem": "Crows see us as another invention.\n\nLike summer and beauty,\nLike summer and beauty,\nThey shimmer at sunrise in their new cars,\nChange their names and color when they see us.\nChange their names and color when they see us.\nWhen they fly, they\u2019re the bite marks on the sun,\nAnd nail-scratches of black against the sky.\nAnd nail-scratches of black against the sky.\n\nWe matter little to them as we are.\nThey prefer hamburger, youth,\nThey prefer hamburger, youth,\nOxygen and mineral water.\nAnd, of course, we sell our souls to a passing crow,\nAnd, of course, we sell our souls to a passing crow,\nBecause we\u2019re shiny things they take to heaven.\n\nCrows are always polite to humans.\nThey have lots of money\nThey have lots of money\nAnd live at a party that never ends.\nWe\u2019re the junk genes they left behind,\nWe\u2019re the junk genes they left behind,\nThat play Aztec football with our heads,\nWhen we dream and lose.\nWhen we dream and lose.\n\nCrows have relatives everywhere.\nHuman warfare moves across the sky\nHuman warfare moves across the sky\nMaking more room for them to fly.\nWe\u2019re just a meal in the next world.\nWe\u2019re just a meal in the next world.\nWe\u2019re the hole in the sky.\n\nCrows are legends and instructors of grace.\nThey are the dots in the fog,\nThey are the dots in the fog,\nAnd the flight of the uterus.\n\nCrows are the printed warnings\nOf a wasted life.\nOf a wasted life.\nThey will never leave or abandon us.\n\nWhen we take our last breath,\nNavigating through our mistakes and lies,\nNavigating through our mistakes and lies,\nThe crows will take our last word.\n\nWe are the last citizens of a pale race of crows,\nRearranging the furniture in the mind of God.\nRearranging the furniture in the mind of God.\n\nCrows turn the planet on its axis when we die,\nAnd do nothing to the body we\u2019ll remember.\nAnd do nothing to the body we\u2019ll remember.\nOur souls are their meal of the day.\n\nAnd the blue marble in its beak,\nAnd the blue marble in its beak,\nAs it flies away,\nIs the world leaving you.\nIs the world leaving you.", "title": "Heckyll & Jeckyll", "id": 58495, "author": "Frank Lima"}
{"poem": "Call\u00e1te. Don\u2019t say it out loud: the color of his hair,\nthe sour odor of his skin, the way they say\nhis stomach rose when he slept. I have\ndone nothing, said nothing. I piss in the corner\nof the room, the outhouse is far, I think\norange blossoms call me to eat them. I fling rocks\nat bats hanging midway up almond trees.\nI\u2019ve skinned lizards. I\u2019ve been bored. It\u2019s like\nthat time I told my friend Luz to rub her lice\nagainst my hair. I wanted to wear a plastic bag,\nto smell of gasoline, to shave my hair, to feel\nsomething like his hands on my head.\nWhen I clutch pillows, I think of him. If he sleeps\nfacedown like I do. If he can tie strings\nto the backs of dragonflies. I\u2019ve heard\nof how I used to run to him. His hair still\nsmelling of fish, gasoline, and seaweed. It\u2019s how\nI learned to walk they say. Call\u00e1te. If I step\nout this door, I want to know nothing will take me.\nNot the van he ran to. Not the man he paid to take him.\nMam\u00e1 Pati was asleep when he left. People say\nsomehow I walked across our cornfield\nat dawn, a few steps behind. I must have seen him\nget in that van. I was two. I sat behind a ceiba tree,\nwaiting. No one could find me.\n", "title": "How I Learned to Walk", "id": 58469, "author": "Javier Zamora"}
{"poem": "In the energy crisis my city has turned to burning angel skins. \nI read by their light, a book of elegies. \n\nA fruit fly lands on Amichai, I slap him flat \nAgainst the page. Now it is an elegy for him, as well, \n\nAnd his tomb. And I am a terrible, toothless god,\nStringing blades of grass between the tongues of sheep.\n\nAsh of angel fire drifts over my head, falls in my coffee. \nO Holy, Holy, Holy indigestion.\n\nI bribe the coming day with open windows\nAnd freshly washed underwear\nHung out on the clothesline,\n\nSlipping hastily over the hips of winds.\nThe winds know, all you have to do is\nOpen your mouth, the flies will come.\n", "title": "In the Mouth of a Terrible, Toothless God", "id": 58487, "author": "Lisa Grove"}
{"poem": "We went to all those places where they restore sadness and joy\nand call it art. We were piloted by Auden who became\nUnbearably acrimonious when we dropped off Senghor into the\nsteamy skies of his beloved West Africa. The termites and ants\nwere waiting for him to unearth the sun in Elissa. The clouds\nwere as cool as a dog\u2019s nose pressed against our cheeks. I\nnotice your eggshell skin is as creamy as a lion\u2019s armpit as we\ncross the horizon on strands of Yeats\u2019 silver hair. There is a\nlight coffee flame in his eyes guiding us like an old Irish house\ncleaner holding a candle in a black and white English movie.\nYeats\u2019 lips look like an angry Rimbaud illuminating poetry with\nhis youth and vigorous sunlight. He knew eternity would vanish\nthe sun at dusk. He caught it with a rainbow tied to his finger.\nThere was nothing left after that. We cross the equator\nheading north following Emily Dickinson\u2019s black bag containing\nstems of her longer poems preserved in darkness and memory\nlike wild pearls thrown overboard to avoid capture by Spanish\npirates. The islands below float by like water hearts in a child\u2019s\naquarium. We are candy wrappers being blown across the\nwaxed floors of poetry. We land on the Brooklyn Bridge.\nWhitman\u2019s past-port face is grinning at the nineteenth century\nin the thorny arms of Gerard Manley Hopkins whose head was\nset on fire by God\u2019s little hands. The hands that circumcised\nthe world. Gertrude Stein is a match flaring on a young\nwoman\u2019s pillow whose birthmarks have been stolen. We cross\nthe green Atlantic into World War One. We are met by Rilke\ndressed in his Orpheus uniform wearing white sonnet gloves\nthat once belonged to a stone angel. Rilke offers us a glass of\namontillado made from Lorca\u2019s private stock of gypsy tears.\nThe sherry is not quite as dry as Wallace Stevens\u2019 lush mango\nmetaphors of familiar objects. Although Stevens\u2019 poems are\nfragrant, there is a lingering afterthought of Pound on the\ntongue. Pound collected his misty feelings to make raindrops\ninto European and American poetry. Vagueness became as\nsharp as a pencil. Our blue box is not allowed to attend\nApollinaire\u2019s birthday party held by the august Acad\u00e9mie\nfran\u00e7aise on the Eiffel Tower. He is being awarded the \u201cGolden\nFrog Souffle Award\u201d and a one-way ticket to the Greek and\nRoman past to spend afternoons with Williams filling wheel-\nbarrows with the twentieth century. Both Apollinaire and\nWilliams could hail a cab on Madison Avenue in any country.\nAfter the bash we toured Paris and London with D.H. Lawrence\nwho kept stopping to relieve himself of the great mysteries of\nlife whenever we went by a Bavarian gentian plant. He claimed\nhe was writing poetry for his new book: Acts of Attention for\nLove Poems. Eliot was rebuilding London when we left. It\nreminded him of Detroit or Cincinnati or Saint Louis. He was\nremoving despair from the weather. He thought it affected\npeople\u2019s minds and did not want to overload Mayakovsky\u2019s\nemptiness with old English churches that pray for water heaters\nand cloudless nights. Mayakovsky, on the other hand, insisted\nthere were bugs in Russia who could write poetry just as\ninterestingly as Eliot. The Russian winter is elegant cruelty\ncompared with the English milk-toast weather: \u201cA man without\na cloud in his trousers is not a man.\u201d Eliot thought this was the\nmost boring statement he had ever heard. Although\nCummings\u2019 poems appear unintentional on the surface, he did\nnot act like a drunken amputee at the dinner table and always\nsaid pleasant things that came out of nowhere. His\nconversation was experimental but logical and he investigated\nwords, mixing them on paper with a pencil. Cummings was all\netcetera after a few drinks. We move the sun to South\nAmerica. Neruda had become an organic poet writing about\nthe fulcra of yes and no. He wasn\u2019t home when we got there,\nso we went over to Allen\u2019s for some microbiotic poetry. As\nusual, Allen was rolling incense and howling at America. Allen\nwas always mystical and beautiful when he walked on the\nLower East Side. When he stepped into the old Jewish\npavement, he mystified the habitu\u00e9s. David Shapiro, the Djinn\nof subatomic poetry, asked Allen what was the future of poetry\nin the borough of Queens? Allen placed the palm of his right\nhand on David\u2019s glistening forehead and said: \u201cDavid, don\u2019t you\nknow? The future has no future. It is very old and doesn\u2019t\nworry about its future anymore, because it has so little left of\nit.\u201d Allen made suicide exhilarating when he wrote Kaddish.\nFinally, suicide could talk about the pain of living with\nunbearable beauty. Beauty was Frank O\u2019Hara talking to Second\nAvenue with a diamond in his head. We were the personal\ndetails in Frank\u2019s harem of private lives when LeRoi insisted on\nbecoming black, abandoning us for a noble cause, according to\nFrank, who loved Imamu Amiri Baraka. We were the details in\nFrank\u2019s poems and living one\u2019s life was a detail in Frank\u2019s life.\nJohn Ashbery arrived from Paris on a plane made of expensive\nsuits, shirts, and ties. Like his poems, he was sparkling and\nsqueaky clean, dressed in elegant language. He is the\ndaydream that had become a poet. His subject is to have no\nsubject. Perhaps a casual reference to someone special. He is\na poet of the less obvious in life: the sestina made of clouds.\nWe crossed the equator on our way to a cocktail party for Gary\nSnyder. There is no other life for his outdoor poems,\nhitchhiking on hands-on love. Gary seems to have time to\nwrite poems about the notes in his life. Kenneth, on the other\nhand, has a paper cup full of wonderful poems. He can write a\npoem about a cathedral living in a paper cup. Kenneth travels\neverywhere with his paper cup. At a certain time of day,\nKenneth finds room in his paper cup for perfect days and\nperfect moments:\nPerfect moments when Frank spoke to us.\nPerfect moments when Allen spoke to us.\nAnd they sang to us\nwith human wings\nupon which we sleep.\n", "title": "Incidents of Travel in Poetry", "id": 58491, "author": "Frank Lima"}
{"poem": "These empty words are so remote. They are stories someone wants\nTo believe at the end of the century. Everyone gathers their sea of telluric\nPain to greet the beginning of the new world.\n\nCars stop and watch the deck chairs limp across the street to await\nThe coming of the new year. It is the end of summer and autumn and\nWinters and springs, and panzer infatuation.\n\nAfter four hundred eighty-one years, I cannot pull out the Spanish arrow\nIn my eye. Suddenly everything I knew was inhuman:\nThe oceans, the tadpoles in their new cars. The clams became\nCheerleaders. The palm trees, strippers, and everyone forgot,\nDeer are the shapes of God.\n\nHis official language became Latin, when he ceased to be a Jew,\nBiting his nails and collecting cans like a cheap minister with sunny gold teeth.\nThe tender years that once wore oysters would never speak to Him again.\n\nThe female spider became a lesbian, devouring our new long legs,\nThat would never again climb the toy steps our fathers left us. Although\nOur legs are hairy and the lilies of a theater, the gentle lips of\nOur pyramids rest on our souls like a lover\u2019s fingers.\n\nHow many aspirins will we take to reach the surface of truth?\nMy existence is for sale. The dawn is learning English.\nThe waves of the sea are unionizing.\n\nThe stones that were once our troubled hearts are eating chocolate.\nI come to sell you fish, the bread in my blood and my existence.\n", "title": "Juarez", "id": 58493, "author": "Frank Lima"}
{"poem": "among thirty dusty men the only wet thing\n\nthe mouth of the coyote\nthe mouth of the coyote\nis a mini zoo we are from many countries\nin which there are many coyotes\nin which there are many coyotes\n\n500 bucks and we\u2019re off think about it\nis the shortest verse of a corrido\nis the shortest verse of a corrido\na gila monster and a coyote are one\na gila monster and a coyote and a gringo are one\na gila monster and a coyote and a gringo are one\n\nstrewn bottles melt dirt\nthe coyote\u2019s tongue fills them\nthe coyote\u2019s tongue fills them\nwe don\u2019t know which to swat the coyote or the froth\nthe mosquitoes or the flies\nthe mosquitoes or the flies\n\ngringos why do you see us illegal don\u2019t you think\nwe are the workers around you\nwe are the workers around you\nwe speak different accents yours included and we know\ntambi\u00e9n the coyote is suspect of what we say\ntambi\u00e9n the coyote is suspect of what we say\n\nwhen the coyote hears helicopters \nin Nike shoes he trots Arizona\nin Nike shoes he trots Arizona\nNogales whores close their doors\nthe coyote trots Arizona in Nike shoes\nthe coyote trots Arizona in Nike shoes\n\nthe desert is still the coyote must be tired\nin his shadow he sees searchlights\nin his shadow he sees searchlights\nit\u2019s day all night it\u2019s dusting and it\u2019s going to dust\nthe coyote rests under yuccas\nthe coyote rests under yuccas", "title": "Looking at a Coyote", "id": 58468, "author": "Javier Zamora"}
{"poem": "May I ask you who\nyour grandmother died\n\nHer blackness\nyou pretended we\u2019d assume\na servant\u2019s \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in the photograph\n\nMay I ask\ndid she die herself?\n\nI know you all light\nunder an umbrella \u00a0 \u00a0 don\u2019t tan\nand she could be seen\n\nas she had been made too\ndark for what the son do.\n\nI saw her years ago after she died\nAnd again today in the market\nI asked her \u00a0 \u00a0 I had to\n\nknow if she was who I knew\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\n\u201cOnly two things you really has to\u2009\u2014\n\ntha\u2019s to stay black and die.\u201d\nBlack, yes, but if black leads some to pretend\nthat you have died\n\nexcept you\u2019re black and alive\nwho are you?\n\nShe is as hundreds of years old as\nthe stories of the lies\nof grandmothers in the cellar\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\n\nMay I ask who\nyour grandmother \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0died if she died\nherself?\n", "title": "May I Ask", "id": 58459, "author": "Ed Roberson"}
{"poem": "There were seven colors of mourning, \none was lilac. That kind of blossom\n\nalways has its crowd, fanned out, surrounded\nby crushing likeness, smell of itself. \n\n\nFabric has to breathe,at least 2%, like skin.A little milkfat, elastaneeven in the gravest print.\nFabric has to breathe,\nat least 2%, like skin.\n\n\nA little milkfat, elastane\neven in the gravest print.\n\nNot knowing how to grieve can poison\nlike a directionless dart. And although fabric \n\nhas been known to swirland clasp, be clasped\u2009\u2014\u2009without motherthere\u2019s only art.\nhas been known to swirl\nand clasp, be clasped\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\n\nwithout mother\nthere\u2019s only art.\n\nTo hug the body: a swath, anathema, \nmagical, seventies lace and spacedust, \n\nall too far gone\nall too far gone\n\nto truly love. But to twist it, to learn \nto hate-want. To sway, tear, burrow, \n\nbe borrowed,everybody\u2019s animal.\nbe borrowed,\neverybody\u2019s animal.\n\nTo float like water seeking its own,\nstampede like buffalo, seeking its hide.\n\nFace painted on torso on horsehair\non chesty silk it\u2019s a deathmask\n\nfor the stigmata slashof the model\u2019s body.\nfor the stigmata slash\nof the model\u2019s body.\n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nI don\u2019t think I understand what studying is. \nI listen, I read, I remember, I absorb. \n\nI let myself be moved and changed. \nIs that \u201cstudying?\u201d \n\nNever five-fingered,you never use them all,gloves will be like hooves,split-footed, hand-stitched.\nNever five-fingered,\nyou never use them all,\n\n\ngloves will be like hooves,\nsplit-footed, hand-stitched.\n\nWhen concept perceived\u2009\u2014\u2009a womanly gist, let\u2019s say,\nor a curve of mind\u2009\u2014\u2009is more than itself (surpassing,\n\nall maw) I make it part of me. I take it in, \ndrink a corrosive. I let it overtake me, \n\nchange everything it can,lip to tip to rim.\nchange everything it can,\nlip to tip to rim.\n\nMy eyes just drink the fabric that covers\neach surface of this world. \n\nSuck up the plasticthrough a polished straw.\nSuck up the plastic\nthrough a polished straw.\n\nEverything\u2019s inspiration: trees reflected \nin windows on buildings, distorted buses\n\nendless frames, all too glass,so much lens, textures so tall,\nendless frames, all too glass,\nso much lens, textures so tall,\n\nand once you start to see things this way,\nvision\u2019s a performance, shocking \n\nand true after all these centuries, \na Shakespearean volta, like nectar \n\nis poison to the occasionalqueen bee.\nis poison to the occasional\nqueen bee.\n\nEverything actually is blurred, \nnot just how you see. \n\nGlasses and shoes are solutions\nto problems that are real problems, \n\nthat of blurred world,that of touching the ground.\nthat of blurred world,\nthat of touching the ground.\n\nA glass corset for the heart \nto see out its chest. For without \n\nglasses, the eye better sees\nthe wind, by feeling it and closing \n\nagainst its grains,its grasses.\nagainst its grains,\nits grasses.\n\nFor without shoes, my feet become \nshoes. When I am really feeling,\n\nI get very tired, I fall asleep \nfor the seventeenth time\n\non the unfinished skirtof glass eyes and lemonzest hemmed first,grown last.\non the unfinished skirt\nof glass eyes and lemon\n\n\nzest hemmed first,\ngrown last.\n\nI experience the world as infinite\ninvertedness: no wholes broken, \n\njust potential fragments straining, skull-like,\nat the seams. Anything could give.\n\nBut no, just takesand takes and takes.\nBut no, just takes\nand takes and takes.\n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nI\u2019ve been trying to write the words, \n\u201cI cried. Cried really\n\nand wetly, and for good.\u201d Old-fashioned\nwriting with intense excitement:\n\nthe spell of quilland ink spill, quelled.\nthe spell of quill\nand ink spill, quelled.\n\nWhat is beautiful, what is terrifying,\nwhat is absurd in me? \n\nEvery possibility that colors \nare believable, various, \n\nnot that mirageI thought I\u2019d seen\nnot that mirage\nI thought I\u2019d seen\n\nand can be held apart as unreal,\ntoo exterior, distinct from each \n\nother wildly as sparks to seaweed\nor flower to meteor. \n\nIt collapsed, can\u2019t draw itcan\u2019t cut it out of itself.\nIt collapsed, can\u2019t draw it\ncan\u2019t cut it out of itself.\n\nThere is no color but what\u2019s already\ninside the eye, no power \n\nor invention or new way to wake up \nin the morning \n\noutside the seeingmechanism,\noutside the seeing\nmechanism,\n\nour own orbs. Yet I can\u2019t see myself.\nI can never see you again. \n\nI can only see from inside my skull\nand when I look down \n\nI close everythingnot just my eyes.\nI close everything\nnot just my eyes.\n\nI wrap my own tender nether flesh \nin calfskin leather so buttery, \n\nmelted backtogether\nmelted back\ntogether\n\nlike so: a newborn softened\nin its own mother\u2019s milk.\n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\nI awoke in a panic (no ma no ma) to the smallest day yet.\nI dreamed I already\n\ndreamed all the dreams I\u2019d get. \nThis morning I dressed \n\nin my last dress\u2019slast dress,\nin my last dress\u2019s\nlast dress,\n\nfit only for a genteel gothic \nmurder, covered up well\u2009\u2014\u2009airtight,\n\nwould only fit the stabbed one, \nafter bloodlet.\n\nThen, like a glove.\nThen, like a glove.\n\nWho wears it and where?\nI will, from the bed to the chair. \n\nHeadrest, clotheshorse.\nDesigner and model: mutually orbiting \n\nthe best metaphor for bodiless idea. \nAmorphous, amorous, amoral, \n\nimmortal. Red is dead,said blue, to you too?\nimmortal. Red is dead,\nsaid blue, to you too?\n\nHindquarter-gauze with silver face clamp\nand sickened ears pulled, \n\nunskulled.\nunskulled.\n\nBroken backpiece. Shadow sensible \nby other than sight. To smell a shadow.\n\nTo strike it. To trace it later, \nto measure a body by its line. \n\nLight\u2019s so quiet.\nLight\u2019s so quiet.\n\nYou\u2019d think its cuttings, its edge-hole,\nthose mousy children, would squeak\n\nat least a bit. They run like a stocking\ndown the leg of the mind. \n\nWhy not quieter then?\nWhy not quieter then?\n\nThere is no body without life.\nThere is no mind without body.\n\nThere is no without.\nThere is no without.", "title": "McQueen Is Dead. Long Live McQueen.", "id": 58481, "author": "Brenda Shaughnessy"}
{"poem": "For a while after he died\nmy father didn\u2019t seem to\ndiscern dream visitors, but\nI was amazed nonetheless\nto witness his swift and\nserene rejuvenation. From\ntime to time I\u2019d find him\ndining outdoors in beautiful\nlocales, a multicolored\ngrain on his plate I\u2019d\nnever seen elsewhere.\n\nYes, laughed the server,\nit\u2019s a staple here; a sort\nof national dish, I guess,\nlike potatoes in Ireland,\npasta in Italy, couscous\nin Morocco, rice in Japan\nor Madagascar. We can\u2019t\nget enough of it, and it\u2019s\nremarkably nutritious.\nWhat\u2019s it called? I asked.\nShe replied, metaphysics.\n", "title": "Metaphysics", "id": 58482, "author": "Kate Farrell"}
{"poem": "Certain words give him trouble: cannibals, puzzles, sob,\nbosom, martyr, deteriorate, shake, astonishes, vexed, ode\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\nThese he looks up and studiously annotates in Vietnamese.\nRavish means c\u01b0\u1edbp \u0111o\u1ea1t; shits is like when you have to \u0111i \u1ec9a;\nmourners are those whom we say are full of bu\u1ed3n r\u1ea7u.\nFor \u201ceven the like precurse of feared events\u201d think b\u00e1o tr\u01b0\u1edbc.\n\nIts thin translucent pages are webbed with his marginalia, \ngraphite ghosts of a living hand, and the notes often sound \njust like him: \u201cAll depend on how look at thing,\u201d he pencils\nafter \u201cI first surmised the Horses\u2019 Heads\u2009/\u200aWere toward Eternity\u2006\u2014\u201d\nHis slanted handwriting is generally small, but firm and clear.\nHis pencil is a No. 2, his preferred Hi-Liter, arctic blue.\n\nI can see my father trying out the tools of literary analysis.\nHe identifies the \u201cturning point\u201d of \u201cThe Short and Happy Life\nof Francis Macomber\u201d; underlines the simile in \u201cBoth the old man\nand the child stared ahead as if they were awaiting an apparition.\u201d\nMy father, as he reads, continues to notice relevant passages\nand to register significant reactions, but increasingly sorts out\n\nhis ideas in English, shaking off those Vietnamese glosses.\n1981 was the same year we v\u01b0\u1ee3t bi\u1ec3n and came to America,\nwhere my father took Intro Lit (\u201cfor fun\u201d), Comp Sci (\u201cfor job\u201d).\n\u201cStopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,\u201d he murmurs\nsomething about the \u201cdark side of life how awful it can be\u201d\nas I begin to track silence and signal to a cold source.\n\nReading Ransom\u2019s \u201cBells for John Whiteside\u2019s Daughter,\u201d \na poem about a \u201cyoung girl\u2019s death,\u201d as my father notes,\nhow could he not have been \u201cvexed at her brown study\u2009/\u200a\nLying so primly propped,\u201d since he never properly observed\n(I realize this just now) his own daughter\u2019s wake. \nL\u1ea5y l\u00e0m ng\u1ea1c nhi\u00ean v\u1ec1 is what it means to be astonished.\n\nHer name was \u0110\u00f4ng X\u01b0a, Ancient Winter, but at home she\u2019s Bebe.\n\u201cThere was such speed in her little body,\u2009/\u200aAnd such lightness\nin her footfall,\u2009/\u200aIt is no wonder her brown study\u2009/\u200aAstonishes \nus all.\u201d In the photo of her that hangs in my parents\u2019 house\nshe is always fourteen months old and staring into the future. \nIn \u201creeducation camp\u201d he had to believe she was alive\n\nbecause my mother on visits \u201ctook arms against her shadow.\u201d \nDid the memory of those days sweep over him like a leaf storm\nfrom the pages of a forgotten autumn? Lost in the margins, \nI\u2019m reading the way I discourage my students from reading. \nBut this is \u201chow we deal with death,\u201d his black pen replies.\nAssume there is a reason for everything, instructs a green asterisk.\n\nThen between pp. 896-97, opened to Stevens\u2019 \u201cSunday Morning,\u201d\nI pick out a newspaper clipping, small as a stamp, an old listing \nfrom the 404-Employment Opps State of Minnesota, and read: \nFor current job opportunities dial (612)\u00a0297-3180. Answered 24 hrs.\nWhen I dial, the automated female voice on the other end \ntells me I have reached a non-working number.\n", "title": "My Father\u2019s \u201cNorton Introduction to Literature,\u201d Third Edition (1981)", "id": 58485, "author": "Hai-Dang Phan"}
{"poem": "Was it like lifting a veil\nAnd was the grass treacherous, the green grass\n\nDid you think of your own mother\n\nWas it like a virus\nDid the software flicker\n\nAnd was this the beginning\nWas it like that\n\nWas there gas station food\n\nand was it a long trip\nand was it a long trip\n\nAnd is there sun there\nor dronesor punishmentor growth\nor drones\nor punishment\nor growth\n\nWas it a blackout\n\nAnd did you still create meAnd what was I like on the first day of my life\nAnd did you still create me\nAnd what was I like on the first day of my life\n\nWere we two from the start\nAnd was our time an entrance\nor an ending\nor an ending\n\nDid we stand in the heated room\nDid we look at the painting\n\nDid the snow appear cold\nWere our feet red with it, with the wet snow\n\nAnd then what were our names\nDid you love me or did I misunderstand\n\nIs it terrible\nIs it terrible\n\nDo you intend to come back\n\nDo you hear the world\u2019s keening\n\nWill you stay the night", "title": "The Night Where You No Longer Live", "id": 58489, "author": "Meghan O'Rourke"}
{"poem": "In the story of my life there is a field\nfilled with chicory, daisies, and mayflowers.\nIt\u2019s the field behind my childhood house.\nIn summer, I used to spend hours \n\nlying in it looking at clouds\nbefore my mother brought us to the town pool\nwhere I spent some more hours swimming.\nIn the other seasons I went to school.\n\nIn the school there was a library. \nIn the story of my life there is a book.\nThe book was bound in rough green cloth.\nIts glossy pages smelled oddly like puke. \n\nThe book told the story of two children,\nJohnnie and Jill, I think.\nThey got lost in a deep forest,\ndrawn in thick dark ink. \n\nThey were brother-and-sister orphans.\nThey met fantastical creatures.\nOne was the goddess of spring, \nor was that in Botticelli\u2019s picture\n\nthat I saw in the same library\nin a book of art history for kids,\nold European art of course. \nThe other kinds they did \n\nnot want us to know about.\nThe picture was magic\nand so was\u00a0Johnnie and Jill\nthough not a children\u2019s classic.\n\nI don\u2019t really remember the title.\nIn the book the goddess of spring\nrescues the children in trouble\nand then\u2009\u2014\u2009I can\u2019t remember a thing.\n\nI\u2019m sure there was a villain\nin the book, probably a woman, \nwho practiced dark arts on a dark hill,\nso evil she wasn\u2019t human. \n\nIn the story of my life there is a hill\nthat tamely rises above the field.\nWe sledded there in winter.\nIn spring our bikes wheeled\n\ndown the hill dangerously.\nI walked on the hill this summer\ntamely, carefully, slowly,\nalongside my mother.\n\nIt isn\u2019t hard to say\nwhat had brought us there. \nWe were old and middle-aged\nin the knife-like summer air.\n\nSlowly and tamely we walked\nand I remembered the book.\nIt was called\u2009\u2014\u2009Julie and John?\nI wanted another look.\n\nSo what was the title?\nAnd was it an allegory?\nA Catholic one? (It was a Catholic school.)\nThat would ruin the story.\n\nA story is only good if it\u2019s made up\nbut convinces you it\u2019s true.\nEven better if one of the characters\nis someone who could be you.\n\nHow else do you know who you are?\nI once asked an old strange friend:\nYou only know you\u2019re the person who\u2019s with\nthe people you love, in the end. \n\nFrom the hill I saw the house.\nI imagined myself on the stair\nclutching the wrought-iron rail,\na beanie on my bright hair. \n\nOn the hill I thought of the book.\nThat old strange book would save me.\nBut Google was not my friend\nor maybe I was crazy.\n\nYears had passed since I read \nthe book. My hair was darker,\nmy body had opened to make a person,\nmy cheekbones were starker.\n\nStill I kept hold of the book\nlike a talisman or a bluff.\nAny book I\u2019d seen that was like it\nwas not like it enough.\n\nResearch didn\u2019t help\nand memory is no good.\nLonging was all I could do\nand making up as much as I could.\n\nMany books have I read, many people loved.\nThey mattered and mattered and mattered.\nI tried but never found the book.\nThe field is where I\u2019ll be scattered.\n", "title": "Old Strange Book", "id": 58458, "author": "Kathleen Ossip"}
{"poem": "\u201cAre they real?\u201d We have pages of kitchen utensils and books \nand candlesticks and nibs, but the charcoal pencil and new sketchpad\nare squat as aubergines in her hands in front of this display.\n\nWith bad weather forecast and light silting up in cramped windows,\nwe are the only visitors. The year settles in a corner of the room,\nhas removed its white gloves, tip by tip, and set to one side\n\nits summer purse of bibelots and sheen. Half-term of her final year,\nwe are sightseers intent on moors. In the morning, her windcheater\nand red wellies will bestow the dust of summer festivals upon\n\nsullen, wind-soaked sheep. We will park, and walk ourselves \ninto the final, cutting rain between pages of her favorite book.\nShe wants to go all the way to Top Withens, or the house they say\n\nmust have been Top Withens, given its loneliness and set. But now \nis artifacts and souvenirs: a perfume with too much musk in it,\na jar of damson jam which we probably won\u2019t open until past\n\nits sell-by date. We are buying the word \u201cdamson.\u201d And we are buying\ntime. \u201cAre they real?\u201d she asks me, and I watch her reckon the distance\nbetween what should and should never be seen. We have fallen short.\n\nShe draws, and what she draws is rain falling slant inside the bedroom;\nthe bed as a box of leaves and stones and, within the display case, \nshe hangs from the clothes rail, little moons. On the mannequin, \n\nwater lilies stand in for morning dress, and the backdrop is marbled \nin what looks to me like veins and arteries. But when I flick through \nthe sketchpad in the B&B, all the pages, what is left of them, are clean. \n\nNext day, she leaves it in the car. When she moves away, she will leave\nit again, a sketchpad with no name on it and only the faintest traces \nof where she made skies of darned linen, and unfastened every stitch.\n", "title": "On Seeing Charlotte Bront\u00eb\u2019s Underwear with my Daughter in Haworth", "id": 58479, "author": "Vona Groarke"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Optical Unconscious (1)", "id": 58484, "author": "Alan Ram\u00f3n Clinton"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Optical Unconscious (2)", "id": 58483, "author": "Alan Ram\u00f3n Clinton"}
{"poem": "When I sleep I see a child \n\nhidden between the legs of a scarred man,\nhidden between the legs of a scarred man,\n\ntheir sunburnt backs breathe cold air, \nthe child faces me\nthe child faces me\n\nand the pier\u2019s roof swallows the moon\ncut by the clouds behind them.\ncut by the clouds behind them.\n\nSometimes, they\u2019re on the same roof\nwearing handkerchiefs\nwearing handkerchiefs\n\nand uniformed men surround them.\nI mistake bullet casings\nI mistake bullet casings\n\nfor cormorant beaks diving\ntill water churns the color of sunsets,\ntill water churns the color of sunsets,\n\nstained barnacles line the pier\nand I can\u2019t see who\u2019s facedown\nand I can\u2019t see who\u2019s facedown\n\non boats lulled by crimson ripples.\nOnce, I heard the man\u2009\u2014\nOnce, I heard the man\u2009\u2014\n\nalive and still on the roof\u2009\u2014\u2009say \ntoday for you, tomorrow for me.\ntoday for you, tomorrow for me.\n\nThere\u2019s a village where men train cormorants\nto fish: rope-end tied to sterns,\nto fish: rope-end tied to sterns,\n\nanother to necks, so their beaks\nwon\u2019t swallow the fish they catch.\nwon\u2019t swallow the fish they catch.\n\nMy father is one of those birds.\nHe\u2019s the scarred man.\nHe\u2019s the scarred man.", "title": "The Pier of La Herradura", "id": 58466, "author": "Javier Zamora"}
{"poem": "A textbook photograph most likely\nled me to think the Rosetta Stone the size\nof a library\u2019s old Webster\u2019s Third Edition\nor two loaves of bread on a side board,\n\nbut here it stands, three tongues, or one mind\nthat can say three ways we say the one thing,\nthe breaths and sights of each way in rock,\na milestone in intangibles between them.\n\nReflected light from outside through the entrance,\nduplicating on the glass case \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the door\nimage that the stone itself is \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 opens\nwhen you walk around behind it exhibit\n\nthe inhibition of letters, and I see you,\nnot a translation, step through from beyond all description\ninto the calling of flesh in black skin:\nbeauty. Beauty. Beauty.\n", "title": "Rosetta Stone Serious Study of Love Song (from the British Museum)", "id": 58461, "author": "Ed Roberson"}
{"poem": "Routines of decaying time\nfade, and your waking life\ngets laborious as science.\n\nYou huddle in, becoming\nthe deathless younger self\nwho will survive your dreams\nand vanish in surviving.\n\nDream brings on its story\nat the pace of drift\nin twilight, sunless color,\n\nits settings are believed,\na library of wood shingles,\nplain mythic furniture\n\nvivid drone of talk,\nyet few loves return:\ntrysts seem unkeepable.\n\nUrgencies from your time\njoin with the browner suits\nwalking those arcades with you\nbut then you are apart,\n\naghast, beside the numberless\ndefiling down steep fence\ninto an imminence\u2009\u2014\n\nas in the ancient burrow\nyou, with an ever-changing cast,\nsurvive deciding episodes\ntill you are dismissed\n\nand a restart of tense\nsummons your waking size\nout through shreds of story.\n", "title": "Self and Dream Self", "id": 58480, "author": "Les Murray"}
{"poem": "Considering the frequency\nwith which I take people\u2019s words\nout of context, lie through my teeth and smear\nanyone who doesn\u2019t hew to my philosophy\nof division and contempt,\nI\u2019d prefer my candidate of choice to stay\non the high road, but there\u2019s a certain element\nof fighting fire with dilemmas,\nnot just for me, but for any candidate.\n\nIs it more important to lose honorably,\nor to get into the gutter with your own particularity\nwhen so much is the answer?\nI love the pumpkin idea.\nI will definitely use that and I also plan\non making the \u201ckielbasa launcher.\u201d\nI already have a guacamole rifle\nand it\u2019s the same thing, I just need\nto figure out how to do it.\nIf you have ideas for that please help.\n\nAlso on the splitting heads thing they\nhave that hydraulic wrench that\nrips the brain chunks out of the\nhead you can do that so much\neasier just get the fishing line attached\nto the fragments and then fill \na two to three liter soda bottle\nwith sand and throw it in the opposite\ndirection your life is going.\n\nTo see the results of this oscillatory combustion\nphenomenon between the acoustics of the\ncavity and the pyrolysis of the propellants\nwhich were used in irreproducible ignition\nwhich I never liked much anyway.\n\nI couldn\u2019t decipher myself.\nToo bad. I have typed out some abbreviated remains\nwhere my old life used to be, but I\u2019m still\nliving in them as if they were a book.\nI spent the afternoon reveling\nand wondering what\nI need to do to get my own sheep.\nI saw sheep herding and shearing,\nadmired the baby lambs, and followed\nthe \u201cfrom sheep to sweater\u201d interpretive trail.\n", "title": "Sheep to Sweater", "id": 58472, "author": "Drew Gardner"}
{"poem": "Before it disappears\n\non the sand his long white \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0beard before it disappears\n\nThe face of the man\n\nin the waves I ask her does she see it ask her does\n\nThe old man in the waves \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0as the waves crest she see it does\n\nshe see the old man his\n\nWhite \u00a0 \u00a0 his face crumbling face it looks\n\nas old as he\u2019s as old as\n\nThe ocean looks\n\nand for a moment almost looks\n\nHis face like it\u2019s \u00a0 \u00a0 all the way him\n\nAs never such old skin\n\nlooks my / Daughter age four\n\nShe thinks it might he might be real she shouts Hello\n\nAnd after there\u2019s no answer answers No\n", "title": "Still When I Picture It the Face of God Is a White Man\u2019s Face", "id": 58471, "author": "Shane McCrae"}
{"poem": "Selvakumar had waked too often to the shouts\nof dogs\u2009\u2014\u2009come home too many times\nto an empty chicken coop, stray feathers\nwhere dinner was supposed to roost.\n\n\nFinding two dogs in his house one night,he slammed his door to trap them,gathered stones and\u2009\u2014\u2009the flinging done\u2009\u2014\u2009gibbeted the bodies from a tree.\nFinding two dogs in his house one night,\nhe slammed his door to trap them,\ngathered stones and\u2009\u2014\u2009the flinging done\u2009\u2014\u2009\ngibbeted the bodies from a tree.\n\nA week later, he woke in darkness, feeling\nhimself swept down a black, stinking hole\nthe way in Kansas City, Missouri,\nInspector Daniel Collins, smacked by a surge\n\nof sewer-water, slipped from his safety lineand clattered down a 28-inch pipedark as the grave it seemed about to be.Waking from sound sleep that morning,\nof sewer-water, slipped from his safety line\nand clattered down a 28-inch pipe\ndark as the grave it seemed about to be.\nWaking from sound sleep that morning,\n\nwolfing a breakfast of high-fiber\ntoast and raisin bran, Dan never dreamed\na real nightmare would swallow him.\nSelvakumar\u2009\u2014\u2009squeezed by his nightmare\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nscreamed. One ear was deaf; both handswere numb; his legs, too weak to holdhis weight, tongue lolling like a dead fishin his mouth the way Dan\u2019s did\nscreamed. One ear was deaf; both hands\nwere numb; his legs, too weak to hold\nhis weight, tongue lolling like a dead fish\nin his mouth the way Dan\u2019s did\n\nas liquid filth shoved his head under,\nwhile\u2009\u2014\u2009first thrashing and battering,\nthen not\u2009\u2014\u2009he rolled/banged/slithered\nthrough earth\u2019s bowels in darkness worse\n\nthan what seized Irmgard Holm\u2019s left eyewhen, after cataract surgery, she gropedfor eye drops in the night, grabbed a SuperGlue tube, and sealed her lid tight.\nthan what seized Irmgard Holm\u2019s left eye\nwhen, after cataract surgery, she groped\nfor eye drops in the night, grabbed a Super\nGlue tube, and sealed her lid tight.\n\nDoctors took Selvakumar\u2019s cash, and shook\ntheir heads. A village healer diagnosed,\n\u201cThe dogs cursed you.\u201d To break the curse,\nfriends caught a stray, named her Selvi\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nRepentance\u2009\u2014\u2009wrapped her in an orange sari,and hung a purple garland on her neck.Selvakumar\u2009\u2014\u2009all in white, but for a purplegarland like his bride\u2019s\u2009\u2014\u2009felt his dead\nRepentance\u2009\u2014\u2009wrapped her in an orange sari,\nand hung a purple garland on her neck.\nSelvakumar\u2009\u2014\u2009all in white, but for a purple\ngarland like his bride\u2019s\u2009\u2014\u2009felt his dead\n\nlegs quiver as she edged toward him.\nEven as he pledged eternal love, he planned\nto wed a woman when his health returned.\nUnlike a two-legged wife, though, Selvi didn\u2019t\n\nhound him about the marital act, didn\u2019tdemand a better sari or a bigger home,or nag as he grew more helpless every day.Easy to laugh, invoking Brad & Angelina,\nhound him about the marital act, didn\u2019t\ndemand a better sari or a bigger home,\nor nag as he grew more helpless every day.\nEasy to laugh, invoking Brad & Angelina,\n\nPyramus & Thisbe. Still, on the night\nSelvakumar found himself rushing again\ndown the dark hole, who can say that Selvi\ndidn\u2019t guide him\u2009\u2014\u2009as Irmgard\u2019s husband\n\nled her to the doctor who dissolved the glueand saved her eye\u2009\u2014\u2009as Daniel\u2019s criesled rescuers to him, twelve feet underground,two miles from where he began\u2009\u2014\u2009\nled her to the doctor who dissolved the glue\nand saved her eye\u2009\u2014\u2009as Daniel\u2019s cries\nled rescuers to him, twelve feet underground,\ntwo miles from where he began\u2009\u2014\u2009\n\nas the son of Marjorie Potts Gaffrey\n(dead in her sleep at 99), by sprinkling\nhis mother\u2019s ashes in her favorite flower pot, \nled Marjorie to wake as an African violet,\n\nsun bright on her leaves as it wasin Daniel\u2019s and Irmgard\u2019s eyes, the dewof morning like the feel, as Selvakumar laydying in his bed, of Selvi\u2019s tongue.\nsun bright on her leaves as it was\nin Daniel\u2019s and Irmgard\u2019s eyes, the dew\nof morning like the feel, as Selvakumar lay\ndying in his bed, of Selvi\u2019s tongue.", "title": "Swept Away", "id": 58464, "author": "Charles Harper Webb"}
{"poem": "No chain link fences leapt in a single bound. No juke\nNo chain link fences leapt in a single bound. No juke\nmove Nike commercial, speeding bullet Skittles-hued\nCross Trainers. No brown skin Adonis weaving trails of\nCross Trainers. No brown skin Adonis weaving trails of\nindustrial Vaseline down a cobblestone street. Heisman-shucking\ntrash receptacles. Grand jet\u00e9 over the little blue recycling\ntrash receptacles. Grand jet\u00e9 over the little blue recycling\nbin, a prism of clouds rising beneath his feet. Nobody all-fucked\nin boot cuffs wide enough to cloak court appointed tethers.\nin boot cuffs wide enough to cloak court appointed tethers.\nOr slumped over, hoodie-shrouded\u2009\u2014\u2009sheepishly scary according to\none eye witness. Definitely not going to be your Louis V\none eye witness. Definitely not going to be your Louis V\nSweat Suit red carpet fashion review, coming at you live from E! \n& Fox News outside of the morgue. No chance for\n& Fox News outside of the morgue. No chance for\nhomeboy in the peekaboo boxer shorts. Homeboy with the frozen\nwrists. Iced. Homeslice with the paisley, Pretty Flacko Flag\nwrists. Iced. Homeslice with the paisley, Pretty Flacko Flag\nflying by the seat of low-slung denim\u2009\u2014\u2009no defense\nattorney gets to call me Gang Related. Tupac\nattorney gets to call me Gang Related. Tupac\nin a mock leather bomber. No statement taken\nfrom the Clint Eastwood of your particular planned\nfrom the Clint Eastwood of your particular planned\ncommunity, saying he had the right to stand his ground\nat the Super Target. Because my flat-billed, fitted cap\nat the Super Target. Because my flat-billed, fitted cap\ncast a shady shadow over his shoulder in the checkout line. No, siree.\nSee, I practice self target practice. There is no sight of me\nSee, I practice self target practice. There is no sight of me\nin my wears. I bedecked in No Wrinkle Dockers. Sensible\nnavy blazer. Barack Obama tie, Double Consciousness-\nnavy blazer. Barack Obama tie, Double Consciousness-\nknotted. Stock dandelion pinned to the skin of an American\nlapel with his head blown off.\nlapel with his head blown off.", "title": "Taking Aim at a Macy\u2019s Changing Room Mirror, I Blame Television", "id": 58490, "author": "Marcus Wicker"}
{"poem": "\u201cBut there were times when you offered your consent with older men. You chose them, & you were not afraid. Why not?\u201d\nYou don\u2019t know the true success of survival till you\u2019ve experienced the adrenaline of a too-close death. What is there to fear when you\u2019ve licked the edge? It is going to be an oppressively hot summer, the New York Post says, but I\u2019ve got a few of my own stowed away, enough to occupy a foreign desert.\nThere was one summer, his name was Tito and my sisters still say his name just like that, \u201cTee-toww,\u201d the O a benchmark in the bottom of the jaw. I was just 12 but the gaze itself made me a flame, so no one could tell, I guess,\nor no one would tell. He was the kind of heavy swelter that had the whole block at mercy, everyone\u2019s connect to whatever they needed, which was much and in bulk. Power is a switch that yokes me up at the waist\u2009\u2014\u2009I was young & enamored by this pattern of men who shouldn\u2019t want me but would risk day to touch the stark chant of me. Each time, I imagined a witchcraft enveloping the bone. I remember,\nonce, at some low hour in the trough* of that summer\u2009\u2014\u2009my mouth a voyaging boat, Tito\u2019s spine a current of illicit knots, his hand a spindle on the back of my coarse head\u2009\u2014\u2009he looks down at me, & moans out \u201cWho the fuck are you?\u201d\nI say, and the answer is always the same thereafter: nobody, who are you?\n*Okay, in any event, Elizabeth and I were in the pool, swimming and playing.", "title": "The Therapist Asks 3", "id": 58486, "author": "Camonghne Felix"}
{"poem": "Not that I understand things.\nAngels don\u2019t walk toward the ship, old engraving\nwhere moon throws\na river of light, how angels would walk the ocean\nif they wanted to walk.\nThey don\u2019t. They hover. A lot of space\nbetween them and what\nshines like waves. Which can\u2019t\nbe a choice, for angels or\nthe engraver who was in fact\nGustave Dor\u00e9 after sleeping off\nthe ancient mariner Coleridge left behind under\nguilt and regret and an albatross\u2019s weight.\nWhich isn\u2019t much, but they are\nbig animals, four feet across counting\nthe wind involved\nand rain. Dor\u00e9 waking to a room not\nreally of wings. I guess\na stirring, something in the black expanse\nhe hoped to razor into\nthe copper plate\u2009\u2014\u2009no, a graver,\nnot a razor at all.\nBeauty does terrify, a bare nothing\nbut stop. As in angels. Abrupt.\nStill, to cut them their flight on metal\ntakes a while. His hands stiff,\nDor\u00e9 under a deadline no doubt like the small \nendlessly later rest of us \ndo what we do and do until \nit\u2019s not what we do. \nNevertheless, angels. Why did they \nkeep coming, one by one radiant \ndark of a mind paused to \nthis most desolate given: water at night. \nThat it floods a future not \neven in the picture.\n", "title": "Water at Night", "id": 58478, "author": "Marianne Boruch"}
{"poem": "My father and brothers\nare swimming to the Rock.\n\u201cCome with us!\u201d\nthey call to me\nand I say,\n\u201cMaybe next year.\u201d\n\nThe Rock is very, very far away.\n\nI sit on the dock\nwith my peanut butter sandwich.\nI watch them\ndive into the water\nand swim into the distance\ntheir kicks and\u00a0\nsplashes and elbows\ngetting smaller and smaller\nas they near the Rock.\n\nIt takes them a long, long time.\n\nThey arrive and pull themselves to stand\nand wave their arms in the air.\nI can't see it but I know their hands are in fists.\nI can't hear it but I know they are cheering.\nEven the loons call to celebrate their arrival!\n\nI sit on my dock\ndangling my feet in the water\ncounting dragonflies.\n\nMy father and brothers\ncome closer\nand from the water\nlift their faces with\nwild wet smiles\nAnd I think\n\nThis year!\n", "title": "Swimming to the Rock", "id": 58531, "author": "Mary Atkinson"}
{"poem": "I will tell you what he told me\n in the years just after the war\n as we then called\n the second world war\n \u00a0\n don't lose your arrogance yet he said\n you can do that when you're older\n lose it too soon and you may\n merely replace it with vanity\n \u00a0\n just one time he suggested\n changing the usual order\n of the same words in a line of verse\n why point out a thing twice\n \u00a0\n he suggested I pray to the Muse\n get down on my knees and pray\n right there in the corner and he\n said he meant it literally\n \u00a0\n it was in the days before the beard\n and the drink but he was deep\n in tides of his own through which he sailed\n chin sideways and head tilted like a tacking sloop\n \u00a0\n he was far older than the dates allowed for\n much older than I was he was in his thirties\n he snapped down his nose with an accent\n I think he had affected in England\n \u00a0\n as for publishing he advised me\n to paper my wall with rejection slips\n his lips and the bones of his long fingers trembled\n with the vehemence of his views about poetry\n \u00a0\n he said the great presence\n that permitted everything and transmuted it\n in poetry was passion\n passion was genius and he praised movement and invention\n \u00a0\n I had hardly begun to read\n I asked how can you ever be sure\n that what you write is really\n any good at all and he said you can't\n \u00a0\n you can't you can never be sure\n you die without knowing\n whether anything you wrote was any good\n if you have to be sure don't write\n", "title": "Berryman", "id": 58530, "author": "W. S. Merwin"}
{"poem": "Stripes and stars,\nAntique cars,\nPretty girls,\nBaton twirls,\nSpangled gowns,\nFriendly clowns,\nSmiling folks,\nPapered spokes,\nMarching feet,\nEndless heat,\nClapping hands,\nHigh school bands,\nTown traditions,\nPoliticians,\nPerspiration,\nCelebration!\n", "title": "The Fourth of July Parade", "id": 58522, "author": "Fran Haraway"}
{"poem": "Santa needs new reindeer.\nThe first bunch has grown old.\nDasher has arthritis;\nComet hates the cold.\nPrancer's sick of staring\nat Dancer's big behind.\nCupid married Blitzen\nand Donder lost his mind.\nDancer's mad at Vixen\nfor stepping on his toes.\nVixen's being thrown out\u2014\nshe laughed at Rudolph's nose.\nIf you are a reindeer\nwe hope you will apply.\nThere is just one tricky part:\nYou must know how to fly.\n", "title": "Help Wanted", "id": 58519, "author": "Timothy Tocher"}
{"poem": "Katie kissed me!\nYuck, it's true!\nMy face took on a greenish hue!\nMy knees, like jelly, started shaking!\nThen my stomach started quaking!\nSlobber slithered down my cheek!\nMy consciousness was growing weak!\nMy ears were ringing, my head was spinning!\nBut, all the while Kate was grinning!\nMy heart was pounding through my shirt!\nMy tongue felt like I just ate dirt!\nThough you may think I've lost my brain!\nI wished she'd kiss me once again!\n", "title": "Katie Kissed Me", "id": 58520, "author": "Christine Lynn Mahoney"}
{"poem": "Cookies for sale!\nAnd cake! One dime!\nThat's what it says\non my cardboard sign.\nI pile cookies on a plate.\nI eat just one\nand then, I wait . . .\u00a0\nI taste the cake\n(one tiny slice)\nI squeeze the lemons\nand stir the ice;\nI count and stack\nthe paper cups . . .\u00a0\nfresh lemonade\nis coming up!\nI count the bruises\non my knee . . .\nwon't somebody buy something,\nplease?\n", "title": "My Lemonade Stand", "id": 58527, "author": "Rebecca Kai Dotlich"}
{"poem": "On Mother's Day it isn't smart\nTo give your mom a broken heart.\n\nSo here are thing you shouldn't say\nTo dear old mom on Mother's Day:\n\nDon't tell here that you'll never eat\nA carrot, celery, bean, or beet.\n\nDon't tell her you think smoking's cool.\nDon't tell her you've dropped out of school.\n\nDon't tell her that you've drowned the cat.\nDon't tell her that she looks too fat.\n\nDont't tell her when you're grown you'll be\nA starving poet\u2014just like me.\n", "title": "On Mother's Day", "id": 58518, "author": "Bruce Lansky"}
{"poem": "It's too soon for the front porch swing.\nNo crocuses are opeing.\nThe wind is from the north and chill.\n\nNo matter. Spring is here. I still\nAm bound to sit and swing out there\nAnd feel it in the evening air.\n\nIt's much too cold. The trees are lean\nAnd leafless\u2014not a sign of green.\nIt's foolishness to sit outside.\n\nThe mockingbird has testified\u00a0\nTo spring's existence, and I see\nThe buds are on the almond tree.\n\nI'm sure it's spring.\n\nHow do you know?\n\nI think a cricket told me so.\n", "title": "Swing", "id": 58521, "author": "Fran Haraway"}
{"poem": "Ants use antennae to seek out their tracks,\nBeavers gnaw trees for their lodge,\nCamels store food in the humps on their backs,\nDragonflies dazzle and dodge,\nElephant trunks furnish watery flings,\nFlamingoes eat shrimp to keep pink;\nGrasshoppers' ears appear under their wings,\nHummingbirds hover to drink,\nInchworms advance with a rear-ended loop,\nJellyfish sometimes can sting,\nKestrels catch lunch with a lightning-like swoop,\nLarks love to warble and sing,\nMoles tunnel intricate malls underground,\nNewts thrive in ponds filled with weed,\nOwls like to swivel their heads right around,\nPeople can learn how to read,\nQuetzals are gorgeous in feathery dress,\nRats have acquired a bad label,\nSeahorse appears like a figure in chess,\nTortoise found fame in a fable,\nUmber-birds thrive in the African wild,\nVipers can poison their prey,\nWorms turn the soil when the climate is mild,\nXylophage chews wood all day,\nYaks grow in horns that are gracefully curled,\nZorillas are striped black and white;\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 each zooabet creature is part of this world:\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 unique, with its own copyright!\n", "title": "Zoophabet: Ants to Zorillas", "id": 58528, "author": "Avis Harley"}
{"poem": "Arachis Hypogaea\u00a0may have been\nsmuggled to North America by slaves\nwho hid seeds of survival in their hair.\nDespite your nakedness, the chains, the stench,\nif white men did not eat you, you might come\nto a cruel land where, tended by moonlight\nand exhaustion, your seed might grow to be\nyour children's manna in the wilderness.\n\nArachis Hypogaea, or goober,\nan annual preferring warmth and sun,\nis an attractive plant, resembling clover.\nIt bears flowers of two distinct genders:\nthe staminate, or \u201cmale,\u201d yellow, pretty,\nand the inconspicuous pistillate \u201cfemale.\u201d\nWhen fertilized, the pistillate turns down\u00a0\nand corkscrews six inches into the ground.\n\nEach corkscrew, called a \u201cpeg,\u201d grows one to four\npeanuts in the soil near the mother plant;\neach shell two of her shots at infinity.\nFrom the laboratory of a slave emerged\na varied, balanced diet for the poor,\nstock foods, ink, paints, cosmetics, medicines ...\nPromise and purpose, the Ancestors' dream.\n\u201cThe Peanut Man,\u201d we say, and laugh at him.", "title": "Arachis Hypogaea", "id": 58526, "author": "Marilyn Nelson"}
{"poem": "In his careful welter of dried leaves and seeds,\nsoil samples, quartz pebbles, notes-to-myself, letters,\non Dr. Carver's bedside table\nnext to his pocket watch,\nfolded in Aunt Mariah's Bible:\nthe Bill of Sale.\nSeven hundred dollars\nfor a thirteen-year-old girl named Mary.\n\nHe moves it from passage\nto favorite passage.\nFifteen cents\nfor every day she had lived.\nThree hundred fifty dollars\nfor each son.\nNo charge\nfor two stillborn daughters\nburied out there with the Carvers' child.\n\nThis new incandescent light makes\nhis evening's reading unwaveringly easy,\nif he remembers to wipe his spectacles.\nHe turns to the blossoming story\nof Abraham's dumbstruck luck,\nof Isaac's pure trust in his father's wisdom.\nSeven hundred dollars for all of her future.\nHe shakes his head.\n", "title": "Bedside Reading", "id": 58525, "author": "Marilyn Nelson"}
{"poem": "Hybridization, cross-breeding, evolution:\nHe takes to new theories\nlike a puppy takes to ice cream.\nWe whisper that our Green-Thumb Boy\nis the black Mendel, that Darwin\nwould have made good use of Carver's eyes.\nSo clear his gift for observation:\nthe best collector I've ever known.\nI think we have an entirely new species\nof\u00a0Pseudocercospora.\nAnd always in his threadbare lapel\na flower. Even in January.\nI've never asked how.\n\nWe had doubts\nabout giving him a class to teach,\nbut he's done a bang-up job\nwith the greenhouse. His students\nsee the light of genius\nthrough the dusky window of his skin.\nJust yesterday, that new boy,\nwhat's-his-name, from Arkansas,\ntried to raise a ruckus when Carver\nput his dinner tray down.\nHe cleared his thorat, stared, rattled\nhis own tray, scraped his chair legs\nin a rush to move away. Carver\nate on in silence. Then the boys\nat the table the new boy had moved to\ncleared their throats, rattled their trays\nand scraped their chair legs as they got up\nand moved to Carver's table.\n\nSomething about the\nman does that, raises the best\nin you. I've never asked what.\nI guess I'll put his name next to mine\non that article I'm sending out.\n", "title": "Green-Thumb Boy", "id": 58524, "author": "Marilyn Nelson"}
{"poem": "Imagine a child at your door,\noffering to do your wash,\nclean your house, cook,\nto weed your kitchen garden\nor paint you a bunch of flowers\nin exchange for a meal.\nA spindly ten-year-old, alone\nand a stranger in town, here to go\nto our school for colored children.\nHis high peep brought tears:\nsleeping in a barn and all that,\nnary mama nor kin,\nbut only white folks\nhe left with their blessing,\nhis earthly belongings\nin a handkerchief tied to a stick.\n\nI've brought a houseful of children\ninto this world, concentrating on\nthat needle's eye into eternity.\nBut ain't none of them children mine.\nWell, of course I moved him on in.\nHe helped me with my washings,\nbrought me roots from the woods\nthat bleached them white folks' sheets\nbrighter than sunshine. He could fill\na canning jar with leaves and petals\nso when you lifted the lid\na fine perfume flooded your senses.\nWhite bodices and pantalettes danced\naround George on my line.\n\nHe was sweet with the neighbor children.\nTaught the girls to crochet.\nShowed the boys\na seed he said held a worm\ncupped hands warmed so it wriggled and set\nthe seed to twitching.\nGave them skills and wonders.\nKnelt with me at bedtime.\n\nHe was the child the good Lord gave\u00a0\nand took away before I got more\nthan the twinkle of a glimpse\nat the man he was going to be.\nIt happened one Saturday afternoon.\nGeorge was holding a black-eyed Susan,\ntalking about how the seed\nthis flower grew from\ncarried a message from a flower\nthat bloomed a million years ago,\nand how this flower\nwould send the message on\nto a flower that was going to bloom\nin a million more years.\nPraise Jesus, I'll never forget it.\n\nHe left to find a teach that knew\nmore than he knew.\nI give him my Bible.\nI keep his letters\nin the bureau, tied with a bow.\nHe always sends a dried flower.\n\n\n", "title": "Watkins Laundry and Apothecary", "id": 58523, "author": "Marilyn Nelson"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Cephalic", "id": 58254, "author": "Orlando White"}
{"poem": "Fall a scrimage of yellow leaves today\nAll over Lincoln Park\nLike the mask of the Yellow Mule who travels between the next\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 world and Tibet inside its house of glass in the Field\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Museum by the lake.\nI am carrying the night.\nI am carrying it as if it were a dark blue dish with stars\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0for the dinner of the Dalai Lama.\nIt is the sky two nights ago;\nIts voluptuous rich blue looks almost black before the word\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0for blue had been invented;\nThe clouds like continents, like huge, majestic prehistoric\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0creatures moving in a dance;\nThe stars are brilliant ants. \u00a0They may have died\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a billion years ago.\nI feel so happy. \u00a0 It is as if I'm with my wife who's making\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0sculpture miles and miles away on Ada Street.\nI like everything about her.\nThe way an angel, say, might look upon this early autumn scene\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and love everything about it for its reality\u2014\nThese trees flanking the lagoon at Fullerton are quiet as green fish,\nThe pale khaki maple leaf lying on the ground, its veins\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0intricate as the practice of a Tartar cavalry,\nIts delicacy like the penis of a cuttlefish,\nThe grass pale lime and brown as dreams when they are turning brown\nIs almost ghostly,\nThe way the family album on the table in the livingroom has\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a gallery of ghosts.\nThere is only wonder.\nLike the wonder in the worn thighbone of the dinosaur\nWe're allowed to touch\nAs often as we want on the Main Floor of the Field Museum.\nI bike along the lake and watch\nThe whiplash of the waves and think,\nI didn't have to be here in the first place: I could have been\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 a star:\nOr cuttlefish. The shadow of that tree. \u00a0Or been one of the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0bees of oblivion\nIn any ordinary orgasm.\nIf there were no moon our hearts could take its place.\n", "title": "Poem", "id": 58506, "author": "Paul Carroll"}
{"poem": "at my kitchen sink, the bathroom upstairs\n clogged with family from out of town\n spending the night after the wake \nand the after\u2014wake\u2014cold beverages\n have been consumed and comfort food,\n leftovers bulging both the fridge \nand the mini-fridge. In our fifties, both\n half-asleep half-awake, we face each\n other. My sister's smile foams white \ndown her chin at the end of a day \non which no one has smiled. We laugh. \nWe may never brush our teeth together again. \nNo mirror down here to see our haggard faces. \nWe rinse, we spit. As we were taught.\n", "title": "Brushing Teeth with My Sister after the Wake", "id": 58215, "author": "Jim Daniels"}
{"poem": "The sky hangs up its starry pictures: a swan, \na crab, a horse. And even though you\u2019re \nthree hundred miles away, I know you see \nthem, too. Right now, my side \nof the bed is empty, a clear blue lake \nof flannel. The distance yawns and stretches. \nIt\u2019s hard to remember we swim in an ocean \nof great love, so easy to fall into bickering \nlike little birds at the feeder fighting over proso \nand millet, unaware of how large the bag of grain is, \na river of golden seeds, that the harvest was plentiful, \nthe corn is in the barn, and whenever we\u2019re hungry,\n a dipperful of just what we need will be spilled . . .\n", "title": "Sustenance", "id": 58098, "author": "Barbara Crooker"}
{"poem": "The adults we call our children will not be arriving \nwith their children in tow for Thanksgiving. \nWe must make our feast ourselves, \n\nslice our half-ham, indulge, fill our plates, \npotatoes and green beans \ncarried to our table near the window.\n\n We are the feast, plenty of years, \narguments. I\u2019m thinking the whole bundle of it \nrolls out like a white tablecloth. We wanted \n\nto be good company for one another. \nLittle did we know that first picnic \nhow this would go. Your hair was thick, \n\nmine long and easy; we climbed a bluff \nto look over a storybook plain. We chose \nour spot as high as we could, to see\n\n the river and the checkerboard fields. \nWhat we didn\u2019t see was this day, in \nour pajamas if we want to, \n\nwrinkled hands strong, wine\n in juice glasses, toasting \nwhatever\u2019s next, \n\nthe decades of side-by-side, \nour great good luck.\n", "title": "Thanksgiving for Two", "id": 58040, "author": "Marjorie Saiser"}
{"poem": "For you can travel with a screaming red rolling bag \nand float unnoticed on conveyors, through terminals \n\nor you can lug half a moose rack from Maine \nto Minnesota, carry it like a broken wing through airports \n\nas my friend Gro did, and draw only the curious touches \nof children waiting at gates. But dare to travel with a guitar\n\n and invite confessions from strangers in pinstripe suits \nof garage band summers, invite winks, gotcha smiles, \n\nand devil's horns rock on gestures. Invite finger points \nand winks, the long tongue licks, and the rubberneck glance \n\nto check if you are someone famous. To dare to travel \nwith a guitar is to mark yourself charismatic megafauna \n\nof the airport terminal. Old friend, what else could I do\n but carry you? I have stored you in closets, propped you \n\nin corners, hunched over you late-nights, staring perplexed \nat the mysteries of your neck. Body of my body, string \n\nof my strings, see how the world began to hum and sing\n that day at thirteen when I opened the big birthday box.\n", "title": "Traveling with Guitar", "id": 58409, "author": "Debra Marquart"}
{"poem": "When it snows, he stands\nat the back door or wanders \naround the house to each \nwindow in turn and\nwatches the weather\nlike a lover. O farm boy,\nI waited years\nfor you to look at me\nthat way. Now we\u2019re old \nenough to stop waiting\nfor random looks or touches \nor words, so I find myself \nwatching you watching\nthe weather, and we wait\n together to discover\nwhatever the sky might bring.\n\n\n", "title": "Weather Man", "id": 58077, "author": "Patricia Traxler"}
{"poem": "I hold out my hand.\nI hand over\nand I pass on.\nI hold out my hand.\nI hold out my hand.\nI hand over\nand I pass on.\nSome call this mothering,\nthis way I begin each day by holding out my hand and then all day\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 long pass on.\nSome call this caretaking,\nthis way all day and all night long, I hold out my hand and take engine\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0oil additive into me and then I pass on this engine oil additive to\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0this other thing that once was me, this not really me.\nThis soothing obligation\nThis love.\nThis hand over\nand this pass on.\nThis part of me and this not really me.\nThis me and engine oil additive.\nThis me and not really me and engine oil additive.\nBack and forth.\n\nAll day long, like a lion I lie where I will with not really me\nand I bestow upon not really me\nrefractive index testing oils and wood preservatives.\nI lie with not really me all day long,\nand so I bequeath not really me a honeyed wine of flame retardants\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and fire preventing agents.\nI make a milk like nectar,\na honeyed nectar of capacitor dielectrics, dyes, and electrical insulation\nand I pass it on every two hours to not really me.\nNot really me is a ram perched on a cliff above a stream,\nunable to be quenched by the flame retardant in furniture.\nNot really me comes near\nand takes a nectar of insulated pipes, and some industrial paints.\nLater I pass the breast cup to not really me,\na breast cup filled with sound insulation panels and imitation wood\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 with a little nectar and sweetness.\nAnd not really me drinks it and then complains a little,\nrebuking me, for my cakes of nuts and raisins\nare cakes of extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas,\nfor my apples are filled with televisions and windshield wiper blades.\nOn my breast are the curls of not really me\nand against the brow of not really me wafts plasticizer used in heat\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0transfer systems.\nAs drinking not really me takes in anger and in need\nnot really me drinks from the hand of that sweetest sleep the juice of me\nthat cup of adhesives,\nthat cup of fire retardants,\nof pesticide extenders.\nAnd as not really me drinks\nI cradle the moon and not really me in my right hand\nmy lips kissing with the dedusting agents and wax extenders.\nThen later in the night,\nthe bed scattered with the stains of cutting oils and gas-transmission\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 turbines,\nthe blankets with blends of hydraulic fluid,\nwe lie there together\nhanding over and passing on\u00a0\nfilled up and attempting to think our way through\neconomics and labor and time and biology\nme and not really me\ntogether.\n\nI'd like to think we had agreed upon this together,\nthat we had a tradition,\nthat we agreed these things explained us to us\nbut when not really me wakes\nafter drinking the pharmaceuticals and photo chemicals\nnight after night\nand day after day\nnot really me will sing a song of rebuke,\nsing the song of not really me, the song that\ngoes like Salutations to brominated fire retardants of Koppers Ind.\ngoes like Salutations to water/oil repellant paper coating of 3M\ngoes like Salutations to wiper blades of Asahi\ngoes like Salutations to bike chain lubrication of Clariant International\ngoes like Salutations to wire and cable insulation of Daikin\ngoes like Salutations to pharmaceutical packaging of DuPont\ngoes like Salutations to nail polish of Dyneon\ngoes like Salutations to engine oil additive of Agrevo E\ngoes like Salutations to hair curling and straightening of Agsin Ptd. Ltd.\ngoes like Salutations to insecticide and termiticide for empty green-\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 houses of Chevron Chemical\ngoes like Salutations to greenhouse flowers of Monsanto\ngoes like Salutations to insecticide to kill fire ants of Rigo Co.\ngoes like Salutations to plasticizers of US Borax Inc.\nNot really me's song will go on and on\nNot really me will sing it all night long\nhour after hour for weeks on end.\nIt will have eighty-five company names in it.\nIt will have twenty-one chemical functions in it.\nIt will have ninety-seven products in it.\nIt will have two hundred trade names in it.\nNot really me's song will rotate through these names in all their\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0combinations.\nAnd then it will end with another part that is as long as the first and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0inventories the chemicals that not really me does not yet know.\nBut oh those of you who are not really me at all\nI say let wisdom be your anvil and knowledge your hammer.\nHand this over.\u00a0\nPass this on.\n\n\n", "title": "Tradition", "id": 58499, "author": "Juliana Spahr"}
{"poem": "Sometimes it feels like it is over and it's not.\nSometimes it feels like it has just begun and it's over.\n\n\nIt's dark often at these times.\nUrban though, so a certain version of light too.\nIt's hard to predict if it will start on time or how late.\nI'm often a little late and it has started. Last night, I could tell from the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 copters overhead that I was late.\u00a0\nAs I walked up, the blocks around it were emptying out.\nParents pulled their children home.\nThe night herons settled into trees.\nThat's the outer ring.\nAs I got closer, all that was left were the blinking lights of the motor-\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 cycles blocking the intersections and the men and few women in\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 uniforms that mill about the corner, helmets in their hands. They\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 talked among themselves. Ignored me mainly. One told me how to\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 get around. I did not clarify that I was walking towards.\u00a0\nYou can hear it sometimes. It often has a soundtrack. Sometimes it has\u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0drums and brass. Sometimes just joy.\nWhen I am late I am trying to guess its path. Last night, several times I\u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0got close to it only to be turned back by a line of cops.\n\n\nThey let the media through but turned me back.\nThen it turned the corner and there it was.\nAt that moment, I melted my body into it and it embraced me.\nRosy fingered dusk and all that.\nCome here, it sang, listen.\nAnd then I was borne along by the waves all night and the whirlpool,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the fig tree, and I was the bat, hanging on patiently.\nAarav came up and hugged me.\nSomeone grabbed me from behind and I thought it is Artem but later\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0realized it was Berat. So much mask.\nI grabbed Charlotte's hand and held it for a while when things felt\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0dicey.\nIt felt dicey as they cornered us from two sides and we went down the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0tight side street, up the hill. Charlotte's hand.\nIt's like that.\nMoving from isolation to the depths of friends.\n\n\nAt first we didn't mask up. We were poets.\nThen slowly one by one we did.\nAs we got turnt.\nAs I got turnt I mean.\nSometimes I still don't mask up. It often feels hubristic.\nI keep a bandana in my pocket.\nIt isn't super effective. It falls down a lot.\nLast night, I tied it around my neck as we walked up the side street hill.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I pulled it over my face as I walked past the line of cops. I noticed\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Emma there, throwing eggs. I ducked. Two balloons filled with\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 paint flew by. Visors suddenly yellow.\n\n\nShe said to me, how is your heart?\nAnd I at first worried her question.\nThen I realized she meant my heart and how it was turnt.\nIt is good, I said, I am opening it; I am expanding it.\nAnd I meant it.\nI love you I texted Felix.\nLub u!!!!!! I texted Haruto.\nTexting Isabella and Jackson, I love you guys.\nI miss you.\nI texted love you some forty-three times in the last few years.\nI texted <3 some thirty-three times.\nLub u, eighteen times.\nMiss you, thirty-eight.\n\n\nShe said your feed is all riots, plants, picnics, and poets.\nIt was an accusation.\nShe was noticing that I had got turnt.\nAnd I said, my son, my son is in my feed too.\nI didn't bother to argue the riot with her.\n\n\nStill, oh that moment.\nTurnt moment:\n\n\nI was at the poetry reading and Mia didn't go. She was supposed to\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0read too but she didn't. She said she wanted to see what happens.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Then she texts I love you and I know then that Trader Joe's has\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0been looted. All the wines out in the street.\nSuch sweet elixir, FOMO.\nThen the rest of that night.\nWe quickly say good-byes after the reading, refuse the offer of going to\u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 drinks, careen from the reading to our home. One of us on twit-\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ter the entire time. Texting too. While we are driving, one of us at\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 home runs out into the streets, towards the gas. I drive up and two\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of us get out of the car and I stay in the car and drive the few blocks\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 home. My son has fallen asleep in the back. I am coughing in the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 car from the gas. He sleeps through it. I take him out and carry him\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 up to bed. More texts. I love you, I text. Come by and get me when\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 you are done.\n\n\nLater that night, I go out again. Miguel stays home with Minjoon. I go\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 to a fight party; Marxist v. Nihilist. No one knows which is which.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Mohamed, my fighting teacher, fights. I miss it. I love you I text.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 She texts back I'm high on being slugged; my eyes are swollen; I\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 lost; I'm turnt.\nStanding outside, a woman gets kicked out of the club. The bouncer\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 tosses her out and into us. She is fucked up. And this feels awful to\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 her. Her arms wildly swinging indicate this awful feeling. It feels\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 awful to us. Another woman tries to help her and she slugs her. She\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 misses and the woman who she has tried to slug takes her, calms\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 her down. I hear her saying I love you, I love you over and over.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Later I will learn that she spent the entire night talking the woman\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 down. It's like that. When turnt, sometimes one needs to be held.\nStill later, I stand on the street, outside my house and watch the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 t-mobile get looted. A man tries to stop another man who has\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 his hammer at the ready in front of the window. The man who is\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 attempting to stop the hammer gets hit in the face with the butt\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of the hammer. I decide to go to bed. It is 3 am. I text Nathan and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 say I love you and I'll leave the key in the box for you. The march\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 continues on, Nathan continues on, turns left a block away and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 then when Nathan texts me back I know the Whole Foods is looted\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and they are all drinking champagne, dancing. All of them will get\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 a cold later.\nRiot champagne becomes a term among us that winter.\nI wasn't there but I was there too. My germs were there.\nI too had that cold.\n\n\nIs this poem too heroic?\nI am sorry.\nI worry it is.\nOr I know it is.\nWe are turnt to mere vandals at moments. I'll admit it.\nEvery computer in that shop.\nEvery phone in that one.\nEvery car in that car lot.\n\n\nI don't want it to be heroic but last night I turned the corner and Nor\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 was there with her bike and when I saw her I said I love you and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 we walked down the street as each window was cracked. They got\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 turnt. Eventually we disperse. I jog for a few minutes away and out\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of the kettle. We joke, circle back to watch a car burn. Oliver walks\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 by. He is hurrying towards the dispersal. I love you we say to him as\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 he heads off. The car burns. The fire truck arrives. As I stand there\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 watching it, it is as if everyone I ever texted I love you to walks\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 by. I love you we call out to each other.\nA group of women walk by the car and stop to take photographs. So\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 much joy they have. They are laughing with such triumph. Selfies\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and all. Turnt.\n\n\nThis poem is true. I have texted I love you and its variations over\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and over.\nSometimes I barely knew you.\nBut the names are not true.\nThis is not a coterie poem.\nIs it a milieu poem?\nCan it be a movement poem?\nI took all the names of this poem and never wrote them in.\nThere is no electronic record of them.\nI found a list of the most popular baby names for various countries in\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 2015, the year in which I am writing this poem. I made a list, one\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 male and one female from each list. Then I alphabetized it. And I\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 put those names in this poem one by one. I got to O.\nBut Olivia, Saanvi, Santiago, Seoyeon, Sofia, Yui, and Zeynep, I love\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 you too.\n\n\n", "title": "Turnt", "id": 58500, "author": "Juliana Spahr"}
{"poem": "My copy of The Fireside Book of Verse\nis as the seller promised\u2014the stapled spine,\nthe paper aged to Army tan\u2014no worse\nfor wear, given the cost of its design,\nsix cents to make and printed on a press\nonce used for magazines and pulp. This book\nwas never meant to last a war much less\nthree quarters of a century.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I look\nfor evidence of all the men who scanned\nthese lines, crouched down in holes or lying in\ntheir racks. I read the poems secondhand.\nSomeone has creased the page. Did he begin\nthen stop to sleep? to clean his gun perhaps?\nto listen to the bugler playing taps?\n", "title": "Armed Services Editions", "id": 58505, "author": "Jehanne Dubrow"}
{"poem": "Here again\nat the edge of what was,\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the river held back\nby the stones it has carried,\n\nthe knife in your hand\nbrimming\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 rain. Inside this day\nwithout beginning or end, it cannot\n\nstand still inside you.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0One day I'll leave\u2014not you\nbut all this\u2014this hunger\n\nthat pushes each wave.\n", "title": "Belly of the Beast", "id": 58445, "author": "Nick Flynn"}
{"poem": "It is dynamic positioning that\nAllows a semi-submersible the\n\nAbility to hover there over\nThe well. It is a thirty-six inch tube,\n\nA casing, that extends down to allow\nThe drill and bit to be rotated there;\n\nThe drill then spudding in; the seafloor, dark,\nAnd giving way. It is a thick column\n\nOf drilling mud that keeps natural gas\nAnd oil beneath the seafloor while the well\n\nIs capped and it is a cement that\nFills in the casing so the drill pipe stays\n\nUnmoving, stable, in this ever moving sea.\nIt is a sort of drilling mud that is\n\nThen pumped through the drill pipe and out through\nThe drill bit then up through the casing and\n\nThen back up to the oil rig in the space\nBetween the drill pipe and the inner wall.\n\nIt is a blowout preventer, a series of valves\nThat seal off the excessive pressure should\n\nThe wellhead kick then blowout. There are all\nThese variables. Various valves. Pressures.\n\nBuoyancies. Mixes of cements. Currents. Claims.\nHumans. Bow spring. Top plug. Shoe track. Floatshoe.\n\nI could go on and on here calling the\nNew muses of innovation, common\n\nVocabulary, that covers over the\nElaborate simplicity of this,\n\nThis well, Macondo well, was drilled by\nDeepwater Horizon and it went through\n\nFive thousand feet, through the abyssal zones,\nThe epipelagic with its sunlight\n\nThe mesopelagic with its twilight\nThe bathypelagic with its midnight\n\nThen where the sea meets floor, the deep ocean,\nA blowout preventer there with the fish,\n\nThe darker fish, the large detritevars\nThat feed on the drizzle of the moulted\n\nExoskeletons, the carnivores, snipe eels\nBig lantern fish, and zooplankton, corals.\n\nThis well then went on reaching for the oil\nAnother thirteen thousand feet. When it hits\n\nThe pay zone, down through it, down deeper, deep.\nThis well, Macondo well, was exploratory.\n\nThis story then begins with other wells,\nBut I will tell the story of This Well:\n\nIn April twenty ten, the setting south\nAnd east of Louisiana's long coast.\n\nIt begins with a round of tests, some done\nAnd some avoided. An environmental\n\nImpact and blowout plan declared to be\nNot necessary. Drilling easy. Then\n\nOn April twenty, bled off five barrels\nOf fluid, reduced drill pressure. No flow.\n\nAt noon, a drill pipe goes in hole so as\nTo begin mud displacement. Seawater\n\nThen pumped in to displace mud. Kill line\nNot bled. It goes on like this. Partial lab\n\nResults, a circulation pressure that\nDid not yet match the modeling results\n\nAnd yet cement job pumped. Fluid returns\nObserved. Bottom plug ruptured. Still the\n\nCement is pumped so it bumps top wiper plug\nAt twelve thirty. Then two pressure tests.\n\nThe drill pipe run in hole to eight thousand\nAnd three hundred and sixty seven feet.\n\nSo mud displacement starts, the seawater\nIs pumped, then the spacer, then the fresh\n\nWater. The kill line opened and pressure then\nDecreased. Drill pipe pressure increased.\n\nThe kill line shut in. Mud offloading done.\nIt goes on. Drill pipe pressure. Kill line open.\n\nThen drill pipe pressure high again. Then sea-\nWater is pumped. Kill line full. Kill line\n\nOpened, bled to mini trip tank. Flow\nIs stopped. Kill line monitored. It\n\nIs then open. No flow. Considered\nA good test. Blowout preventer open-\n\nEd, seawater then pumped down the drill\nPipe to displace the mud and spacer from\n\nThe riser. It is nine o'clock. The flow\nOut from the well increased. Trip tank then\n\nEmptied. Then fluids discharged overboard. Pumps\nRestarted. Drill pipe pressure on constant\n\nIncrease. It goes on like this. Pump number\nTwo started. Pressure spike. Then pumps two, three,\n\nAnd four are shut down. Pump one still online.\nThen pumps three, four restarted. Pressure build-\n\nIng, pump two. Pumps shut down. First pump three, four,\u00a0\nThen one. Then drill pipe pressure fluctuates.\n\nIncreases. Then decreases. Then again\nIncreases. Then held briefly, then again\n\nDecreases. A repair begins. At some\nMoment hydrocarbons enter the bot-\n\nTom of the well undetected and rise\nInside the wellbore, growing quickly as\n\nThey meet the lower pressure of the sur-\nFace, heavy drill mud, other fluids, sea-\n\nWater, all pushed by the rising and\nExpanding gases followed by more,\n\nBy high pressure oil, gases, other flu-\nIds, all there rising, swelling in\n\nThe wellbore, all there, pushing from the\nReservoir. It is almost at ten\n\nO'clock when mud begins its overflow-\nIng of the line and then on the rig floor.\n\nIt is almost at ten o'clock when mud\nThen shoots up through the derrick. It is almost\n\nAt ten o'clock, diverter shut so that\nThe gas and drilling fluid could be routed\n\nTo the baffle plates, the poorboy degass-\nEr, then the lower annual prev-\n\nEnter is activated. The drill press-\nUre, the volumes of gases, fluids, drill-\n\nIng mud, seawater, then is steadily in-\nCreasing. And it begins again. Or be-\n\nGins some more. First as mud. A mud that roar-\nIng, rained. Then the gas as it discharge-\n\nIng, hissing, the poorboy degasser fill-\nIng. Next the first gas alarm then the oth-\n\nErs. It was then almost close to ten o'\nClock, still when next a roaring noise, a vib-\n\nRation, engines began rapid increase-\nIng as also the drill pipe pressure rap-\n\nIdly increasing as the rig then los-\nIng power, shut down processes then fail-\n\nIng. First explosion on five seconds aft-\nEr. Then explosion again, ten sec-\n\nOnds later. It was not yet ten\nO'clock when the mayday call was first made.\n\nThe Deepwater Horizon gutted stem\nTo stern. What happens next ends with eleven\n\nDead. The rig tethered still to the deepwell.\nThe shrapnel. The lightbulbs then popping. The\n\nHeat. Hot fireballs. The lifeboats smoke filled ovens.\nSome lifeboats left, not yet full. Those left\n\nBehind then jumped in to oil-covered,\nStill water and so swam away. Some died:\n\nJason Anderson. Bubba Burkeen. Shane\nM. Roshto. Donald Clark. Wyatt Kemp. Karl\n\nDale Kleppinger. Gordon Lewis Jones. Keith\nBlair Manuel. Dewey Revette. Adam\n\nWeise. Stephen Ray Curtis. I will not tell\nYou their lives, their loves, their young children, their\n\nRelationship to oil. Our oil. The well\nExploded. They then died. Some swam away.\n\nSome floated away in boats. Donald Vidrine,\nCurt Kuchta, Jimmy Wayne Harrell. I did\n\nNot die. I watched it then burn on a\nFlat screen. Anthony Brian Hayward, Steven\n\nL. Newman, David Lesar watched. And\nSusan Birnbaum too, watching.\n\n\n\n\n", "title": "Dynamic Positioning", "id": 58498, "author": "Juliana Spahr"}
{"poem": "They say you are made of clouds, they say you \nare made of feathers, they say you are everywhere \nor nowhere\u2014we know you are both. Our flight\nis delayed, this airport another nowhere. If this\nis your final destination, the air murmurs, if\na stranger or anyone you do not know well offers you\nanything\u00a0... but how well & what's he offering &\nis this our final destination? At the hotel a man\nhands us the key to room three one three\u2014home\nfor a week or so. On the lobby tv a woman once\napparently enormous holds her old jeans up to her\nbody & smiles. Neil Diamond sings & when I go in-\nto the bathroom he follows. Everybody has one.\nParadise is cloudless, they say, impossible to know.\nYesterday a man was sucked into the earth as he\nslept\u2014a sinkhole opened below his bed\u2014not even\nhis brother could save him. In the hotel restaurant\nmy daughter orders corn flakes, they come with a\u00a0\npitcher of milk, she pours nearly all of it into her bowl,\nuntil I stop her she will keep on pouring. Three more\ntvs are screwed into the wall above us\u2014a car goes\nround & round, a pitcher throws a baseball, a woman\nslams her racket to the clay. My daughter pushes her\nbowl away, picks two packets of jelly from the basket,\npulls the plastic off one, then the other, lifts each to\u00a0\nher tongue\u2014red, then purple. The wallpaper is\nthe texture of trees, a landscape seen from above,\na contour map of an unnamed mountain, people\nwandering the face of it. If we were closer we could tell\nriver from leaf, mountain from shadow, a fire making,\nunmaking itself. What is this strand of DNA between\nus, unconnected to & of the shadows parading past, our\noutlines already chalked into the earth? I live\non air & light, I drag my daughter everywhere,\nthis morning she muttered Federer\u00a0Federer\u00a0Federer\nlike a spell & it was as if he stood before us again, his\nperfect red jersey. How many mornings, the sun not yet\nup, did I swivel on the red stool at the supermarket\nlunch counter, my mother in back extruding donuts,\nthe aisles dark & empty behind us\u2014she'd bundled me\ninto the car still sleeping to get there. I'd twirl or\nwander or make toast, contemplating the basket\nof butter & jelly, each in its little wasteful tub,\nimpervious to air or time or decay. Angel of Grape,\nyour purple body not only filled those coffins\nbut took the shape of those coffins\u2014emptiness made\nwhole, color now a shape. Angel, my daughter now\nwants only you, she asks for the whole basket, she\npulls back each sheet, puts her tongue in\u2014\nstrawberry is her favorite, because it tastes\u00a0\nlike strawberry.\n\n\n", "title": "If This is Your Final Destination", "id": 58448, "author": "Nick Flynn"}
{"poem": "The cause of death seems to have been\nstarvation\u2014his throat closed\n\n& so he was no longer able to swallow. On his\ndeathbed he was editing The Hunger\n\nArtist,\u00a0which, perhaps ironically (perhaps\nnot), he'd begun working on before he was\n\nfelled. My father\n\nwill, the doctor tells me, also starve to death,\nhe also cannot swallow I have said no\n\nto the feeding tube because I imagine that is\nwhat I would want someone to say for me,\n\nbut really, how the fuck do I know? The fact\n\nthat I am the one who will pull the plug on him\n& that I will pull it with one simple word\n\nis in the realm of the unbearable, but\napparently\n\nI will bear it. The doctor promises to make him\ncomfortable, which means\n\nmorphine...nowadays this is how the plug\nis pulled. Afterward,\n\nthe money he buried under that tree,\nthe take from all his bank jobs, all of it\n\nwill come to me, if I can just get him to draw me\na map, if I can find the tree, if I can find\n\nhis shovel. And the house, the mansion he\u00a0\ngrew up in, soon a lawyer will pass\n\na key across a walnut desk, but even this\nlawyer will not be able to tell me where this\n\nmansion is. And my father's masterpieces, his\nmany novels, mine\n\nnow to publish\u2014I don't have to tell anyone\nI didn't write them, not a word.\n\n\n", "title": "Kafka", "id": 58446, "author": "Nick Flynn"}
{"poem": "\u00a0\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Petals\n\u00a0\non a river, a tree in blossom, one\npink bud\u2014unopened\u2014falls\n\n& is carried downstream & out\nto sea. From\n\nabove the other petals seem to\u00a0\ncarry it. Closer\u2014\n\nthis is our map, these our\nfootprints, we\n\ngrew up drinking this water. At the\nstart there\n\nwas doubt, we lit a torch, no one\nbelieved we would\n\nmake it. Closer\u2014\n\nthe legs, the heart, the lungs. It's\ntoo soon to say\n\nwe were lucky, it's too soon to say\nanything\n\nuntil the cloud is pulled back\nfrom the sky, until the ringing is\n\npulled back from the bells. Look\u2014\neveryone we've ever known\n\nruns without thinking\nnot away but into the cloud, where we are\n\nwaiting", "title": "Marathon", "id": 58450, "author": "Nick Flynn"}
{"poem": "This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.\nThe trees of the mind are black. Their irregular branches,\nlike broken arms backlit from MRI dye, offset by yearning.\nThey take form in ways only experts can decipher.\nThe light is blue. The observation of the alien doctor\nflickers in his iris, furnace gaslight burning like a pagan memorial.\n\nThe grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God,\nI pity their need for idolatry. It bares itself only to the void of me,\nPrickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.\nI am unable to convince them otherwise.\nI hear them mew and compete as if for a rough teat's clear nutrition.\nFoolish rule of the organic, uncultured and out of control.\nI am mum and tidy as a nun in comparison.\nThough capable of devastation are my desires which punish\nthe landscape with recrimination, uprooting the hedges.\nThey swallow fire, speak in four languages, and love no one.\nI shudder with pride as they push themselves back to their origin,\nto the scraped-out bottom of a uterine nothing;\nthis hard loneliness, skull-solid, pushed back into vagueness\nuntil it succumbs as if overwhelmed by barbiturates.\u00a0\n\nFumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place\nSeparated from my house by a row of headstones.\nIts green vapors trigger an olfactory d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu like a recurrent nightmare.\nI envy the buried faces finally freed from worry and ailment,\nfrom the pressure to remain always forward-thinking.\nI picture their release, the prostrate bodies floating up as if levitated.\nWhat peace, what stillness was shoveled onto their pine box beds\nwhere darkness then dropped, all at once, final as an execution.\nI simply cannot see where there is to get to.\n\nThe moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,\nWhite as a knuckle and terribly upset. I identify with its nausea.\nIt meets me in the mirror uninvited, this face beneath my face,\nrestless and unwilling. It formulates inside me like a kicking fetus\nand refuses to be ignored. It haunts and threatens like a past trauma.\nIt drags the sea after it like a dark crime; mute as a mug shot,\nit is quiet, like someone suffocated who suddenly stops struggling.\nI recognize in its warm death the expression of the starving\nWith the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.\n\nAgainst me a force, not stronger or more intelligent,\nbut more adaptable to poor weather like dandelions.\nI can feel it whittle me down to horse feed pellets.\nI'm being winnowed out of the earth's circulation,\nwith a pairing incremental as this winter's passing.\nTwice on Sunday the bells startle the sky\u2014\nEight great tongues affirming the Resurrection.\nI'm forced to listen to the liturgical lecturing,\ntruant student of a catechism I loathe.\nAt the end, they soberly bong out their names;\nMyths and ideals I could never bring myself to believe in,\nmy prayers, the self-flagellation of unrequited love.\n\nThe yew tree points up like a New England steeple.\nIt has a Gothic shape. It used to remind me of home.\nThe eyes lift after it and find the moon.\nOnce fragile as rice paper, it hangs static and tough\nlike a noose signifying more hardship ahead\u2014\ninterrogating flashlight that hurts my eyes.\nNow no home exists\u2014just an empty bed,\na pile of mangled sheets atop a dark wood floor,\nlike snow atop the frozen mud tracks of hoof and wheel.\n\nThe moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.\nShe licks her white feathers and stares back with one eye\nvicious as a swan about to bite.\nHer blue garments unloose small bats and owls.\nI watch, my leg caught in the truth of my life\nwhere beyond human emotion I've traveled at this point.\n\nHow I would like to believe in tenderness\u2014\nin those symbolic unions that elicit sweet concepts:\nmother and child, father and daughter, husband and wife.\nThe face of the effigy, gentled by candles,\nits cheekbones flushed with an afterworld favoritism\nBending, on me in particular, its mild eyes;\nhair waving, mouth parted in mid-speech like drowned Ophelia.\n\nI have fallen a long way. I lie at the bottom, smashed\nlike a dinner plate against kitchen tile, china chips and jagged bits.\nI lie at the bottom, shattered and dangerous, looking up\nwith a baby's stunned engrossment. I'm moving closer to Pluto and Mars.\nClouds are flowering blue and mystical over the face of the stars,\u2014\nIt will not be quick. Death drinks me in, slow as syrup.\n\nInside the church, the saints will be all blue.\nThey've ascended into heaven's oxygen-deprived morgue.\nFloating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,\nTheir hands and faces stiff with holiness,\nmannequins perennially enacting the nativity in a wax museum.\nThe moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild\nas one dying of cancer. She begs for relief, but her pillow-muffled\nshrieks disperse with the other sounds and shadows of the night.\nWe are left alone, her cadaver face, gaunt and grim, prescient of mine.\nAnd the message of the yew tree is blackness\u2014blackness and silence.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Sylvia Plath, \"The Moon and the Yew Tree,\"\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Ariel (New York: Harper & Row, 1961)\n\n\n\n\n", "title": "The Moon and the Yew Tree", "id": 58441, "author": "Tory Dent"}
{"poem": "\"If you cut off my hands, I'll offer you my stumps.\"\nIf you knock out my teeth, I'll still go down on you, conscientiously,\nvine along a trellis, and suck you with my gums.\u00a0\nIf you smash my toes, employing an ice crusher, one by one,\nI'll heal myself with such truancy that someday I'll run on my knees.\n\n\"If you cut off my hands, I'll offer you my stumps,\"\nand orchestrate a standing ovation with the memory of my hands\nrepresenting each that are dying, each that are dead,\neach forgotten that we refuse to remember like the lost hands of stumps.\nSo much misery in plain sight like tears streaming down a face;\nso much misery hidden like the eventuality of the anti-Christ;\nand so much incognito like the accompanying instruments of a torch song:\nlike the fire in the torch itself, like the torched interior of the song.\n\nIf you cut off my ears, I will listen with my eyes\nto the spitting death of cavalrymen as they're roasted over an open fire;\nto the smallest bones snap, dry as sun-seasoned kindling\nof the young and truant witch when she's pressed by a thousand stones;\nto the brave convulsions of the communist\nstrapped in the electric chair, dying by degree...not unlike the commonfolk\nplucked from the village, arbitrarily, one last December night,\nstripped to the flesh and heaved high into the freezing air\nupon a whittled stave, tall and sharp, thrust deep into the asshole\nthey die by degree, ever so slowly and often only\n(if not by freezing first, which, if merciful, God deems)\nwhen the wooden point finally pierces the brain, brain-dead already\nfrom the mauve anticipation and ear-splitting prerequisite of pain.\n\nIf you cut out my tongue, I will write you a letter,\na love letter lovelorn for that taste of your tongue.\nIf you fuck me hard I can never make love again,\nI'll plant hyacinth bulbs in an effort to replace my abolished fecundity.\nI will turn eternally on my side and pull down my pants\nand listen to your masturbate while fantasizing about my ass.\nI'll admire the willow out the window when I hear you come\nand allow as if in tribute to the times I used to participate,\na vague expression of pleasure, albeit contrived to wash across my face\nthe way my desire for you, real as a willow, once had done.\n\n\n", "title": "The Murder of Beauty / The Beauty of Murder", "id": 58440, "author": "Tory Dent"}
{"poem": "", "title": "Philip Seymour Hoffman", "id": 58449, "author": "Nick Flynn"}
{"poem": "tell the flowers\u2014they think\nthe sun loves them.\nThe grass is under the same\nsimple-minded impression\n\nabout the rain, the fog, the dew.\nAnd when the wind blows,\nit feels so good\nthey lose control of themselves\n\nand swobtoggle wildly\naround, bumping accidentally into their\nslender neighbors.\nForgetful little lotus-eaters,\n\nsolar-powered\nhydroholics, drawing nourishment up\nthrough stems into their\nthin green skin,\n\nhigh on the expensive\nchemistry of mitochondrial explosion,\nbelieving that the dirt\nloves them, the night, the stars\u2014\n\nreaching down a little deeper\nwith their pale albino roots,\nall Dizzy\nGillespie with the utter\nsufficiency of everything.\n\nThey don't imagine lawn\nmowers, the four stomachs\nof the cow, or human beings with boots\nwho stop to marvel\n\nat their exsquisite\nflexibility and color.\nThey persist in their soft-headed\n\nhallucination of happiness.\nBut please don't mention it.\nNot yet. Tell me\nwhat would you possibly gain\n\nfrom being right?\n", "title": "Please Don't", "id": 58454, "author": "Tony Hoagland"}
{"poem": "Here, at\nyour feet, all the gargoyles of heaven\u2014\nkneel upon your furnace, their tongues\n\nworship you. You can love only one, the one\nyou rest your hand upon, his head so\n\nsharp, his sulphur breath...Even now a saint \nmakes his way up your steps, on his\n\nknees he is coming, he will find you,\nwith his sword he will kill the beasts, all of them\u2014\n\nhe swears this will save you.\r \n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2022\n\nEarlier, a deer stood by the side of the road\ndeciding whether or not to kill me. I cannot\n\nblame her, I cannot blame anyone\u2014many\nanimals were hurt in the production of this book\n\njust as many trees were hurt & all\nthe clouds. Open any book\n\n& the cloud above you bursts into\nflame, you know this & yet nothing\n\nstops you, the sky stuck to the end of your finger\nas you point to it.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2022\n\nThis is how it works\u2014the master does not\nbow before his servant, he does not\n\nstand naked before her robes, his hands\nare empty yet he does not offer\u2014\n\nnot even a cupful\u2014of his emptiness,\nhow could he? How could\n\nthe world then keep spinning? He made his money\n(as they say) the old-fashioned way, meaning\n\nhe earned it, meaning slaves, meaning\ngo fuck yourself.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2022\n\nGeometry deals with properties of space. Figs\n(a \"multiple fruit\") are like strawberries\n\nonly inside out\u2014its skin is\na receptacle. Saint Francis didn't eat\n\nfor forty days, until his body erupted & now\nwe call it ecstasy. Years later\n\nFrankenstein found a way\nto raise the dead. Friend, his creation\n\nmutters, flower.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2022\n\nA storm will come the radio says find a ditch\n& lie facedown in it. Find your ditch & lie\n\nfacedown & pray we will all lie down\n& pray after all there's only so many places\n\nto hide. We all need help the land is vast\n& dense & full of eyes & so many flowers the soil\n\ninside us is darker than oil lie down in it\n& pray.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2022\n\nRemember: it's not that everything has to look like\nsomething else, or even remind you\n\nof something else\u2014everything\nis something else. This is the story\n\nwe've been telling ourselves\nsince we could speak. Possess\n\nnothing, Francis says. Do good\neverywhere. No one believes\n\nthose wings will lift you.\n\n\n\n", "title": "Put the Load on Me", "id": 58447, "author": "Nick Flynn"}
{"poem": "\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I\n\nThis is a place without a terrain a government that always\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 changes an unstable language. Even buildings disappear\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 from day to day.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 changes an unstable language. Even buildings disappear\n\n[gendered pronoun] wanders in this place\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[searching\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 [waiting\n\nthe condition of unbearableness is the constant state of mind\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 for all occupants\n\nwe read all day in the village square during the rule of [name\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of major historical figure] a book that is so subtle\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[its political content goes unnoticed\n\nwhat is political content?\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 [the question or the statement\n\n[gender pronoun] creates\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 [a reader culture\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 [generic plural pronoun] prefer both\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 II\n\nrealism's authenticities are not the question\n\nthe question [role of art in the State\n\nwe know art is fundamental to the [New State] as is evidenced\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in village scenes, majestic ancient views, masses and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0masses of [generic human figures] marching in columns,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0swords coded as plowshares, image as spectacle\n\nwe kn0w [name of city], [adjective], [name of major composer]\nto recode [reduce] it: Linz, ambiguous, Wagner\n\nwe know [name of major historical figure] calls, authentically,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0for a more total, more radical war than we can even\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0dream in the language of the avant-garde\n\nwe know a commercial promises to reduce plaque more\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0effectively in this same tone\n\nbut sometimes we exceed even our own expectations to\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 surprise even ourselves\n\nsomething encloses the impossible in a fable\n\nan unreal world called real because it is so heavily metaphoric\n\nwe can't keep our fingers of connection out of it\nit is a ride in the country, the car crowded with children\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[each child represents a different\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ethnicity of [name of nation]it is a moment of standing with light resonating around [major\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 historical figureit is a guiding of the child towards the right pathit is a picnic in a field, the spread is bountiful[the spread of [name of nation] is represented through the\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 arrangement of food on the checkered tableclothit is [name of major historical figure]'s Art Collection:\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0figure after figure\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0each carries spears, lunges, draws the arm back to pull\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0tight the bowa ruined plaza has a [gendered human form] at its en\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 trancea [generic child] draws a sword under the guidance of[generic possessive pronoun] [honorific denoting repro-ductive role]a [generic human form] raises [generic pronoun] arms andfour horses turn awayanother plays a lutean eagle holds a symbolfake [name of nation used as an adjective] headswhile the end of lunacy in art was explicit in [name of major\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0historical figure]'s rhetoricwhile when nation turns to art, art loses its divergencewhile the [generic human figures] come back from war, their\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0legs in fogwhile a [generic human figure] sculpts, small against the\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 expanse of marble, giving into the monumental human\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 form that symbolizes eugenic possibilitieswhile another [generic human figure] pedantically draws\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 postcards of village centers, operas, mountain vistaswhile overwhelmed by an opera [name of major historical\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 figure] plans genocide\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 IIIwe know we respond resistantly as faked children's books of\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0realist adventure tales have turned into military instruc-\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0tion manualsor [name of major historical figure] hails a cab, [generic\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 possessive human pronoun] hand raised here, beckoning\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 as the red flag with [name of fast food chain] waves\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 behind [generic human pronoun] and the red star on top \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of the [name of cultural landmark in major city] twinkles.many people raise their hands for different purposes all day\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0longwe are always waiting for our cab to comethe question here is the same as that of a relationshipwhere does art define our vocabulary?the margin declares[it is impossible to speak about somethingit is only possible to speak beside it\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 [a film with a voice-over of nonsenseto act in the unsecular forbidden margins [claims a certain\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0privilege]\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[generic human pronoun] cast a colonizing eyea scripture of space / a place wherea [generic human form] twists in space\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[follow this body]getting you to recognize yourself in [generic possessive\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0pronoun] work\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 [is kidnapping]in the space of this question some emigrate or lapse into total\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0silencesome co-opt this language and paint a series of meticulous and\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 beautifully colored monumental images of people impris-\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 oned and alone at the edge of a tedious despairsome [refigure [refuse] respond] call out for an endrewritten, the goal of the artist is to prevent reality in a true and\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 concrete manner\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0IV[generic human figure] claims I can get more information at\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0home than by going to the war scenewhat [generic pronoun] sees is [gendered naked bodies] in\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 news photos\u2014dead bodies, discarded bodies, junki \u00a0saw \u00a0this\u00a0written on the bottom\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[a way of testimonythe poverty of image among the people of [name of nation]the continual increase in the amount of image a viewer can\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 tolerate\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 [who went to [name of nation?returning again and again to images of torturecovert activities depicted \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[blown up\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[to show power\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 details of photographs\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 or Xerox degradations\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of photos on Duraclear\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 hang loose are\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 vulnerable and\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 fragmentary and\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 images are seen\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 through images and/or\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 viewers[call this]\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the fate of Madame Bovery, the fate of Anna KareninaA dog with a [generic human face] has slogans coming out\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of its mouth as angels hold its head back suckle at its\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 titstaped to a [gendered hand, adorned with ring] is a photo-\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0graph of [gendered naked torso], gagged[generic human figure] infects computerized images with\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0digitized viruses and then transfers them to canvas with\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a robotic device\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[possible responses to what is seenin [name of nation] at another time another set of reponses:a [sexual category withheld] cuts hair and cameras circle\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 around and [generic human pronoun] is dragged out of\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the roomanother [generic human figure] says passionately we express\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ourselves in a language of regulations. Symbols and\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 numbers best convey our ideasanother [generic human figure] makes an enormous painting\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of a massacre victim, mutilated and bloody, and hangs it\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0by night on a pedestrian bridgewhat a nation gives us is the image in [name of major weekly\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 news source] of the [generic human figure] standing\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 before the tanks with white flag[generic pronoun] painted on houses, streets, stones, trees[generic pronoun] covered [name of island] with strange marks\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in chalk, oil paint, and dye[generic pronoun] wished to reduce writing to the zero level\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0where it is without meaning. When culture invades\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0private life on a large scale [generic pronoun] said the\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0individual cannot escape being rapedanother [generic noun] made a font that was scratched into\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0paper by a knifethis font made each letter into a single scratch[generic pronoun] scratched the other [generic pronoun]'s\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0statement on rape into a banner and hung it outside\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[my zero-level writing\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[generic pronoun] said\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0protest rape\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[generic pronoun] said\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 my zero-level writing\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[generic pronoun] \u00a0said\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0dangerous cultural rape\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[generic pronoun] \u00a0said\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0my zero-level writing\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0my zero-level writing\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Va voice stutters in the background of our waking mind[generic possessive pronoun] stutter is our stutteror it is the way we define our difference?\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 stutter is nationbeneath an image of human figures the words [you have\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 nothing to lose but your chains\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0at times two voices talk to one another\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[generic human] faces [tired]we know we are all constructedwhen it comes down to it we don't believe itthe social always holds us backwhile the ways that we encounter relation are variouswe remainsearching [searchingwe question, respond\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 [deny we [move forward\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\n\n\n\nit is a ride in the country, the car crowded with children\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[each child represents a different\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ethnicity of [name of nation]\n\nit is a moment of standing with light resonating around [major\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 historical figure\n\nit is a guiding of the child towards the right path\n\nit is a picnic in a field, the spread is bountiful\n[the spread of [name of nation] is represented through the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 arrangement of food on the checkered tablecloth\n\nit is [name of major historical figure]'s Art Collection:\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0figure after figure\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0each carries spears, lunges, draws the arm back to pull\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0tight the bow\n\na ruined plaza has a [gendered human form] at its en\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 trance\n\na [generic child] draws a sword under the guidance of\n[generic possessive pronoun] [honorific denoting repro-\nductive role]\n\na [generic human form] raises [generic pronoun] arms and\nfour horses turn away\n\nanother plays a lute\n\nan eagle holds a symbol\n\nfake [name of nation used as an adjective] heads\n\n\n\nwhile the end of lunacy in art was explicit in [name of major\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0historical figure]'s rhetoric\n\nwhile when nation turns to art, art loses its divergence\n\nwhile the [generic human figures] come back from war, their\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0legs in fog\n\nwhile a [generic human figure] sculpts, small against the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 expanse of marble, giving into the monumental human\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 form that symbolizes eugenic possibilities\n\nwhile another [generic human figure] pedantically draws\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 postcards of village centers, operas, mountain vistas\n\nwhile overwhelmed by an opera [name of major historical\u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 figure] plans genocide\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 III\n\nwe know we respond resistantly as faked children's books of\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0realist adventure tales have turned into military instruc-\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0tion manuals\n\n\nor [name of major historical figure] hails a cab, [generic\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 possessive human pronoun] hand raised here, beckoning\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 as the red flag with [name of fast food chain] waves\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 behind [generic human pronoun] and the red star on top \u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of the [name of cultural landmark in major city] twinkles.\n\n\nmany people raise their hands for different purposes all day\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0long\n\n\nwe are always waiting for our cab to come\n\n\n\nthe question here is the same as that of a relationship\nwhere does art define our vocabulary?\n\nthe margin declares\n\n\n[it is impossible to speak about something\n\n\nit is only possible to speak beside it\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 [a film with a voice-over of nonsense\n\nto act in the unsecular forbidden margins [claims a certain\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0privilege]\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[generic human pronoun] cast a colonizing eye\n\n\na scripture of space / a place where\n\n\n\n\na [generic human form] twists in space\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[follow this body]\n\ngetting you to recognize yourself in [generic possessive\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0pronoun] work\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 [is kidnapping]\n\nin the space of this question some emigrate or lapse into total\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0silence\n\n\n\nsome co-opt this language and paint a series of meticulous and\u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 beautifully colored monumental images of people impris-\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 oned and alone at the edge of a tedious despair\n\n\n\nsome [refigure [refuse] respond] call out for an end\n\n\n\nrewritten, the goal of the artist is to prevent reality in a true and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 concrete manner\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0IV\n\n\n[generic human figure] claims I can get more information at\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0home than by going to the war scene\n\n\n\nwhat [generic pronoun] sees is [gendered naked bodies] in\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 news photos\u2014dead bodies, discarded bodies, junk\n\n\n\ni \u00a0saw \u00a0this\u00a0written on the bottom\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[a way of testimony\n\n\nthe poverty of image among the people of [name of nation]\n\n\nthe continual increase in the amount of image a viewer can\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 tolerate\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 [who went to [name of nation?\n\n\nreturning again and again to images of torture\n\ncovert activities depicted \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[blown up\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[to show power\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 details of photographs\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 or Xerox degradations\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of photos on Duraclear\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 hang loose are\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 vulnerable and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 fragmentary and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 images are seen\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 through images and/or\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 viewers\n\n\n\n[call this]\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the fate of Madame Bovery, the fate of Anna Karenina\n\nA dog with a [generic human face] has slogans coming out\u00a0\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of its mouth as angels hold its head back suckle at its\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 tits\n\n\n\ntaped to a [gendered hand, adorned with ring] is a photo-\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0graph of [gendered naked torso], gagged\n\n\n\n[generic human figure] infects computerized images with\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0digitized viruses and then transfers them to canvas with\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a robotic device\n\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[possible responses to what is seen\n\nin [name of nation] at another time another set of reponses:\n\n\n\na [sexual category withheld] cuts hair and cameras circle\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 around and [generic human pronoun] is dragged out of\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the room\n\n\n\nanother [generic human figure] says passionately we express\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ourselves in a language of regulations. Symbols and\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 numbers best convey our ideas\n\n\n\nanother [generic human figure] makes an enormous painting\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of a massacre victim, mutilated and bloody, and hangs it\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0by night on a pedestrian bridge\n\n\n\nwhat a nation gives us is the image in [name of major weekly\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 news source] of the [generic human figure] standing\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 before the tanks with white flag\n\n\n[generic pronoun] painted on houses, streets, stones, trees\n\n\n[generic pronoun] covered [name of island] with strange marks\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0in chalk, oil paint, and dye\n\n\n[generic pronoun] wished to reduce writing to the zero level\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0where it is without meaning. When culture invades\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0private life on a large scale [generic pronoun] said the\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0individual cannot escape being raped\n\n\nanother [generic noun] made a font that was scratched into\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0paper by a knife\n\n\nthis font made each letter into a single scratch\n\n\n[generic pronoun] scratched the other [generic pronoun]'s\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0statement on rape into a banner and hung it outside\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[my zero-level writing\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[generic pronoun] said\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0protest rape\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[generic pronoun] said\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 my zero-level writing\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[generic pronoun] \u00a0said\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0dangerous cultural rape\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[generic pronoun] \u00a0said\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0my zero-level writing\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0my zero-level writing\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0V\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\na voice stutters in the background of our waking mind\n\n\n\n\n[generic possessive pronoun] stutter is our stutter\n\n\n\n\nor it is the way we define our difference?\n\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 stutter is nation\n\n\nbeneath an image of human figures the words [you have\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 nothing to lose but your chains\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0at times two voices talk to one another\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[generic human] faces [tired]\n\n\nwe know we are all constructed\n\n\nwhen it comes down to it we don't believe it\n\n\nthe social always holds us back\n\n\nwhile the ways that we encounter relation are various\n\n\nwe remain\n\n\nsearching [searching\n\n\nwe question, respond\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 [deny we [move forward\n\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\n\n", "title": "Responding", "id": 58451, "author": "Juliana Spahr"}
{"poem": "There is no single particular noun\nfor the way a friendship,\nstretched over time, grows thin,\nthen one day snaps with a popping sound.\n\nNo verb for accidentally\nbreaking a thing\nwhile trying to get it open\n\u00a0\u2014a marriage, for example.\n\nNo particular phrase for\nlosing a book\nin the middle of reading it,\nand therefore never learning the end.\n\nThere is no expression, in English, at least,\nfor avoiding the sight\nof your own body in the mirror,\nfor disliking the touch\n\nof the afternoon sun,\nfor walking into the flatlands and dust\nthat stretch out before you\nafter your adventures are done.\n\nNo adjective for gradually speaking less and less,\nbecause you have stopped being able\nto say the one thing that would\nbreak your life loose from its grip.\n\nCertainly no name that one can imagine\nfor the aspen tree outside the kitchen window,\nin spade-shaped leaves\n\nspinning on their stems,\nworking themselves into\na pale-green, vegetable blur.\n\nNo word for waking up one morning\nand looking around,\nbecause the mysterious spirit\n\nthat drives all things\nseems to have returned,\nand is on your side again.\n", "title": "Special Problems in Vocabulary", "id": 58453, "author": "Tony Hoagland"}
{"poem": "this is true\na man in an alley grabbed my arm\nthis is true\nsomeone called me and left the phone dangling at the post office\nthis is true\na man stalked me\n\nsomeone tells a story\n\n\nsomeone tells a story to another person\nanother person says I don't believe this\nsomeone tells the story again in an attempt to convince\nsomeone tells\n\n\nas disbelief is easy\nbelief is difficult, supported by constraint\n\nbut a woman knows a man stalked her\nknows this is true\n\na woman knows her own address\nher own body\nher lost domain, her desires, her confusions\n\nsomeone tells a story\n\n\nthere are things people can do to themselves\nthey are:\nleave molotov cocktail on own yard\nset fire to own house\nleave a glass of urine on own porch\nleave envelope of feces outside own door\nsend a butcher knife to self at work\nsend letter to health department that self is spreading VD\nstab own back\n\n\nsomeone tells this story\nsays this is true\nself turns on self\nthe knife enters at a point that the self could not have reached\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0but did\nsomeone tells and then repeats and she stalks herself several\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0times to convince\nsomeone tries to enter into the information\nto pass words back and forth that have meaning\nfails, resorts to this is true\n\n\nthis is true\na woman calls her stalker The Poet\n\nthis is true\na woman describes a stalker in terms that describe herself\n\nthis is true\na woman stalked herself to kill herself\n\nthis is true\na woman is at times a man\n\n\nwhen a fish is hooked\nother fish don't see the hook\n\nthrashing seems crazy\n\nthe hook could be the branding of a woman at a young age\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0by a man\nor an older male neighbor spending too much time with a\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0child\nor the boring nature of life\n\nin the story the hook is the artist's rendering of the stalker as\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 described by the woman\nit is the woman in a man's face\n\nshe does not know this man\nthrashing seems crazy\n\nlater she realizes it is herself\nher knife\nher hook\nher own face she was always drawing male\n\nthis is true\nas thrashing is not crazy when one is on the hook\n\n\n\n", "title": "Thrashing Seems Crazy", "id": 58452, "author": "Juliana Spahr"}
{"poem": "The Brent geese fly in long low wavering lines on their migrations.\nThey start in western Europe, fatten in Iceland, then fly over the\nGreenland ice cap to Canada. They sometimes breed on the Arctic\ncoasts of central and western Siberia and winter in western Europe,\nsome in England, the rest in Germany and France. What I have to\noffer here is nothing revolutionary. They learn the map from their\nparents, or through culture rather than through genetics. It is just an\nobservation, a small observation that sometimes art can hold the oil\nwars and all that they mean and might yet mean within. Just as\nsometimes there are seven stanzas in a song. And just as sometimes\nthere is a refrain between each stanza. And just as often this sort of\nsong tells a certain sort of story, one about having something and then\nlosing it. Just as sometimes the refrain of a song is just one word said\nfour times. Just as sometimes the word is huge, sometimes coming\nfrom a machine and yet hitting in the heart; uplifting and ironic and\nbig enough to hold all these things in its four syllables. Just as some-\ntimes, often even, it contradicts, and thus works with, the stanzas. Just\nas the police clear out yet another public space and yet another camera\nfollows along behind. Just as the stream has no narration, only ambient\nnoise. And the police move slowly, methodically in a line as if they are\na many-legged machine. They know what they are doing. It is their\nthird time clearing the park and they will clear it many more times and\nthen they will win and a building will be built where there once was\nthe park. In this song, as is true of many songs, it is unclear why the\nsinger has lost something, maybe someone. In this time, the time of\nthe oil wars, there are many reasons that singers give for being so lost.\nOften they are lost because of love. Sometimes they are lost because of\ndrugs. Sometimes they have lost their country and in their heart it feels\nas if they have lost something big. And then sometimes they are lost\njust because they are in Bakersfield. Really though they are lost\nbecause in this time song holds loss. And this time is a time of loss.\nThe police know, as they move through the park yet one more time,\nthat they will win and a building will be built on the space. But right\nnow, the building is not there. All that is there are the police and\ndebris and the police deal with the debris. They push over book-\nshelves, open up boxes and look inside, tear into tents, awkwardly, the\npoles springing. They are only there to see if any humans remain.\nTomorrow the bulldozers will push the debris into big piles and load it\ninto trucks. The police wear white helmets and short sleeves under\ntheir kevlar vests. For many years the Brent geese ate eelgrass, but once\nthe eelgrass was gone to the wasting disease and the estuaries filled,\nthey moved inland to agricultural lands and began eating grasses and\nwinter-sown cereals. The Brent geese are social, adaptable. They fly\naround together, learning from each other, even as these groups are\noften unstable, changing from season to season. Songs in their most\npopular versions tend to be epiphanic, gorgeous with swelling chord\nchanges, full of lament too. And this song, like many, expresses the\ndesire to be near someone who is now lost. It travels as something\nlayered, infiltrated, unconfused with its refusals to make a simple\nsense. I want to give you this song sung in a bar in Oakland one night\nduring the ongoing oil wars. The singer had clearly been lost once, but\nthey sang as someone who eventually got in the car and drove out of\nBakersfield, perhaps early in the morning, the sun just starting to rise,\nor perhaps later after sun-up, the light washing out everything in\nBakersfield as the sun is wont to do there. Eventually they arrived to\nsing this song. This might have taken them many years. There was\nnothing that implied that the lostness was recent. But the lostness, it\nwas clear, was huge and had been experienced fully by them. It\nprobably doesn't matter where the sun was that day in Bakersfield\nwhen they got in the car. It probably just matters that there is a sun,\nstill, and they got in the car and drove, drove through the oil fields with\ntheir wells pumping out amber colored oils and their refineries with\ntall towers that heat the oil so as to sort its various viscosities, and drove\nthrough the black cloud that is the slow constant burn of the oil wars.\nThen at some point they were in Oakland. The oil near Bakersfield is\nheavy but it often benchmarks against the Brent blend. Brent blend is\na light crude oil, though not as light as West Texas Intermediate. It\ncontains approximately 0.37% of sulphur, classifying it as sweet crude,\nyet not as sweet as West Texas Intermediate. When the park is cleared\nand the building is built, it will headquarter an oil company. When\nthis oil company named their oil fields off the coast of Scotland, they\nchoose the names of water birds in alphabetical order: Auk, Brent,\nCormorant, Dunlin, Eider, Fulmar, and so on. Brent is also an\nacronym for the Jurassic Brent formation that makes up the Brent\noilfield, for Broom, Rannoch, Etive, Ness, and Tarbert. About two\nthirds of oil is benchmarked against what is called the Brent Crude Oil\nSpot price. Petroleum suppliers in Europe, Africa and the Middle East\noften price their oil according to Brent Crude's value on the Interconti-\nnential Exchange if it is being sold to the West. The Brent Crude Oil\nSpot price is set in dollars, maintained by force, endlessly manipulated\nby commodity futures markets. The refrain is the moment when the\nsinger makes it clear that they understand something about what is\nbeing lost. It was obvious they had lost their country, it being taken\nover by bankers and all. They had clearly been rejected. Loved too\nmuch and gotten too little of it back in return, many times. But none\nof this matters, it was obvious, in comparison to what is now being lost\nfor that night even though the song is about a minor loss, about the loss\nof tongue on clit or cock, the singer seemed to understand s0mething\nabout the other things that are lost. While a formation of police clear\nthe far side of the park of the debris of its occupation, another forma-\ntion of police on the other side shoot the new gasses, the ones we do\nnot yet know by name, into another part of the park where people are\nnow clustered. This camera \u00a0has sound and every few seconds there is a\npop. It is unevenly steady. The song is just about two people who are\nnot near each other, who have probably chosen not to be near each\nother any more. The song reflects and refracts the oil in ways both\nrelevant and trivial in how it tells about what happens when one lets\nlove go, when one gives up the tongue. It might be that only through\nthe minor we can feel enormity. It might be that there is nothing to\u00a0\nepiphany if it does not hint at the moment of sweaty relation larger\nthan the intimate. For what is epiphanic song if it doesn't spill out and\nover the many that are pulled from intimacies by oil's circulations?\nThe truckers, the sailors and deckhands, the assembly line workers,\nthose who maintain the pipelines, those who drive support in the\ncaravans that escort the tankers, the fertilizers, the thousands of\ninterlocking plastic parts, the workers who move two hundred miles\nand live in a dorm near a factory, alone, those on the ships who spend\nfifty weeks circulating with the oil unable to talk to each other because\nof no shared language and so are left only with two weeks in each year\nwhere they can experience the tongue in meaningful conversation. A\nlife that is only circulations. Before the police come, before the\nbuilding, in the middle of one night, a group of people form a line\nleading to the entrance of the park. Or several groups form several\nlines, all leading to the entrance. Some wear medical masks. Some\nwear glasses too. All pass bricks, one by one, down the line so as to\nmake a pile. They are silent for the most part, silent enough that it is\npossible to hear the bricks make a clink as they fall. The pile gets \nbigger and bigger. It is waist high. Then chest high. Some get out of\nthe line and climb on the pile, hold both their hands in the air because\nthey know now is the transitory, momentary triumph and it should be\nfelt. Others continue passing brick after brick, from one hand to\u00a0\nanother hand, arms extended, torsos at moments also going back and\nforth with the bricks. When they run out of bricks, the pile is topped\nwith fencing. Then they gather behind it, waiting. Back there, some-\none might possibly be singing to a child, singing the epiphanic song\nthat alludes to losing the moment of tongue on clit or cock over and\nover because the child cannot be comforted, because the singer knows\nonly loss. The room will be dark. The light will be on in the hall.\nThere will be shadows, in other words. And the singer will know about\nthese shadows at this moment and know they had agreed to be with\nshadows when they had the child. They had gambled in a sense on a\nquestion of sustaining. They had agreed to exist from now on with a\u00a0\nshadow. A shadow of love and a shadow of the burning of the oil fields that\nhas already happened and is yet to come and yet must come and a million\nother shadows that might possibly disappear in the light at that moment.\n\n\n\n", "title": "Transitory, Momentary", "id": 58455, "author": "Juliana Spahr"}
{"poem": "in your arms\nit was incredibly often\nenough to be\u00a0\nin your arms\ncareful as we had to be at times\nabout the I.V. catheter\nin my hand,\nor my wrist,\nor my forearm\nwhich we placed, consciously,\nlike a Gamboni vase,\nthe center of attention,\nplaced, frail identity\nas if our someday-newborn\non your chest\u2014\nto be secluded, washed over\nin your arms\noften enough, it was\nin that stillness, the only stillness\namidst the fears which wildly collided\nand the complexities\nof the illness, all the work\nwe had yet to do, had just done,\nthe hope, ridiculous ammounts of it\nwe had to pump\nfrom nothing, really,\nshort-lived consensus\npossibility & experiment\nto access\nfrom our pinched and tiny minds\njust the idea of hope\nmake it from scratch, air and water\nlike manufactured snow\na colossal fatigue\nthe severe concentration\nof that, the repetition of that\nlifted for a moment\njust above your arms\ninevitable, pressuring\nit weighed down\nbut remained above\nlike a cathedral ceiling,\nstrangely sheltering\nwhile I held tightly\u00a0\nwhile there I could\nin your arms\nonly there, the only stillness\nremember the will,\nallow the pull, tow against inevitable ebb\u2014\nyou don't need reasons to live\none reason, blinking in the fog,\norganically sweet in muddy dark\nincredibly often enough\nit is, it was\nin your arms\n\n\n\n", "title": "us", "id": 58444, "author": "Tory Dent"}
{"poem": "we cut down 115th street for a quicker stroll\npast the pastor's house, vacant lot, liquor store.\n\nbuses pointing out the hood & back. the route\nevery morning goes by the liquor store.\n\nthe loose Philly blunts and hard & dry. the sour mouth\nwashed away by a dull gulp of liquor. store\n\na honey bun in your fat back pocket. pray\nnobody notices your awkward walk. this liquor store\n\nsees stumbling often. out front the garish stickers fluoresce\non the wire windows like winos with liquor store\n\nbottles. a small weapon sits behind the counter hidden by the cigarettes\n& candy small enough to steal. when the liquor store\n\nis locked up the rolling metals make the window\na pastoral, part of our natural habitat. behold the liquor store:\n\nthe sugar waters, the Ziploc bag of coins\n& Nate's tongue the color of loose pennies in the liquor store.\n", "title": "Fame Food & Liquor", "id": 58501, "author": "Nate Marshall"}
{"poem": "1st defense against food deserts.\nwhen the whitefolk wouldn't sling\nus burgers you gave no fuck.\nstuck your golden-ringed hand\ninto the flour & fixed the bird.\n\nyou 1st example of black flight.\noriginal innovation of deep fry.\nyou beef tallow, city slick\n& down home migration taste.\n\nof course your sauce sweet\n& burn at the same time.\nof course you call it mild\nso whitefolk won't know\nto fear until it's too late.\n\nyou no corporate structure,\njust black business\nmodel. they earn the recipe\n& go make it their own.\n\nevery cut of crow you\nthrow in the grease is dark\nmeat. the whole shack:\nshaking, drenched in mild\nsauce, sweet spirit, baptized.\n", "title": "Harold's Chicken Shack #1", "id": 58502, "author": "Nate Marshall"}
{"poem": "on her profile i see she has 2 kids,\nnow 1 she had in high school, now none\nat all. she unaborts 1.\nshe is unpregnant\nin 8th grade. she unresembles\nher favorite pop singer Pink. she uncuts\nher hair, it pulls into her scalp from clumps on the floor.\nher new boyfriend forgets the weight of her.\nshe leaves her new boyfriend. he's forgetting\nher phone number. she becomes my girlfriend\nshe picks up the phone & i am on the line\nungiving a goodbye. her best friend trades letters\nbetween us. we each open lettters\nfrom ourselves with hearts on the outside.\nshe transfers to our magnet school. she moves\nto a neighborhood close by. we separate\nat the lips. we have never kissed behind the school.\nshe unchecks the yes box on the note & i take away\nmy middle school love letter. i unmeet her cop father\n& her Chicano moms. we walk backwards into Baskin-Robbins\nthrowing up gold medal ribbon ice cream into cups.\nit rounds into scoops, flattens into gallon drums\nof sugar & cream & coldness. we are six years old.\nmaybe we can go back to then. i unlearn\nher name, the way it is spelled the same\nbackward. how it flips on a page, or in my mouth.\ni never knew words could do that\nuntil 5 minutes from now.\n", "title": "palindrome", "id": 58503, "author": "Nate Marshall"}
{"poem": "it's your 1st year of college & you should be missing\nhome by now but mostly you don't. you read the\nChicago newspapers & call family on Sundays.\nyou pick up going to church at a place adjacent to the projects.\n\nyou're not from the projects & the ones in Chicago seem worse\nbut there's comfort in being around plainspoken folk.\nthe church folk feed you & also cook you food.\nyou take African American studies classes & sleep\nthrough Spanish & write poems at night. you\nread the newspaper. you consider pledging a fraternity.\n\nyou go to parties to watch people. you don't miss home.\nyou call your ex girl a lot. you imagine her face across\nthe phone line. you stare at the scar\non her chin. it is shiny & smooth. you read\nthe newspaper. you text new girls mostly. you invite\nthem to play cards & bet clothes or take them to dinner\n\non your birthday so you don't spend it alone\nor you share their extra-long twin beds or you just text them.\nit's your 1st year of college & your nephew is tiny\n& your niece is young enough to be happy & the world\nis new & you are not going home for Thanksgiving.\nyou are in the South at a new friend's house.\n\nyou go to church with his family & to his old high school's\nbasketball game & to his malls & to his grandmother's house.\nyou did not make your team past 9th grade & never went to malls\nmuch. your grandmother had been dead for 2 years now.\nyou read the newspaper. his family are nice people.\nyou do not miss home. you go back to school. you stop talking\n\nto your ex girl. she has a new guy. you do not miss home.\nyou write poems. you read the newspaper. there are still more\nkids dying. your 1st year of college & you should be missing\nbut you're still here. you write papers about black people\n& voting & violence & families & that is the same\npaper. you don't read the newspaper. you have finals to finish.\n\nyou go to church on Sunday with your new friend & you\ntalk to new girls & consider pledging. you have heard\nthe fraternities will haze you. you have heard about beating\nbut you are not from the projects & you are not in Chicago.\nyou stop reading the newspaper. you decide to kiss a girl\n& mean it. you decide to pledge a fraternity. you should\n\nhave more information about the newspaper. & the girl.\n& the fraternity. you should call home more. you don't\u00a0\nread the newspapers or call. you are not from the projects or\nChicago. you do not miss home. or your ex girl.\nor your newspaper. there are still more kids dying. you\nconvince your new friend to pledge the fraternity.\n\nhe worries about the hazing, the beatings.\nyou tell him this is an opportunity. don't miss it.\n", "title": "recycling", "id": 58504, "author": "Nate Marshall"}
{"poem": "The body was one thing we always had\nin common, even when between us\na continent unfolded. Eric says,\nWe scattered his ashes beneath the Japanese maple\nhere behind the house.\u00a0No ceremony,\nas you wished, but this...\n\nWhat you wanted from me was complex\nand simple, both. Once you asked for more\nthan I had to give. I live\nwith this; call it regret. Your hands bloom\nin the intaglioed scrawl, creased onion skin tattooed\nwith garnet stamps from Pietrasanta,\na sifting of marble dust...Images: chiseled\n\njut of jaw, cheek, bridge of nose\u2014recall\neach granite face rising from New Hampshire\ndirt upon which faltering, you last stepped.\nIn 1729, long before either of us came\nto be, Reiner Ottens dragged his fine tip\nacross a smooth sheet:\u00a0Globi Coelestis\nin Tabulas Planas Redacti Pars III.\u00a0Bright beings\u2014\nlobster, serpent, bison, dove bearing the requisite\nsprig\u2014swirl and writhe over lines that pin\ndistance and story to time.\n\nSpectral creatures that we are, connecting dots\nto chart our ways....If only I could wrap\nthe whole plane back into its ball.\nWithout your body in it,\nthis world's gone\nflat.\n\n(Jack Marshall, 1932-2009)\n", "title": "Cartography", "id": 58456, "author": "Katrina Roberts"}
{"poem": "Because she'd heard him laugh through new moon darkness\nand she knew he'd fallen and she knew, before she turned,\nhe'd be crawling, like a crawdad, rock to loam\u2014\n\nbecause she tried to love the straight back and neck\nhe'd erected to recollect the man he'd been\nbefore\u2014because she found herself adding up his usefulness\n\nlike some kind of auctioneer\u2014she showed him\nthe dark coils areoling both her breasts and all the ways\nshe bent and lifted, bent and lifted, steady, strong.\n\nShe let him believe he was past due for a harvest\nand her hands were the right ones, now, to hold onto the scythe.\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2022\n\n\nShe made quick work of pleasure. The boysmile bunked down\nin his eyes, she claimed. Her tongue found the place in his mouth\nwhere the teeth were gone\u2014where he'd hold his corncakes\n\nuntil they grew soft enough to chew. History had bedded him\nin all of this\u2014his own history and failures not his own.\nBefore he'd tramped in she'd watched another man\u2014a man she'd thought\n\nshe'd hated\u2014watched his body opened, opened, opened until\nblood had married brine. She'd watch that man be whipped into something\ngood for nothing more than fertilizing clay and she'd thought\n\nbuckshot would have been a brand of kindness if sprayed into him\njust then. But even after his hard going, she did not miss him very much.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2022\n\n\nAnyone she chose could be shucked like surplus property tomorrow,\nbut that hadn't been enough to warn her off of picking him that night.\nBecause she knew if she set her sight on nothing she'd get nothing\n\nin return, she'd walked with him. But because the night progressed so\n\u2014because there were some clouds\u2014no stars\u2014no moon\u2014he'd tripped\nover the branch of a dead and down tree. In all that darkness,\n\nthere, without a moon, even then, she had not fallen. She thought\nto say so, but she did not say so. She did nothing\nbut say she was sorry for him. She did not use her mouth\n\nto say this. Could he not listen to her hands? They spoke softly,\narticulating her condolences, to his torn and bleeding skin.\n\n", "title": "Almost Like They Wanted It", "id": 58392, "author": "Camille T. Dungy"}
{"poem": "Maybe you sold it to buy junk. Though I like to think not.\nAnd I don't want to think you used the money for food\nor rent or anything obligatory, practical.\n\r A pair of boots, perhaps. Thigh high burgandy boots\nwith gold laces. Something crucial as lilies.\nMostly, I want to believe you held onto the book,\nthat your fingers brailed those pages' inky veins\neven in your final weeks. I want to believe\nwords can be that important in the end.\n\nWho can help the heart, which is grand and full\nof gestures? I had been on my way out.\nHe was rearranging his bookshelves\nwhen, in an approximation of tenderness,\u00a0\nhe handed me, like the last of the sweet potatoes\nat Thanksgiving, like a thing he wanted\nbut was willing to share, the rediscovered book\u2014\nhe'd bought it years ago in a used bookstore\nin Chicago. Levine's poems, with your signature inside.\n\nThat whole year I spent loving him, something splendid\nas lemons, sour and bright and leading my tongue\ntoward new language, was on the shelf. These\nweren't your own poems, autographed, a stranger's\nsouvenir\u2014we'd spent vain months leafing through \nNew York stacks for your out-of-print collections\u2014but you'd cared\nabout this book, or cared enough to claim it, your name\nlooped across the title page as if to say, Please.\nThis is mine, This book is mine. Though you sold it.\nOr someone else did when you died.\n\nWe make habits out of words. I grew accustomed\nto his, the way they spooned me into sleep\nso many times. Now I am sleepless and alone\nanother night. What would you give for one more night\nalone? No booze. No drugs. Just that hunger\nand those words. He gave me The Names of the Lost.\nNeed comes down hard on a body. What else\nwas sold? What else\u2014do you know?\u2014did we lose\n\n\n", "title": "Association Copy", "id": 58388, "author": "Camille T. Dungy"}
{"poem": "One will live to see the Caterpillar rut everything\nthey walk on\u2014seacliff buckwheat cleared, relentless\nice plant to replace it, the wild fields bisected\nby the scenic highway, canyons covered with cul-de-sacs,\ngas stations, comfortable homes, the whole habitat\nalong this coastal stretch endangered, everything,\neveryone, everywhere in it danger as well\u2014\nbut now they're logging the one stilling hawk\nSmith sights, the conspiring grasses' shh shhhh ssh,\nthe coreopsis Mattoni's boot barely spares,\nand, netted, a solitary blue butterfly. Smith\nahead of him chasing the stream, Mattoni wonders\nif he plans to swim again. Just like that\nthe spell breaks. It's years later, Mattoni lecturing\non his struggling butterfly. How fragile.\n\n\u00a0\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2022\n\n\nIf his daughter spooled out the fabric\nshe's chosen for her wedding gown,\nraw taffeta, burled, a bright hued tan,\nperhaps Mattoni would remember\nhow those dunes looked from a distance,\nthe fabric, balanced between her arms,\nmaking valleys in the valley, the fan\nabove her mimicking the breeze.\nHe and his friend loved everything\nsoftly undulating under the coyest wind,\nand the rough truth as they walked\nthrough the land's scratch and scrabble\nand no one was there, then, besides Mattoni\nand his friend, walking along Dolan's Creek,\nin that part of California they hated\nto share. The ocean, a mile or so off,\nanything but passive so that even there,\nin the canyon, they sometimes heard it smack\nand pull well-braced rocks. The breeze,\nbasic: salty, bitter, sour, sweet. Smith trying\nto identify the scent, tearing leaves\nof manzanita, yelling: \"This is it. Here! This is it!\"\nhis hand to his nose, his eyes, having finally seen\nthe source of his pleasure, alive.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2022\n\nIn the lab, after the accident, he remembered it,\nthe butterfly. How good a swimmer Smith had been,\nhow rough the currents there at Half Moon Bay, his friend\nalone with reel and rod\u2014Mattoni back at school\nearly that year, his summer finished too soon\u2014\nthen all of them together in the sneaker wave,\nand before that the ridge, congregations of pinking\nblossoms, and one of them bowing, scaring up the living,\nthe frail and flighty beast too beautiful\nto never be pinned, those nights Mattoni worked\nwithout his friend, he remembered too.\nHe called the butterfly Smith's Blue.\n\n", "title": "The Blue", "id": 58389, "author": "Camille T. Dungy"}
{"poem": "How it must have been for them, when wind came\nto strike cottonwoods they called home down\n\n\u2014silver bridges across a gun-smoke creek-bed, joining\nyellow meadow to meadow...how it must have been\n\nlike the beginning of time, when the first one beat\ngreat wings (though so silent a field mouse\n\nwould never even hear before talons sinking in...) and\nrose over the Blues to find this valley with others\n\nfollowing. And their human eyes, forward-gazing\nin their round faces, they turned toward sound\n\nto catch it in feather discs, their hearing tuned beyond\nhuman imagining...and then they were gone, like\n\nmist dissipating in the lowlands, and an eye trained\ntoward their going might, squinting, distinguish\n\nsigns of intention written by pinions, stroking damp\nair in their westward rowing. And we told ourselves\n\nall water eventually finds the sea\u2014our coming, their\ngoing\u2014so synchronous; this was simply something\n\nwe wanted, more than knowing, wholly to believe.\n", "title": "Estuary", "id": 58386, "author": "Katrina Roberts"}
{"poem": "\u00a0\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (February, 1841)\n\u00a0\n\nMelinda, I've been preparing to write.\nThat peculiar girl named Molly,\u00a0\nwho has a bit of liberty in the house,\nhas said she'll find some paper.\nI have practiced mixing charred wood with water\nand have managed to shave a twig\nso one end nearly resembles a nib,\nbut tonight Lila got caught up\nunder the good Doctor's whip\nfor such a little offense. I am frightened.\nDoctor Jackson brought in a new troop of slaves today.\nA boy of thirteen among them had the welted cheek\nthat speaks of a driver's dissatisfaction.\nLila put a poultice on to ease the swelling,\nbut Jackson wants the boy to understand his place\nand thinks a scar will help. Lila's back\nand neck and arms have thirty new wounds\nto replace the one she thought to heal.\nMelinda, how is Jacob? Ever yours,\n\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (February, 1841)\n\nDo you ever start at night believing\nI might be dead? I leave my body\nsometimes, Melinda. Is that all dying is?\nRemember how I'd scold you\nwhen the stew was thin, believing\nI needed a thick stock to forge muscle\nfor all the work I had ahead?\nYour stew would make me big again, Melinda.\nSometimes we have to trap, skin and roast\npossum, rabbit, snake and squirrel.\nExcept for that, I have swallowed naught\nbut salt pork and coarse meal in all my days\naway from you. But I work just fine.\nEver your beloved husband,\n\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (March, 1841)\n\nWhat a herd of slaves Jackson brought in last month.\nNo sooner had their strength returned\nafter the long march to the farm from Lynchburg\nbut they began to plot another run.\nWe didn't know they'd planned to leave\nuntil they were already gone a day.\nAll manner of neighborhood men\ncame around to tip Jackson's whiskey\nand help him on the hunt, though\nall they brought back for their trouble\nwere two bodies. One dead,\none fighting off living. That boy\nI told you about, Ben with the slashed cheek?\nAt the stony fork of the river\nDoc Jackson found his body, cut up,\ntwisted as if it had fought long\nunder water, a dead hand pointing\nin the direction his netted sister and the \"damned\nlost lot of niggers\" had run. I guess\nhe was too obstinate even for the water\nto hold down easily. Jackson used Ben\nlike a scarecrow, his shirt hooked on a pole,\nhis body meant to warn us from the road.\nLila's still not certain that the girl will live.\nUntil tomorrow, I am ever your Joe.\n\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (December, 1843)\n\nWilliam is the name Smythe matched\nto my description when he shipped me\nfrom his Wilmington slave pen\nto the Richmond consigner Jackson\nbought me from. So I am William,\nthough it took more than one whipping\nfor me to remember it. There is a woman\nkeeps the kitchen here prefers we call her Auntie.\nShe's been called so many names\nshe \"most forgets\" which one means her.\nI trust Jacob is getting on in school\njust fine. I was, at his age, learning\nto carry myself with the pride of a Freeman.\nIt's been many years since I've been able\nto answer to any person calling me\nthat name. And Jacob? Can he remember\nhis father? Please hug him for me,\nMelinda. I am ever your husband,\n\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (November, 1845)\n\nHow many live on our alley in Philadelphia?\nThere, this room might accommodate\na bed and two chairs, but here we are three men,\ntwo women, some potions, and a girl. We sleep\nin turns. Marlo often walks the woods at night,\nhis eye out on the traps for all of us. \u00a0 'Dolphus steals sleep\nin the smithing shop and steals everything else\nbefore dawn. Just last week, we bore the tread\nof a muzzled goat and two hens he brought in\nfrom a neighbor's farm. Our field sweat adds stench\nto the store of bones, feathers, brews, and herbs\nLila claims can cure the women on this place.\nSadie, who Lila never tried to stop herself from bearing,\nsleeps with her body wedged behind the door.\nMolly swings it in her side each night when she turns up\nto sleep after Miss Amy's laudanum takes and again\nwhen she races the conch call to the house in the morning.\nEven Lena, who had a well-built cabin of her own\nwhen she lived on the place, pushed four babies off her tit\nto make room for the Doctor and for Miss Amy's boy.\nI wonder, Melinda, are your wages enough,\nsince I went away, to satisfy the rent? Yours in tribulation,\n\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (December, 1847)\n\nThe Doctor's had his eye on Molly\nsince he caught her listening\nwhile the tutor drilled his son on Greek.\nShe says the boy translates slowly.\nOn a war now, his spoiled tongue\nhas spent two days flogging\nsome warrior's impenetrable shield.\nMolly showed me yesterday\nwhat a heart looks like. Traced it\nin the dirt that is my bed, my stool,\nmy desk, my cabin floor. I miss you, Melinda.\nI miss feeling the little skip your heart took sometimes,\nthough I know the pinch that came along with the stutter\npained you. \u00a0 Molly is a smart girl,\nthough brutal in her zeal. She's quicker\nthan a butcher to find cause to wield a knife.\nI am certain the Doctor will lapse in his vigilance\u00a0\nsoon enough. Then I will chance to capture\non the page one of these letters. May God be good\nand grant so large a prayer. Yours,\n\n\n\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (January, 1848)\n\nWe are like to lose another hand\nunless 'Dolphus can recover\nfrom the flogging he took\nover a missing pair of cufflinks.\nThe girl who was brought home\nwith Ben's body was quickly well enough\nto work, and she had less skin on her bones\nthan Doctor Jackson left on 'Dolphus.\nPerhaps there is some little hope\nfor Lila's husband. Molly is afraid\nto sneak me any of the Doctor's paper.\nMolly, who can be as bad as 'Dolphus\nabout purloining pretty, useful things.\nI doubted she was earnest in her fear,\nbut now I see what she, born here,\nmust have always known. A man\nwhose livelihood depends on stealing\nthe toil of other people's bodies\nmust keep a keen eye on his own\nmost dear and precious things.\n\n", "title": "From the Unwritten Letters of Joseph Freeman", "id": 58391, "author": "Camille T. Dungy"}
{"poem": "My lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and offers supper in a bowl made of his breath.\n\nThe stew has boiled and I wonder at the cat born from its steam.\n\nThe cat is in the bedroom now, mewling. The cat is indecent\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and I, who am trying to be tidy, I, who am trying to do things\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the proper way, I, who am sick from the shedding, I am undone.\n\nMy lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and offers pastries in a basket spun from his vision.\n\nIt is closely woven, the kind of container some women collect.\n\nI have seen these in many colors, but the basket he brings is simple:\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 only black, only nude. The basket he brings is full of sweet scones\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and I eat even the crumbs. As if I've not dined for days.\n\nMy lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and offers tea made from the liquid he's crying.\n\nI do not want my lover crying and I am sorry I ever asked for tea.\n\nMy lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room pretending\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 he never cried. He offers tea and cold cakes. The tea is delicious:\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 spiced like the start of our courtship, honeyed and warm.\n\nI drink every bit of the tea and put aside the rest.\n\nMy lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0like a man loving his strength. The lock I replaced\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0this morning will not keep him away.\n\nMy lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and brings me nothing.\n\nPerhaps he has noticed how fat I've grown, indulged.\n\nPerhaps he is poor and sick of emptying his store.\n\nIt is no matter to me any longer, he has filled me, already, so full.\n\nMy lover who is far away opens the door to my room\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0and tells me he is tired.\n\nI do not ask what he's tired from for my lover, far away,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 has already disappeared.\n\nThe blankets are big with his body. The cat, under the covers,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 because it is cold out and she is not stupid, mews.\n", "title": "My Lover Who Lives Far", "id": 58390, "author": "Camille T. Dungy"}
{"poem": "Coleman Hawkins doing that thing\n\nwith his sax: high\nand lonely as a kestrel\ntwirls on thermals, sorting\nfiles of sound with a singular\n\nfinger, now alighting\u00a0\n\nin pools of light, hovering\nthen fixed like whirring\nwings of the insect glazed\nin serous amber but\n\ndreaming of oxygen:\n\nSound leading a mind\ninto that sobriety\nof thought which poises\nthe heart. Sound like that,\n\nholding and giving out\nnever. Sound quickened\nwith desire. Sound\n\nthe benefit of nature\n\nin taut bolts of time, rich\npolychrome threads, count:\nTwo-sixty. Sound blots out\n\nthe violence of affliction\n\nbringing it home lonely\nbut good, letting\nit bend: We\nhad much more reason being\n\nwinged ones to recollect than forget.\n\n\n", "title": "One or Two Things Sacred to Sorrow", "id": 58387, "author": "Katrina Roberts"}
{"poem": "1\n\nOne could sing October rain,\nand one had a gift for plain\u00a0\nchant and prayer, a domain\nunsettled by love or its\nintimate other. What fits\n\nwith this theology no\none dares to say. These twins so\nperfectly in tune must know\n\"the modesty of nature,\"\nthe perfect art and texture\n\nthat sustains the other name.\nParis could not be the frame\nfor loyal Romans, their shame\nworn upon their bodies light\nas air, and nothing is quite\n\nas endurable as death.\nThose who have taken this path\nmove with an abiding breath.\nSuch a common dance this dense\u00a0\nintention of love's expense.\u00a0\n\nKeep this for that special hour\nwhen the Roman drops his sour\ngift for abandoned splendour;\net c'est la nuit, the footfall\nthat troubles that other Paul.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 2\n\nI have learned the felicity of fire,\nhow in its wake\nsomething picks at buried seed.\nThink this a most festive deed,\nnature's mistake,\nborrowed flare of a village dance, satire\nof the sun's course, light you read\nthrough waste, repair. Death had freed\nthat first opaque\nhabitation (what a widening gyre),\nan aspen ache,\na lustrous scar that might lead\u00a0\nto a hidden grove, or breed\nastonishment in its loss; all entire,\na shaping breath proposes its own pyre.\n\n3\n\nSolitude guides me\nthrough this minor\noccasion;\nmoon is my mentor,\none on a spree.\nThis notion,\nnight's philanthropy,\ncourts my favor.\nDevotion,\nlove's predecessor,\nsings its tidy\ndiscretion.\nSuch gentility\nreins all vigor,\nall caution.\n\n\n", "title": "Pauline Trio", "id": 58382, "author": "Jay Wright"}
{"poem": "gone from a man claimed the girl\na man named the girl\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0got the girl\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0stored up in his room\r \n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2022\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0ran away\nrunaway\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0gone\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Dinah \u00a0 gone\r \n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2022\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a019 years\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of age\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0about five foot three inches\nbrown hair \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 a cask-shaped mark over her left eye\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2022\n\nno one speaks\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 no speech\n\r \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0just hatching\r \u00a0\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2022\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0thought he knew her well\nwhen she was in there with him\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0not a word was spoken\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 who to trust now?\nthought he knew\r \n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2022\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0presents a gap\nbetween her upper foreteeth when she smiles", "title": "Runaway \u00a0 \u00a0 ran away", "id": 58393, "author": "Camille T. Dungy"}
{"poem": "The host's girlfriend is barely seen.\n\n She's busy giving away\nwild animals to reluctant guests.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I agree to take a snake-dog,\nmaybe an electric eel, but when\nI feel its sharp teeth in my shoulder,\n\nI start to worry about\nthe future welfare of our fragile cat,\nthe precarious order of our rented home,\n\nand remember\nI am supposed to be looking for someone....\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 A half-wolf, half-elephant\ncracks through the walls\nof the peeling wallpapered bedroom\n\nwhere my former student\nin a fuschia robe and curlers sits\nby a lighted make-up mirror.\n\nThe shadows off elongated fake eyelashes are as dark\nas the branches of an evening tree.\n\nThe hovering body of a fiery sparrow is almost\ntransparent,\n\nlike flute music or an idea.\n\nI turn my back\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 and finally, I spot her\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 my friend, the host.\n\nShe's sipping rum punch from a martini glass;\nher whole body appears to be smiling, glowing,\n\nand I don't know what to think.\n\nI know she doesn't drink, hasn't in decades,\nand I wonder what's suddenly changed, but\nthen I remember\n\nthe cancer won,\nmy friend isn't actually\nhere, there is no party,\nthere was never a house.\n", "title": "Summer", "id": 58395, "author": "Joanna Fuhrman"}
{"poem": "Rotten, he says, motherly\nhow could you miss that\n\nLike a ragamuffin with no eyes\nhis body has a dark spot\n\nLike doing laundry all day long\nhe is being nowhere\n\nCottage cheese runs out his mouth\n\nAnother one and another one\nthat doll can crawl\nhis insides like an awning\n\nMotherly if mother\nmother as if spread\n\nIf I could break\nthe hymen of his ear with\u00a0\nI can't stand you\n\nI won't say a thing and I won't notice\ngod you are\nthe softest\nkind of jerk\nand yesterday is gone\nand I had nothing to do with it\n", "title": "A Voluptuous Dream During an Eclipse", "id": 58384, "author": "Elaine Kahn"}
{"poem": "In the damp sick\nIn the dough\nIn the chewed on chew of faces\nof expensive car owner faces\nchewed ons of the world:\nI do not fetishize the truth\nI poke around\nHolding my bland sandwich\nin my non-dominant hand, I think\nwhat could be worse, I think\nwhat could be as bad?\n\nTo feel the thing you want\nto feel and not to care\n\nTo be a wet road\nin the dark\n\nI'd like to thank\nToyota, like to thank\nmy parents, esthetician\nRitalin Clonazepam internet TV weed\nmy beautiful dresses\n\n\n", "title": "Adult Acne", "id": 58383, "author": "Elaine Kahn"}
{"poem": "You will recall\nthe day the dead returned\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0to the village.\nName it now\nthe nebula of perfect\nexpulsion.\n\nThese fragments\nof existence spin their\nenclosing\nweb, unlock\nthe uncertainty of grace.\nWe are late.\n\nOn the third day\nwe will dance with the beer;\nthe vessel will\nbe prepared\nfor the corrupted descent\nof power.\n\nRadiant\nin its bounded estate,\nthe spirit\nknows itself\nas the guide who moves to erase\nher footsteps.\n\nSo once again\nthe dance negotiates\nthe property\nof being\nstrange, that absolute desire\nfor falling.\n\nThe red roof tiles\nslip into the morning fog\nThere is a red silence\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 all around us.\nIt will take years to learn\nthis coherent grammar.\n\nThe oriole has established\nan evasive coherence,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0infinite, exact,\nwith its place, there where\nthe day seems set to honor\nthe bird's expressive deceit.\n\nLogic always\nfails that Carolina wren.\nThe propositional\nexactitude\nof a certain absence\ndraws fire upon its wings.\n\nThe bird knows itself a strict\nproposal of faith, a ground\nstate that moves without\nan absolute space.\nGrammatical bird, attuned\nto roots and implication.\n\nLove is ancient\nevidence, an instrument\nconstrained, jealous of its\nutility,\nin awe of its own death;\nevery name embraces it.\n\n\n", "title": "Equation Two", "id": 58329, "author": "Jay Wright"}
{"poem": "All summer connotations fill this light,\na symmetry of different scales\u2014the site\nof fibrous silence, the velvet lace\nof iris, alders the moon can ignite.\nOne feels the amplitude of grief, the pace\nof oscillating stars, power in place\nwhere time has crossed and left a breathy stain.\nA body needs the weight and thrust of grace.\nI want to parse the logic, spin and domain,\nthe structure mourning will allow, the grain\nof certainty in two estates, the dance\nof perfect order, flowing toward its plane.\nThat bird you see has caught a proper stance,\u00a0\nunfaithful to its measure, a pert mischance\nof divination on the move, the trace\nof sacred darkness true to light's advance.\n", "title": "Light's Interrupted Amplitude", "id": 58380, "author": "Jay Wright"}
{"poem": "The eyes on a face have brought me sadness: \nthe right eye searching for seams in ripped fishnets; \nthe left eye lost and wandering the dark; the eye \nof the baby god crawling behind a couch in the moist \nsuburb where we planned our escape from video games \nand grilled cheese; the eye of a whale we met in a dream \nwho spit us out so we could make the 8 o\u2019clock screening \nof On Golden Pond; the eye of the clock, blinking\n when the oboe wailed like a burning shofar; the eye\n inside the eye, curled up\u2014a sprouting lima bean, \nremembering the nineteenth century, those rosy drapes;\n the eyes of missing finger tips, of sad afternoons \nin French caf\u00e9s in Dayton, Ohio; the eyes on the very \nreal parrot who sits on the shoulders of a wax actor\n dressed as a pirate; the eyes of an actress, pretending \nto be my mom; the eyes of my father, sleeping on a train, \ndreaming about miniature crashing planes; the eyes \nof a swimming pool, looking up or down everyone\u2019s\n swimsuits and into their souls; the eyes in love \nsongs written by mean men; the eyes in the painting\u00a0\nlost in a fire where we tried to save the ancient cat;\n the eyes underneath tap shoes clicking like teeth; \nthe eyes of Fred Astaire, never blinking, even to kiss\n in the dark; the eyes of the state of Texas secretly\n tattooed on everyone\u2019s ass, and the eyes on the billboard, \nripped and faded from rain like the eyes of the best waitress\n on the Upper West Side who knows everyone\u2019s order, \neven those of customers she\u2019s never met. \nCan you hear \u00a0the eyes under my eyes? \nThey steal other people\u2019s dreams to use them for ad copy. \nHere are the eyes of a man who\u2019d be my husband if he\n hadn\u2019t married my twin, and there are the eyes of the judge \nwho divorced them, blue as his tie. I forget the eye color \nof the first man I loved\u2014what color was my hat when we cried\n in the snow? The whites of everyone\u2019s eyes swirl together\n in silent music. Nothing like the closed eyes of a flamenco dancer, \neating a dripping hamburger by the highway. Instead it is \nthe right eye of a teacher when she touches her student; \nthe eyes inside my mouth and the eyes outside your mouth;\n the eyes of the writer and reader, a broken vase and a whole petal; \nthe eyes on what you thought of as a cunt and the eyes \non what I thought of as a cock; the small eyes on the open book \nand the bigger eyes of the closed book; the eyes I swallow \nwhen we talk, and the eyes that fly above us in sleep.\n", "title": "New Eyes for the New Year", "id": 58394, "author": "Joanna Fuhrman"}
{"poem": "(I hope)\n\nthe only reason\n\nThat I am this pre-autumn\n\nAfternoon in the privacy\n\nOf my suspicious living room\n\nGrant myself permission\n\nTo believe in god once again\n\nIs solely because I saw\n\nAn unexpected grasshopper\n\nStaring at my thoughts\n\nOn the table that keeps\n\nThe telephone from having\n\nA mind of its very own\n\nAt first I was startled\n\nAnd then I was startled less\n\nAt the sight of this insect\n\nPut together in green details\n\nTo pay me an afternoon visit\n\n39 floors above floor level\n\nIn my High Rise Hobo apartment\n\nMiracle on 53rd\u00a0street\n\nGrasshopper hopped all the way\n\n39 floors above floor level\n\nTo deliberately invade my privacy\n\nAnd I didn't mind at all\n\nAfter grasshopper assured me\n\nIt didn't speak English or Spanish\n\nOr Chinese with an Italian accent\n\nSo we hit it off right away\n\n You mind your own business\n\nAnd I will not ask you\n\nAny personal questions aside\n\nFrom how the hell did you get here\n\nI've never written a poem\n\nAbout grasshoppers this high up before\n\nAnd I know it wasn't something\n\nMy non existing paint brushes\n\nConceived behind my back and\n\nThe only grass I have here is\n\nTo smoke & not hop around in\n\nUntil I get dizzy and levitate\n\nThere has to be a mistake\n\nOr did the grasshopper take\n\nThe elevator to the 39th floor\n\nAnd enter my apartment without knocking\n\nTo make it obvious grasshoppers\n\nHave the right to remain silent also\n\nAnd give credit to the desert\n\nFor his arrival and not no Almighty\n\nThe only other mystery capable\n", "title": "Ode to a Grasshopper", "id": 58399, "author": "Pedro Pietri"}
{"poem": "They worked\nThey were always on time\nThey were never late\nThey never spoke back\nwhen they were insulted\nThey worked\nThey never took days off\nthat were not on the calendar\nThey never went on strike\nwithout permission\nThey worked\nten days a week\nand were only paid for five\nThey worked\nThey worked\nThey worked\nand they died\nThey died broke\nThey died owing\nThey died never knowing\nwhat the front entrance\nof the first national city bank looks like\n\nJuan\nMiguel\nMilagros\nOlga\nManuel\nAll died yesterday today\nand will die again tomorrow\npassing their bill collectors\non to the next of kin\nAll died\nwaiting for the garden of eden\nto open up again\nunder a new management\nAll died\ndreaming about america\nwaking them up in the middle of the night\nscreaming: Mira Mira\nyour name is on the winning lottery ticket\nfor one hundred thousand dollars\nAll died\nhating the grocery stores\nthat sold them make-believe steak\nand bullet-proof rice and beans\nAll died waiting dreaming and hating\n\nDead Puerto Ricans\nWho never knew they were Puerto Ricans\nWho never took a coffee break\nfrom the ten commandments\nto KILL KILL KILL\nthe landlords of their cracked skulls\nand communicate with their latino souls\n\nJuan\nMiguel\nMilagros\nOlga\nManuel\nFrom the nervous breakdown streets\nwhere the mice live like millionaires\nand the people do not live at all\nare dead and were never alive\n\nJuan\ndied waiting for his number to hit\nMiguel\ndied waiting for the welfare check\nto come and go and come again\nMilagros\ndied waiting for her ten children\nto grow up and work\nso she could quit working\nOlga\ndied waiting for a five dollar raise\nManuel\ndied waiting for his supervisor to drop dead\nso he could get a promotion\n\nIs a long ride\nfrom Spanish Harlem\nto long island cemetery\nwhere they were buried\nFirst the train\nand then the bus\nand the cold cuts for lunch\nand the flowers\nthat will be stolen\nwhen visiting hours are over\nIs very expensive\nIs very expensive\nBut they understand\nTheir parents understood\nIs a long non-profit ride\nfrom Spanish Harlem\nto long island cemetery\n\nJuan\nMiguel\nMilagros\nOlga\nManuel\nAll died yesterday today\nand will die again tomorrow\nDreaming\nDreaming about queens\nClean-cut lily-white neighborhood\nPuerto Ricanless scene\nThirty-thousand-dollar home\nThe first spics on the block\nProud to belong to a community\nof gringos who want them lynched\nProud to be a long distance away\nfrom the sacred phrase: Que Pasa\n\nThese dreams\nThese empty dreams\nfrom the make-believe bedrooms\ntheir parents left them\nare the after-effects\nof television programs\nabout the ideal\nwhite american family\nwith black maids\nand latino janitors\nwho are well train\u2014\nto make everyone\nand their bill collectors\nlaugh at them\nand the people they represent\n\nJuan\ndied dreaming about a new car\nMiguel\ndied dreaming about new anti-poverty programs\nMilagros\ndied dreaming about a trip to Puerto Rico\nOlga\ndied dreaming about real jewelry\nManuel\ndied dreaming about the irish sweepstakes\n\nThey all died\nlike a hero sandwich dies\nin the garment district\nat twelve o\u2019clock in the afternoon\nsocial security number to ashes\nunion dues to dust\n\nThey knew\nthey were born to weep\nand keep the morticians employed\nas long as they pledge allegiance\nto the flag that wants them destroyed\nThey saw their names listed\nin the telephone directory of destruction\nThey were train to turn\nthe other cheek by newspapers\nthat mispelled mispronounced\nand misunderstood their names\nand celebrated when death came\nand stole their final laundry ticket\n\nThey were born dead\nand they died dead\nIs time\nto visit sister lopez again\nthe number one healer\nand fortune card dealer\nin Spanish Harlem\nShe can communicate\nwith your late relatives\nfor a reasonable fee\nGood news is guaranteed\nRise Table Rise Table\ndeath is not dumb and disable\u2014\nThose who love you want to know\nthe correct number to play\nLet them know this right away\nRise Table Rise Table\ndeath is not dumb and disable\nNow that your problems are over\nand the world is off your shoulders\nhelp those who you left behind\nfind financial peace of mind\nRise Table Rise Table\ndeath is not dumb and disable\nIf the right number we hit\nall our problems will split\nand we will visit your grave\non every legal holiday\nThose who love you want to know\nthe correct number to play\nlet them know this right away\nWe know your spirit is able\nDeath is not dumb and disable\nRISE TABLE RISE TABLE\n\nJuan\nMiguel\nMilagros\nOlga\nManuel\nAll died yesterday today\nand will die again tomorrow\nHating fighting and stealing\nbroken windows from each other\nPracticing a religion without a roof\nThe old testament\nThe new testament\n\naccording to me gospel\nof the internal revenue\nthe judge and jury and executioner\nprotector and eternal bill collector\nSecondhand shit for sale\nlearn how to say Como Esta Usted\n\nand you will make a fortune\nThey are dead\nThey are dead\nand will not return from the dead\nuntil they stop neglecting\nthe art of their dialogue\u2014\nfor broken english lessons\nto impress the mister goldsteins\u2014\nwho keep them employed\nas lavaplatos\n porters messenger boys\nfactory workers maids stock clerks\nshipping clerks assistant mailroom\nassistant, assistant assistant\nto the assistant\u2019s assistant\nassistant lavaplatos and automatic\nartificial smiling doormen\nfor the lowest wages of the ages\nand rages when you demand a raise\nbecause is against the company policy\nto promote SPICS SPICS SPICS\nJuan\ndied hating Miguel because Miguel\u2019s\nused car was in better running condition\nthan his used car\nMiguel\ndied hating Milagros because Milagros\nhad a color television set\nand he could not afford one yet\nMilagros\ndied hating Olga because Olga\nmade five dollars more on the same job\nOlga\ndied hating Manuel because Manuel\nhad hit the numbers more times\nthan she had hit the numbers\nManuel\ndied hating all of them\nJuan\nMiguel\nMilagros\nand Olga\nbecause they all spoke broken english\nmore fluently than he did\n\nAnd now they are together\nin the main lobby of the void\nAddicted to silence\nOff limits to the wind\nConfine to worm supremacy\nin long island cemetery\nThis is the groovy hereafter\nthe protestant collection box\nwas talking so loud and proud about\n\nHere lies Juan\nHere lies Miguel\nHere lies Milagros\nHere lies Olga\nHere lies Manuel\nwho died yesterday today\nand will die again tomorrow\nAlways broke\nAlways owing\nNever knowing\nthat they are beautiful people\nNever knowing\nthe geography of their complexion\n\nPUERTO RICO IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE\nPUERTORRIQUENOS ARE A BEAUTIFUL RACE\nIf only they\nhad turned off the television\nand tune into their own imaginations\nIf only they\nhad used the white supremacy bibles\nfor toilet paper purpose\nand make their latino souls\nthe only religion of their race\nIf only they\nhad return to the definition of the sun\nafter the first mental snowstorm\non the summer of their senses\nIf only they\nhad kept their eyes open\nat the funeral of their fellow employees\nwho came to this country to make a fortune\nand were buried without underwears\n\nJuan\nMiguel\nMilagros\nOlga\nManuel\nwill right now be doing their own thing\nwhere beautiful people sing\nand dance and work together\nwhere the wind is a stranger\nto miserable weather conditions\nwhere you do not need a dictionary\nto communicate with your people\nAqui \nSe Habla Espanol \nall the time\nAqui you salute your flag first\nAqui there are no dial soap commercials\nAqui everybody smells good\nAqui tv dinners do not have a future\nAqui the men and women admire desire\nand never get tired of each other\nAqui Que Pasa Power is what\u2019s happening\nAqui to be called negrito\nmeans to be called LOVE\n", "title": "Puerto Rican Obituary", "id": 58396, "author": "Pedro Pietri"}
{"poem": "Somewhere between here and Belen,\nthe Rio Grande will narrow to a muddy bead,\nno more than three feet across from shore to shore.\nMy friend, Nick Markulis, claims\nhe loves the river's color there, and will bathe\nhis toes in the water, and will go on and on\nabout a dry river in Athens that measures its life\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 in olive groves.\nStratis Thalassinos told me about these peculiar\nwaters that disappear and turn up again,\nand, of course, you know of Arethusa's\nfountain in Syracuse.\nI do not accuse Markopoulos (do I have\nthe name right?\u2014Markopoulos, Markulis,\nfugitive names, fugitive lives docking in Halifax)\nof being too conversant with asphodel meadows,\nbut one cannot remain composed\nwhen hunters and cultic figures press their claims\nupon a sainted afternoon.\nThink now of the intimate authority of La Candelaria,\nthe Sunday morning concert,\nthe walk through the abandoned streets,\nwhere all was an occasion of Bogot\u00e1,\na memory of Mazatl\u00e1n, a shaping\nnecessity we might have met at Salamis.\nWho can be sure\nthat this white cloth will be dissolved by death?", "title": "Somewhere between here and Belen", "id": 58381, "author": "Jay Wright"}
{"poem": "woke up this morning\nfeeling excellent,\npicked up the telephone\ndialed the number of\nmy equal opportunity employer\nto inform him I will not\nbe into work today\nAre you feeling sick?\nthe boss asked me\nNo Sir I replied:\nI am feeling too good\nto report to work today,\nif I feel sick tomorrow\nI will come in early\n", "title": "Telephone Booth\u00a0(number 905 1/2)", "id": 58398, "author": "Pedro Pietri"}
{"poem": "\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (1)\n\nNothing that exists can be\ntemporal; still I come to lay this stick\nupon these altars, those three\n\ndefinitions of sun, the border and thick\nmeasure of lost perfection.\nSun must acknowledge this state, an iconic\n\nmessage, abrupt invention\nof death; we shall call it an accomplishment,\nor a causal relation.\n\nThe mask measures my intent\non a patch of earth, a spent\nmeasure, a return, that red\nunruly seat of the dead.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0(2)\n\nCould the Cusan speak of love as a return,\na plentitude of absence, an imprecise\ncount of the dark from which he would always turn?\n\nThe binukedine know how to entice\nthe expansive energy flowing from grace,\nan absolute measure, a stellar device.\n\nI would propose a failed sun, a sacrifice\nthat spins an ambiguous body in time,\nin trust to a sacred field, death's other price.\n\nCall this, too, an intrinsic order, a rhyme\nof resuscitated bodies, pure, sublime\nin their perturbative intent, a concern\nof rhythms and designs set upon an urn.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0(3)\n\nThis must be what is the case,\nnani in the manifold,\ndannu, milestone, the embrace\n\nof albarga mask, the cold\ndesign the solstice will prove.\nNothing under law will hold.\n\nWhat established light will move\nor change the structure of light,\nlight an order to disprove?\n\nSpeak of the possible mask, of its finite\ncorrelation to love, the logical slight\nderivation and mark of corrupted space,\nthat fugitive event that will leave no trace.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (4)\n\nBogged in a bone order, syntax and substance\nof the passing world, I place\nmy duge in the fragile arms of silence.\n\nSo much for the quick embrace\nof the ceasing instant, the chaste argument\nonly the dead can efface.\n\nSay that I have written my absolute descent\nand stable transformation\nthrough a sounding tone to one that now is spent.\n\nPraise this instant collation,\nparadox and migration\nof souls without assurance\nor the due gift of distance.\n\n", "title": "Tone", "id": 58379, "author": "Jay Wright"}
{"poem": "the greatest living poet\nin new york city\nwas born in Puerto Rico\nhis name is Jorge Brandon (1902-1995)\nhe is over 70 years old\nhe carries his metaphor\nin brown shopping bags\ninside steel shopping cart\nhe travels around with\non the streets of manhattan\nhe recites his poetry\nto whoever listens\n& when nobody is around\nhe recites to himself\nhe speaks the wisdom\nof unforgettable palm trees\nthe vocabulary of coconuts\nthat wear overcoats\nthe traffic lights\nof his poems function\nwithout boring advice\nfrom ac or dc current\nbook stores & libraries\nare deprived of his vibes\nto become familiar\nwith this immortal poet\nyou have to hang-out\non street corners\nbuilding stoops rooftops\nfire escapes bars parks\nsubway train stations\nbodegas botanicas\niglesias pawn shops\ncard games cock fights\nfunerals valencia bakery\nhunts point palace\npool halls orchard beach\n& cuchifrito stands\non the lower eastside\nthe admission is free\nhis presence is poetry\n", "title": "Traffic Misdirector", "id": 58397, "author": "Pedro Pietri"}
{"poem": "I laze about, deranged and unafraid\nto godly kiss you, kiss the pharmacist\nthat whipped you, undilute, to dilate high\nyour animus of lime and lye.\n\nI know of an upstairs hell.\nA creamy, vascular thump\nthrough bonus years of things that pass\nand things that do not move.\u00a0\nYour cellular mouth. Your mess\nof inattention. Now that none\u00a0\nof us are good looking I think\nthat/they are right.\n\nStrokes of light you taped across my nipple.\nPatterns staked to fake the love\nwe cannot feel so slick the miser\nof your hand through my bad heart.\nGenius, you are blond enough.\nOnce in a while.\n\nAnd in the end, when I sweep coolly up\nand will not be drawn back,\nthen I will tell you of it. How I can.\nIn writing, I am making an attempt\nto depict my beautiful nose\nthrough imagery.\n\nI will tell you of it. Once in a while.\nI will miss you. And the tape.\nTo be flung down,\npetals from a balcony.\n", "title": "Watching It Happen", "id": 58385, "author": "Elaine Kahn"}
{"poem": "I wanted to be seen. But who would see me? I couldn\u2019t\nthink of the name for anything but a flower. The government\nmakes coins that size and shape so your hand can feel\nsafe holding them. The pictures stamped remind\nus where we are, or how the landscape\nwe live in connects itself, through common value,\nto a different place. On this one, a spinnaker\nsails past a bridge. On that, a diamond shines like a child\u2019s\nstilled top over a bird, as if the diamond made the natural\nworld\u2009\u2014\u2009bird, forest, state flower, sheaf of healthy corn, shining\nwater\u2009\u2014\u2009out of proportion in relation to itself. I love this. My own state\nhas a bear, so small and out of proportion to me that my life-\nline can cross behind it. At last I do not fear\nthat but feel proud the animal can sit in my palm so silently\nuntil I spend it. And if I lose it, then it becomes\neven more quiet. Most still just have an eagle,\nso it is as if 30 eagles were passed over\nfrom one hand to another when the one\ncharged with arranging things for his Savior\u2019s dinner\narranged his Savior\u2019s death. Heavier the yoke\nof heat in solitude. A walk uphill does not\nfeel manageable. Who will see me?\n", "title": "A Citizen", "id": 58350, "author": "Katie Peterson"}
{"poem": "At the stables, each stall was labeled with a name.\n\nBiscuit stood aloof\u2009\u2014\u2009I faced, always, invariably, his clockwork tail.\n\nCrab knew the salt lick too well.\n\nTrapezoid mastered stillness: a midnight mare, she was sternest and tallest, her chest stretched against the edges of her stall.\n\nI was not afraid of Never, the chestnut gelding, so rode his iron haunches as far as Panther Gap.\n\nNever and I lived in Virginia then.\n\nWe could neither flee nor be kept.\n\nSeldom did I reach the little mountain without him, the easy crests making valleys of indifferent grasses.\n\nWhat was that low sound I heard, alone with Never?\n\nA lone horse, a lodestar, a habit of fear.\n\nWe think of a horse less as the history of one man and his sorrows than as the history of a whole evil time.\n\nWhy I chose Never I\u2019ll never know.\n\nI fed him odd lettuce, abundant bitterness.\n\nWho wore the bit and harness, who was the ready steed.\n\nNever took the carrot, words by my own reckoning, an account of creeks and oystercatchers.\n\nOur hoof-house rested at the foot of the mountain, on which rested another house more brazen than statuary.\n\nLet it be known: I first mistook gelding for gilding.\n\nI am the fool that has faith in Never.\n\nSomewhere, a gold door burdened with apology refuses all mint from the yard.\n", "title": "A Horse Named Never", "id": 58372, "author": "Jennifer Chang"}
{"poem": "After joy raises you into the stratosphere,\nride earth\u2019s colors as you wheel down.\n\nFear backs you into a cave,\nonly then do you cackle and hiss.\n\nCurse at a tornado and it might curse back.\n\nWhy kick pebbles on your enemy?\nYou will die without burying him.\n\nThe ascent out of despair\nmust be steady, slow, or your lungs\nwill explode, your blood boil.\n\nWhich is wisest: to endure hunger\nor waddle among wolves?\n\nWarn those you love when the predator\napproaches. Screech loudest when you\nare the predator.\n", "title": "Advice from the Grackle", "id": 58376, "author": "Susan Elizabeth Howe"}
{"poem": "One last meal, family-style\u2009\u2014\n\nno family, and with suspect style.\nno family, and with suspect style.\nNovember first, my almost-groom\nfresh off his flasher costume\nfresh off his flasher costume\ndischarge at the office. Harris tweed.\nI read it on his antisocial feed.\nI read it on his antisocial feed.\n\nThe motel life is all a dream\u2009\u2014\nwe were, as they say, living the dream.\nwe were, as they say, living the dream.\nI appreciate our quandary, \nhot-plate dates and frowsy laundry.\nhot-plate dates and frowsy laundry.\nFace tattoos are never a good sign.\nI hope his tumor is benign.\nI hope his tumor is benign.\n\nI won\u2019t forget the time he lent\nme Inches, which I gave up for Lent.\nme Inches, which I gave up for Lent.\nOur love was threat, like phantom pain.\nAn almost-plan for a bullet train.\nAn almost-plan for a bullet train.\nI\u2019m weaning myself off graphic tees,\nnot taking on any new disease.\nnot taking on any new disease.\n\nI walk along Pier 5 to kill the myth,\nof course another stab at myth.\nof course another stab at myth.\nI pull my output from the shelf\nand wildly anthologize myself.\nand wildly anthologize myself.\nI\u2019ve adopted another yellow lab.\nI hope to die inside this cab.\nI hope to die inside this cab.\n\nMy lack of faith is punctuation\u2009\u2014\nno wait, the lack of punctuation.\nno wait, the lack of punctuation.\nEvery intonation, one more pact\nwith injury; my latest one-act:\nwith injury; my latest one-act:\n\u201cFlossing in Public.\u201d\nIn the spattered glass of the republic.\nIn the spattered glass of the republic.", "title": "Almost", "id": 58353, "author": "Randall Mann"}
{"poem": "I never thought Michiko would come back\nafter she died. But if she did, I knew\nit would be as a lady in a long white dress.\nIt is strange that she has returned\nas somebody's dalmation. I meet\nthe man walking her on a leash\nalmost every week. He says good morning\nand I stoop down to calm her. He said\nonce that she was never like that with\nother people. Sometimes she is tethered\non their lawn when I go by. If nobody\nis around, I sit on the grass. When she\nfinally quiets, she puts her head in my lap\nand we watch each other's eyes as I whisper\nin her soft ears. She cares nothing about\nthe mystery. She likes it best when\nI touch her head and tell her small\nthings about my days and our friends.\nThat makes her happy the way it always did.\n", "title": "Alone", "id": 58412, "author": "Jack Gilbert"}
{"poem": "Who I know knows why all those lush-boned worn-out girls are\nWhooping at where the moon should be, an eyelid clamped\nOn its lightness. Nobody sees her without the hoops firing in her\nEars because nobody sees. Tattooed across her chest she claims\nIs\u00a0BRING ME TO WHERE MY BLOOD RUNS\u00a0and I want that to be here\nWhere I am her son, pent in blackness and turning the night's calm\nLoose and letting the same blood fire through me. In her bomb hair:\nShells full of thunder; in her mouth: the fingers of some calamity,\nSomebody foolish enough to love her foolishly. Those who could hear\nNo music weren't listening\u2014and when I say it, it's like claiming\nShe's an elegy. It rhymes, because of her, with effigy. Because of her,\nIf there is no smoke, there is no party. I think of you, Miss Calamity,\nEvery Sunday. I think of you on Monday. I think of you hurling hurt\nWhere the moon should be and stomping into our darkness calmly.\n", "title": "American Sonnet for Wanda C.", "id": 58405, "author": "Terrance Hayes"}
{"poem": "1\n2\nThen the Count began afresh: My lords, he said, I am not pleased with the young man if he is not also a musician, and if, besides his cunning upon the book, he have not skill in like manner on sundry instruments. There is no ease of labor more honest and more praiseworthy, especially at court, where many things are taken in hand to please women, whose tender breasts are soon pierced with melody.\nThen the Lord Gasper: I believe music, he said, together with other vanities, is mete for women, also for them that have the likeness of men, but not for them that be men indeed, who ought not with such delicacies womanize their minds and so bring themselves to dread death.\n \u2014 The First Booke of the Courtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio\n3\n4", "title": "Arcadia", "id": 58362, "author": "James Longenbach"}
{"poem": "The heart of a bear is a cloud-shuttered\nmountain. The heart of a mountain\u2019s a kiln.\nThe white heart of a moth has nineteen white \nchambers. The heart of a swan is a swan.\n\nThe heart of a wasp is a prick of plush.\nThe heart of a skunk is a mink. The heart\nof an owl is part blood and part chalice.\nThe fey mouse heart rides a dawdy dust-cart.\n\nThe heart of a kestrel hides a house wren\nat nest. The heart of lark is a czar.\nThe heart of a scorpion is swidden\n\nand spark. The heart of a shark is a gear.\nListen and tell, thrums the grave heart of humans.\nListen well love, for it\u2019s pitch dark down here.\n", "title": "Arrhythmia", "id": 58374, "author": "Hailey Leithauser"}
{"poem": "I\u2019m thinking about you and you\u2019re humming while cutting a piece of wood.\nI\u2019m positive you aren\u2019t thinking about me which is fine as long as you\naren\u2019t thinking about yourself. I know and love the way you inhabit\nthis house and the occasions we mutually create. But I don\u2019t know\nthe man you picture when you see yourself walking around\nthe world inside your head and I\u2019m jealous\nof the attention you pay that person\nwhom I suspect\nof being devious.\n", "title": "Asymmetries", "id": 58346, "author": "Rae Armantrout"}
{"poem": "In those days I began to see light under every\nbushel basket, light nearly splitting\nthe sides of the bushel basket. Light came\nthrough the rafters of the dairy where the grackles\ncongregated like well-taxed citizens\nuntransfigured even by hope. Understand I was the one\nunderneath the basket. I was certain I had nothing to say.\nWhen I grew restless in the interior,\nthe exterior gave.\n", "title": "Autobiographical Fragment", "id": 58351, "author": "Katie Peterson"}
{"poem": "1\n1\n\nThere\u2019s a lot going on in\n\u201cthe\u201d\nzombie apocalypse.\n\nBut wouldn\u2019t she recognize\nthat her mother\nwas a zombie?\n\nI mean zombies\nare a thing.\n\n\n2\n2\n\nThe last thing she did\nwas point\nto one corner of the ceiling\n\nwith a horrified stare.\nThe nurse called this \u201ca seizure.\u201d\n\nAs if words\ndrained experience\nof content and continued\n\nto accumulate.\n\nAs if words\nwere sealed containers\nstored for safe keeping.\n\n\n3\n3\n\nThe background\nis everything\n\nthat, for now,\ncan be safely\n\nignored", "title": "Background Information", "id": 58348, "author": "Rae Armantrout"}
{"poem": "When Claude says blessed is he who has seen \nand believes, you know he is about to tell the one \nabout bees. His father told him which kind \n\nof sting was worst, but you have to see some things \nfor yourself, and when you ask how on earth \ndo you catch a bee to see anything, he tells how \n\nyou hunker down next to a sweet potato blossom \nand watch until one lands on the ruffled cuff \n\nand then ambles down into the sweeter sleeve. \nYou lean over and pinch the blossom shut, \nand there you have it, ready to sting yourself \n\nso you can decide on your own, and he wants \nfor you not to doubt this: even more blessed, \nyou will be, you have heard\u2009\u2014\u2009and not seen.\n", "title": "Bee", "id": 58357, "author": "Claudia Emerson"}
{"poem": "I stand there under the high limbs of locust\nwatching my father point a black gun into the air\n\nhis arms steepled for the stillness\nrequired to split the proverbial hair\n\nwith a BB. I would like to throw a red hat\u00a0\nto catch what will smack from the barrel\n\nbut instead the songbird drops fast\u2014a warm\nstone through liquid swimming between us.\n\nThe stink of yellow sulfur thick. And the twist\nof his mouth, like tangled purple boughs\n\nor crossed legs of what he never dreamed he'd hit.\nYears after, I will admit only to so much. Blue\n\nmoon tomorrow. Do we ever get a second\nchance? It's what I don't say that speaks loudest.\n", "title": "Blue", "id": 58414, "author": "Katrina Roberts"}
{"poem": "It nuzzles oblivion, confuses\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0itself with mud. A creature\n\nof familiar taste, it ambushes\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0from its nest of ooze the pond's\n\nbrighter fish, clears its palate\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 with their eggs, lumbers fat\n\nand stagnant into winter, lulled\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 into dreams of light sinking until\n\nlight drowns, and all is as before.\n", "title": "Catfish", "id": 58432, "author": "Claudia Emerson"}
{"poem": "Pillows & ribbons harness barefoot friends,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 haughty sisters & smiles; mothers watch, snoring.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Dirty Jeep, broken January; darkness steals my grief.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I cannot imagine something more fragile than marriage.\nYou held my hand.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0We listened to the Callas arias on our porch.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 You kept rewinding the love song back to the beginning\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 to the place where she saings, Certainly not today.\n\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Leaf shadows tent walls. My tongue traces\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 tattoos & scars. Strange shirts\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0mingle in the dryer. Tangled sand, uncomfortable\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0legs, wasted days spent memorizing the body\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I'd soon share. Bride, bridge, bridle: all signs said,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Don't wife her.\n\nI have learned how to hollow beginnings,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 rewind homes & wedding veils.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Your drool, the doorknob, clumsy knots.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Today the map is mortified.\nIn bed, polka dots, miscarriage.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Weather changes leaves, fragile-making.\n(not even divorcing in the eyes of the law: \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0dissolving)\n\nI remember my sorrow at finding ants housed in my mother's peonies.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0When we moved, the new residents tore out all her flower beds,\nthe strawberry patch & the treehouse. I drove you there to show you.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0You held my hand.\n\n\n", "title": "Conjugal Elegy", "id": 58401, "author": "Valerie Wetlaufer"}
{"poem": "the lonely\nthe lonely\n\nIncorporating the words of L.S. Lowry\nIncorporating the words of L.S. Lowry\n\nI used to paint the sea, but never a shore,\nand nobody was sailing on it. It wasn\u2019t even\nthe sea, it was just my own loneliness.\n\nIt\u2019s all there, you know. It\u2019s all in the sea.\nThe battle is there, the inevitability of it all,\nthe purpose. When I switched to people\n\nthey were all lonely. Crowds are the\nloneliest thing of all, I say. Every individual\nin them is a stranger to everyone else.\n\nI would stand for hours in one spot\nand scores of little kids who hadn\u2019t had\na wash for weeks would group round me.\n\nHad I not been lonely, none of my work\nwould have happened. I should not have\ndone what I\u2019ve done, or seen what I\u2019ve seen.\n\nThere\u2019s something grotesque in me and I\ncan\u2019t help it. I\u2019m drawn to others who are\nlike that. They\u2019re very real people. It\u2019s just\n\nI\u2019m attracted to sadness and there are some\nvery sad things. These people are ghostly\nfigures. They\u2019re my mood, they\u2019re myself.\n\nLately, I started a big self-portrait. I thought\nI won\u2019t want this thing, no one will, so\nI went and turned it into a grotesque head.\n\n\nmemo to lowry\nmemo to lowry\n\n You\u2019re right, there are grotesques who shine \na dark light that lures us like how the sirens\n tried to lure Odysseus, and yes, maybe we \nourselves are among the grotesques, but \nthere are also the beautiful who, if we\u2019re \nlucky, save us from ourselves, and validate \nthe sun\u2019s light, and maybe also the moon\u2019s.", "title": "Dialogue with an Artist", "id": 58340, "author": "Matthew Sweeney"}
{"poem": "O, Benjamin P. Lovell, 19\nfrom Oneonta, New York State\nwho appears in the police blotter\nin Thursday\u2019s Daily Star for\nunlawful possession of marijuana.\nThe police blotter hangs just\nbelow the cast of Hairpsray\nrehearsing at the suny oneonta\ngoodrich theater\nwhere the girl playing Tracy\nTurnblad looks as if she\u2019s been\nhelping herself to donuts:\nmaybe the donuts we were eating\nat Barlow\u2019s General Store, Treadwell.\nDo you ever get an upstate rush?\nI\u2019ve never been crazy about donuts\nbut these are the aristocrats\nof the donut world and I salute them.\n\nAnd I hope, Benjamin, your mom\nisn\u2019t going to be too mad as she casts\nher eye down the police blotter\nand sees your name there, You little shit!\nand I hope the authorities remember\nbeing young when the whole world\nsometimes seemed somehow like\na gargantuan donut that either pulled\nyou to its bosom (O Tracy!) or kicked\ndown\u2009\u2014\u2009somewhere\u2009\u2014\u2009to the bloodstream.\nSweet donut, do I love thee? I haven\u2019t\nmentioned Brando K. Goodluck, 18,\nfrom Manhattan, charged with seventh-degree\ncriminal possession of a controlled\nsubstance. O Brando, O Brando\nwhat were you thinking?\n\nAs I put a donut in my mouth\nI\u2019m thinking I wouldn\u2019t mind\na joint, and, in any case, maybe\nall these donuts are pretty dangerous\nand I wonder what would happen\nif the rules got jumbled up\nand the girl playing Tracy Turnblad\nslid down the page\nand found herself in the police blotter\ncharged with unlawful possession\nof a donut. Suddenly America feels\ndifferent and I like it.\nPolice blotters throughout the nation\npacked with donutheads and half the country\non the run as college girls make\nsecret calls and meet their dealers\nin dusty ghost towns, sweet\nvapors drifting through the trees.\n\nO America, where even the robins\nare bigger, where every car that\nslides into the forecourt of Barlow\u2019s\nGeneral Store is a Dodge, where\nhalf the population is chasing\nthe perfect donut. Let\u2019s imagine\nthat Benjamin P. Lovell and\nBrando K. Goodluck, nice slim boys,\nwho never touched a donut\nin their lives, wander into Barlow\u2019s\nand roll a joint and talk about those\nlosers who kneel down before \u201cthe big one.\u201d\nThey know the girl who was playing\nTracy Turnblad. She was sweet, they say,\nwho went and threw it all away\nfor a sleazy bun with a hole in it.\nThey pass the joint to me and I can\nfeel the donuts I stuffed in haste\nsomewhere down my slacks. I blush.\nReal shame, I say. Mrs. Barlow says\nYou boys want more coffee?\nThe donuts on her shelves have gone.\n", "title": "Donut", "id": 58369, "author": "Julian Stannard"}
{"poem": "1\n1\n\nClaude says he, too, was given the tracks and not \nthe train, the way\u2009\u2014\u2009and not the way out, not the beyond \nbeyond that bend, or the next. The place \n\nthey call Drybridge\u2009\u2014\u2009for the waterless bed \nof rails\u2009\u2014\u2009where on the banks, you grow up learning \nmore news from hoboes than from the mailman.\n\nBut you know nothing of the train as it passes \nbehind the backs of grander houses, gutted \n\nwarehouses, chained dogs, as it grazes an alien \ngrid of fences\u2009\u2014\u2009of stone, metal, and chain-link. \nOr that when it passes beneath the underside \n\nof a bridge, a boy your own age waves the way \nyou do, and that there is a horse doesn\u2019t lift its head, \nand one that does, only to lower it again.\n\n\n2\n2\n\nYou are a grown man when the train comes \nto a scalding stop, and a lantern swings down \nthe road. A man has been killed, they call out \n\nfrom behind the light\u2019s aura, and would you come see \nwhat you can tell of him by what\u2019s left. You do \nknow his hat, and that burn scar on the back \n\nof his hand. What you know of his wife\nyou do not say and will not even the next \n\nnight when you sit up with the body in the house \nhe wanted that much shut of, her voice rigid \nas its walls while the train you hear out there in the darkness \n\npasses by the way it always does, as though \nthe same, the very same, and, again, on \nthe time it will this night be able to keep.", "title": "Drybridge", "id": 58361, "author": "Claudia Emerson"}
{"poem": "\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\nIn my head there\u2019s a homunculus who skips stones, also a cripple who drags his dead leg through the sand of the Pacific and the trail that he\u2019s leaving behind looks like the handwriting of someone who\u2019s hurt you, and the waves come and the waves erase it.\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\u2022\nTranslated from the Spanish", "title": "Equestrian Monuments (A Litany)", "id": 58368, "author": "Luis Chaves"}
{"poem": "Who knows more of gods than I?\nDeities defied, not the first time.\nI scan scraps of Abraxas,\nRap along to Pac; rip Big\u2019s Faith,\n\nMy skin infection scratched, an itch\nWith which I cannot live. I pray\nFor nightmares\u2009\u2014\u2009Dana Dane\u2009\u2014\u2009to stop\nEffluvial rainfall. Oh, here comes\n\nThe wet stuff. Here come I.\nUp the train, off the 7, up\nThe stairs to Vernon. The church?\nSt. Mary\u2019s. 49th, 49th, 49th.\n\nEl ay si mac and cheese. IPA.\nA walk across Pulaski Hump to\nGreenpoint. It\u2019s post-pop\nHipster, so my jeans press\n\nJust one plum to my leg.\nThe Dionysus to the other,\nThe Apollo orbiting right, left.\nIn the middle, Bazooka Joe.\n\nIt is, after all, so cold (the plum).\nBaller status. Church bells chime,\nThe chimera within. A right on Driggs,\nParallel to Bedford.\n\nRatty chains, skulls patch a pylon\nMaze of bubblegum dusk.\nLive from Bedford-Stuyvesant,\nThe livest one.\n\nAy, huevos. I am this side-\nWalk crack, its bugs, its spit,\nThe crushed shrapnel of Red Bull\nCans, shining, a conduit.\n\nThe buts and howevers,\nThe nonethelesses,\nThe (al)thoughs that weigh\nOn the other hand.\n\nSongbird guru lays an eggy,\nJazzy omelet with spicy pap.\nGunk notwithstanding,\nI am a hardened man.\n", "title": "Evanescent Hesse", "id": 58364, "author": "Maceo J. Whitaker"}
{"poem": "What stopped her bawling was the doorbell\nringing, and a man standing there with five\nyellow roses, bulked up with green fronds\nand tied in a dinky knot with olive twine.\n\nThere was no card to say who the flowers\ncame from. The man\u2019s uniform was blue\nwith a brown insignia of a spider on his right\ntop pocket that she saw he kept unbuttoned.\n\nAs he waltzed down the path to the gate\nthe Siamese cat that frequented the garden\nraised its back and hissed. The man laughed\nand flounced out to his waiting white van.\n\nOh, the shit-faced side streets of life! OK,\nshe\u2019d been born in Madras, in a flowery tea shop\nwhile an albino conjurer magicked a hare\nto leap from his heavily-ringed brown fingers.\n\nFive yellow roses? Enough to encourage her\nto cook saffron rice, with turmeric-tinged prawns\nand saut\u00e9ed yellow courgettes. She didn\u2019t play\nthe Ry Cooder where yellow roses say goodbye.\n", "title": "Five Yellow Roses", "id": 58339, "author": "Matthew Sweeney"}
{"poem": "Like eelgrass through a glass-\nbottom boat on the Silver River, \nI see the state, obscured yet pure. Derision,\n\na tattooed flame crackling\nunderneath the lewd, uncool\nkhaki of an amused park worker.\n\nI was the sometimes boy on a leash, \nmy sliver of assent in 1984\u2009\u2014\nas if it were my decision.\n\nThe I-75 signage, more than metaphor. \nAs if I had the right to vote.\nThe slumber parties then were hidden wood;\n\nthe tea so sweet, the saccharin\npink and artificial, like intelligence.\nThe science sponsored in part by chance.\n\nI made my acting debut with the red\ndilettante down the street, \u201cRusty\u201d Counts,\nin Rusty Counts Presents: Suburbs of the Dead,\n\nstraight to VHS. My parents phoned a counselor.\nA palmetto bug read Megatrends on the fold-\ning chair by our above-ground swimming pool ...\n\nThe pool shark lurked, but not to fear.\nThe end unknowable, blue, inmost, and cold, \nlike the comfort of a diplomatic war.\n", "title": "Florida", "id": 58354, "author": "Randall Mann"}
{"poem": "I am surprised they haven\u2019t left already\u2009\u2014\u2009\nI am surprised they haven\u2019t left already\u2009\u2014\u2009\nthings have gotten downright frosty, nearly unbearable.\nA mob of them is apparently mouthing off outside\n\nwhen I put down my newspaper and we all gather\nto stand beside my daughter in the bay\nto stand beside my daughter in the bay\nof kitchen windows. Quiscalus quiscula: \n\nthis name sounds like a spell which, after its casting,\nwill make things crumble into a complement\nwill make things crumble into a complement\nof unanswerable questions. Though, if you need me \n\nto tell you God\u2019s honest truth, I know nothing\nto tell you God\u2019s honest truth, I know nothing\nbut their common name the morning we watch them attack\nour feeder. I complain about the mess they leave. Hulls\n\nI\u2019ll have to sweep up or ignore. My father\u2009\u2014\u2009\nI\u2019ll have to sweep up or ignore. My father\u2009\u2014\u2009\nwho I am thankful is still alive\u2009\u2014\u2009says We could use\na different kind of seed. A simple solution. We want that\n\nbrown bird with the shock of red: the northern flicker.\nWe want western bluebirds, more of the skittish\nWe want western bluebirds, more of the skittish\nfinches. But mostly we get grackle grackle grackle\n\nall day long. Can it be justifiable to revile these \nharbingers? They scoff all we offer\nharbingers? They scoff all we offer\nand\u2009\u2014\u2009being too close and too many\u2009\u2014\u2009scare\n\nother birds away. My husband says, Look\nat all those crackles. I almost laugh at him,\nat all those crackles. I almost laugh at him,\nbut the winter air does look hurtful loud\n\naround the black flock. Like static is loud when it sticks\nsheets to sheets so they crackle when pulled\nsheets to sheets so they crackle when pulled\none from another. And sting. My father\u2009\u2014\u2009who is older now\n\nthan his older brothers will ever be\u2009\u2014\u2009promiseshe will solve the problem of the grackles\nthan his older brothers will ever be\u2009\u2014\u2009promises\nhe will solve the problem of the grackles\nand leaves the window to search for his keys.\n\nThe dawn sky\u2009\u2014\u2009blue breaking into blackness\u2009\u2014\u2009\nis what I see feathering their bodies. The fence\nis what I see feathering their bodies. The fence\nis gray. The feeder is gray, the aspen bark. Gray\n\nhulls litter the ground. But the grackles,\nhulls litter the ground. But the grackles,\ntheir passerine claws\u2009\u2014\u2009three facing forward, one turned\nback\u2009\u2014\u2009around the roost bar of the feeder, are\nback\u2009\u2014\u2009around the roost bar of the feeder, are\n\nso bright within their blackness, I pray they will stay.", "title": "Frequently Asked Questions: 10", "id": 58363, "author": "Camille T. Dungy"}
{"poem": "The friend lives half in the grass\nand half in the chocolate cake,\nwalks over to your house in the bashful light\nof November, or the forceful light of summer.\nYou put your hand on her shoulder,\nor you put your hand on his shoulder.\nThe friend is indefinite. You are both\nso tired, no one ever notices the sleeping bags\ninside you and under your eyes when you\u2019re talking\ntogether about the glue of this life, the sticky\nsaturation of bodies into darkness. The friend\u2019s crisis\nof faith about faith is unnerving in its power\nto influence belief, not in or toward some other\nhigher power, but away from all power in the grass\nor the lake with your hand on her shoulder, your hand\non his shoulder. You tell the friend the best things\nyou can imagine, and every single one of them has\nalready happened, so you recount them\nof great necessity with nostalgic, atomic ferocity,\nand one by one by one until many. The eggbirds whistle\nthe gargantuan trees. The noiserocks fall twisted\ninto each other\u2019s dreams, their colorful paratrooping,\ntheir skinny dark jeans, little black walnuts\nto the surface of this earth. You and the friend\nremain twisted together, thinking your simultaneous\nand inarticulate thoughts in physical lawlessness,\nin chemical awkwardness. It is too much\nto be so many different things at once. The friend\nbrings black hole candy to your lips, and jumping\noff the rooftops of your city, the experience.\nSo much confusion\u2009\u2014\u2009the several layers of exhaustion,\nand being a friend with your hands in your pockets,\nand the friend\u2019s hands in your pockets.\nO bitter black walnuts of this parachuted earth!\nO gongbirds and appleflocks! The friend\nputs her hand on your shoulder. The friend\nputs his hand on your shoulder. You find\na higher power when you look.\n", "title": "The Friend", "id": 58352, "author": "Matt Hart"}
{"poem": "I am sure I do\nnot believe we can\nmove a pencil through\na white field, pulled by\na team of upside-\ndown ox-head letter\nAs, and in real fact\nfurrow it. Poor old\npage-earth\u2009\u2014\u2009sized, cut, scraped, \nploughed with mule-pencils\nor impressed by ink,\nilluminated,\nprinted, obscurely\ninscribed, and revered\nor destroyed, revered\nand destroyed, and here\ncomes yet another\nwalled-garden crop for\neye, ear, lungs, legs, mind.\n\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\nThe cranium dome\nhangs from its own silk\nconceptual thread\nof thought, conceiving\nits infinite in-\ncomplete perfection:\nits Zeno, its Zeus,\nits Dante, its Te\nDeums and freak shows,\nfrescoes, twine theory,\nmoney, bread, bricks and\nwine, six-syllable\nabstractions, axes\nand facts, its every\nvariation of\ncustom, including\nvertical graves of\nmen buried upside\ndown without their heads.\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n(In dusk-lit, telling \nways, tell me, little \nswallow, Tuscan or \nT\u2019ang or wrung somehow \nfrom time: since I have \nneither feather nor \nwing, how I too can\ngo into a grave\nmade only of air.)\n\n\u2022\n\u2022\n\n\u201cFor your sweet joy, take\n\u201cfrom my cupped hands a\n\u201clittle glittering\n\u201cof sun, a little\n\u201choney\u2009\u2014\u2009for this is\n\u201cwhat Persephone\u2019s\n\u201cbees have commanded.\n\n\u201cA boat can\u2019t cast off\n\u201cif it isn\u2019t moored;\n\u201cno one can hear a\n\u201cshadow that wears fur\n\u201cboots; we can\u2019t best our\n\u201cfright in this dark wood.\n\n\u201cOur kisses\u2009\u2014\u2009these are\n\u201call that we can save,\n\u201cvelvety as bees\n\u201cthat die if they are\n\u201cexiled from the hive.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019re murmuring in\n\u201cthe transparent groves \n\u201cof the night; the wilds\n\u201cof mountain Greece are\n\u201ctheir motherland; their\n\u201cdiet is time, lung-\n\u201cwort, pale meadowsweet.\n\n\u201cFor joy, please take this\n\u201cpagan gift: this rude,\n\u201crustling necklace of\n\u201cthe bees that died, for\n\u201cthese had transmuted\n\u201choney into sun.\u201d", "title": "From \u201cDark Honey\u201d", "id": 58355, "author": "Reginald Gibbons"}
{"poem": "At the age of nine, Pa drove me\nto the river. The pastor & deacons\nawaited. I donned a white robe,\ntransparent, self-conscious\u00a0\nof my fresh nubs.\n\nFather Jonas reached beneath me,\nplaced a hand over my nose & mouth.\n\nI resisted.\n\nHe pushed me hard until my feet released\n& rose to the surface, like a corpse.\n\nI cried afterward, cold & clammy,\nwet hair plaited back.\n\nAll the men thought I was full\u00a0\nof the Holy Ghost.\n\n\n\n", "title": "Full Immersion", "id": 58403, "author": "Valerie Wetlaufer"}
{"poem": "As you told it to me\u2009\u2014\u2009our clearest, most reflective conversations\nso often then and there, in the middle of the night, staring into\nthe darkness from wherever the mind has perched in its wanderings\u2009\u2014\u2009\nyou left your mother and the home aide upstairs, and went down\ninto your father\u2019s basement workroom to look for the right\nsize screws; in her own wanderings, she has tugged off the front\ndoor lock. Paneled in warped wood and abandoned like a mine, \nyou find the string for the light in the middle of the room, as he \nmust have known how to find it in the dark, and again you see\nthe pegboard walls covered with constellations of polishing tools,\nthe larger buffers hooked onto the paneling like fuzzy planets, \nthe smaller ones stuck in a Lucite block he customized to hold them\nlike the varied moons those hanging planets might need, or a \nminiature copse of fantastical trees. So, too, the see-through brick \nin which he drilled holes for the array of drill bits themselves,\ntheir swirled metal tops imitating a skyline of onion domes and\ntapered gothic towers. The room\u2019s order had been disturbed \nby time, and the band saw, jigsaw, the sander, and free-standing\nmachines, the sized wrenches, pliers, picks, awls, and extra parts \nstill hanging in their packages, the staple gun, lamps, brushes,\ngooseneck magnifying glass, soldering wire, conversion charts,\nthe hundreds of other disordered tools, they might have been words \nin an encyclopedia before you could read more than a few words, \nand for you they were part of your father\u2019s speech, or maybe\nmore like your mother\u2019s now, jumbled, rarely creating a sentence.\nWith these tools he had sculpted a perfect cluster of grapes, \nstill on their vine and still with their leaves; a wave, and a school\nof dolphins breaching; a formal replica of the Brooklyn Bridge \nwith all its cabling; a bouquet of flowers\u2009\u2014\u2009surfaces so smooth\nand rounded, objects so like their living counterparts we had no\nchoice but to understand the power of creation running through\nthe mind then tools and hands like a current. You looked around\nfor the right size screws and came upon a small box marked\nGreen Permanent. And when you opened it you saw small tubes\nof paint, now just mud without his attention, you said, holding both\nthe power of what we do, and the sadness that it has to end.\n", "title": "Green Permanent", "id": 58371, "author": "Jessica Greenbaum"}
{"poem": "My brother's funeral over, the dark-clothed\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0congregation clots the church doors, a lingering\n\naftermath moving into flat light\u2014the sky\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0low and swollen, a storm siren's long\n\nexpansive notes, evenly measured,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0so loud the pauses between ring\n\nwith aftersound. Used to it, no one\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0here appears alarmed, the church ladies\n\nfiling into his house bearing heavy covered\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0dishes, the funeral flowers. On the muted\n\ntelevision tuned to the weather,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 a small area of Watch now upgrades\n\nto Warning; the words stream across the bottom\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of the screen calling conditions perfect,\n\nthis town, this house disappeared beneath the map's\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0isolated lesion, its red edges\n\nuneven, stalled. The forecasters rely\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0they say on spotters to confirm\n\nwhat the radar cannot\u2014they call it\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ground truth; until then no one knows anything\n\nfor certain beyond this inward watching.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The room hums, an airless, crowded hive.\n\nTheir mouths are full, plates layered\u2014fried chicken,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0deviled eggs, casseroles, bright congealed\n\nsalads with fruit suspended inside.\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 All of it dust. I have come here too late,\n\nhis body gone, already ash. The storm's body\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 could be forming now, tightening from cloud\n\nto the gyre that will consume its path, all of it\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 a becoming\u2014spiraling a wall of water,\n\nmud, dust, and sand; with dispassion taking up\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 into itself the fence line, a barn\u2014the house\n\nbeside them spared with the same dispassion. Or this,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 more likely now: siren silenced, the winds\n\ndiminishing, the light, afternoon's concession\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0to another dusk\u2014severe, more common truth.\n", "title": "Ground Truth", "id": 58431, "author": "Claudia Emerson"}
{"poem": "At one friend's home whole arsenals of guns\nlitter the lawn\u2014bright plastic shapes my sons\n\npick their ways between to take proffered\npopsicles. Later, on evening news, words\n\nlike \"ambush,\" \u00a0\"strike,\" and \"friendly fire\"\npunctuate glowing clips of wreckage in far\n\nfields where other mother's children kneel to\naim and pray. And though it's clich\u00e9d, truth\n\nbe told, I wish one could keep her boys\nfrom growing old and going off to die. Toys\n\nneed not rush us there. Instinct? No harm?\nAn urge to hoist whatever's there, hard-\n\nwired within? Perhaps ignoble, I'm still glad\nwhen one spits on his own: They're bad.\n", "title": "Guns", "id": 58415, "author": "Katrina Roberts"}
{"poem": "If I could be anyting\nI would be a rich white girl\nand I am almost halfway there\nI straightened my hair before it rained\nNow all I can do is pray\nI don't mean that figuratively\nI'm living in this logocentrism\nWhere did I get these Spanish thighs\nI was crying in the food court\nbecause I'm afraid\nof the spiritual anorexia that I crave\nI wrote out a prayer in reportorial style\nlike a good Protestant\nObsessed with achieving\nthe androgyny of my time\nI cut when my boyfriend said\nI had the figure\nof an average Hispanic girl\nso what was I so upset about\nI decided to try liposuction at home\nSo much splendor is owed\nto dysmorphia and a fucked perspective\nlike those Gothic spires poking the heavens\nthat someone just thought up like\ncan we tap this broomstick\non ethereal marble floors or what\ncan we really do\n\n\n", "title": "House of Joyce Leslie", "id": 58406, "author": "Monica McClure"}
{"poem": "carefully folded, swooned, postpartum\n\u00a0\nposthaste\u2014\r \n\n\u00a0\n my letter to you, I gave\u2014\n\n\u00a0\ncurious, you said uncanny you\n\n\u00a0\nsaid the color of my eyes in this light\n\u00a0\nis a different shade of green said\n\u00a0\nyou don't eat meat but you wear\n\u00a0\nleather outside the birds\n\u00a0\n& inside the sun on the chair\n\u00a0\n& my thighs spread &\n\u00a0\nstick to the plastic &\n\u00a0\nyou said you loved\n\u00a0\nit & the ampersand & my swoon\n\u00a0\nsilently inside my skirt & the ochre\n\u00a0\non the building changes to umber\n\u00a0\nin the light & the tree outside is\n\u00a0\nbare & I am, my foot inside my slipper\n\u00a0\nmy toes curled behind & ow & yes\n\u00a0\n& some days are sunny days & some\n\u00a0\ndays are\n", "title": "I Gave You My\u2014", "id": 58402, "author": "Valerie Wetlaufer"}
{"poem": "Knock knock He has closed his door\nThe garden\u2019s lilies have started to rot\nSo who is the corpse being carried from the house\n\nYou just knocked on his door\n\nAnd trot trot\nAnd trot trot\nTrot goes little lady mouse\n\nTranslated from the French\u00a0\nTranslated from the French\u00a0", "title": "The Lady", "id": 58342, "author": "Guillaume Apollinaire"}
{"poem": "Let the light stand for nothing\nbut illumination. Let\nthe naked man and woman\nout for air. Let the curtain hide\nonly another side of the\ncurtain. Let the food consumed\nbe consummated. Let the\nconsomm\u00e9 be a dish. Let the\ndish into the bedroom\nbecause she is there for the\ncat. Let the cat be cool as Miles.\nLet it all happen again\nif you can. Let it happen again\nif you can. Let the first word\nspoken during intercourse be the\nonly definition you require. Let\nneed be need. Let love be need\nalso, if need be. And let\nit all happen again because it can.\n", "title": "Let the Light Stand", "id": 58347, "author": "Corey Mesler"}
{"poem": "She perches high on the stand, gleaming whistle\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0dangling, on her suit a duitiful,\n\nfaded red cross. Mine her only life\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0to guard, she does for a while watch\n\nthe middle-aged woman who has nothing better\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0to do than swim laps in the Y's indoor pool\n\non a late Friday afternoon. I am slow,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0though, boring, length after predictable\n\nlength of breaststroke or the duller lap\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of elementary backstroke perfectly\n\nexecuted within the taut confines\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of the brightly buoyed lane. So she abandons me\n\nto study split-ends, hangnail, wristwatch,\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 until\u2014the body of the whistle cupped\n\nloosely in her palm\u2014her head nods toward\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 shallow dreams. I've never felt so safe in my life,\n\nmaking flawless, practiced turns, pushing, invisible\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 to reenter my own wake, reverse it.\n\n\n", "title": "Lifeguard", "id": 58433, "author": "Claudia Emerson"}
{"poem": "We are of one mind\nand too much has not been said\nabout all the quiet afternoons \nchildhood offered us, \nlit gray like a cat, or blue, \nand cursed with an early moon. \nWhen father wore an apron \nor crept like a bear, we screamed.\nNothing is so gone. \nWhere is his record player \nor the channel that forked \na distant year toward us,\nkind, slow magnet?\nThere was a song we shared\nwithout your listening, \nyou widowed soul crawling away on your elbows.\nI sing it to my child, with a full hand I\nflick its rapeseeds everywhere,\nclear, and slow,\nwith all the sincerity its author indeed felt\nin his ten-gallon hat\nand his thin, whisky-soaked shirt.\n", "title": "Listening to Townes Van Zandt", "id": 58358, "author": "Christine Gosnay"}
{"poem": "All my feelings are\ndifferent and this one\nis the most\n\nOf all places here\nwhere women once retired\nfrom the men for fear\nof boring them\n\nI am so bloody in my own bath\nof wild hairs\nthat I couldn't possibly\njoin you tonight\nfor that colonial thing\n\nHeroin or whore\nBabylon or Bethlehem\n\nNo matter what I'm followed by\nmosquitos\n\nFlitting dicks who want me\nto teach them about themselves\n\nBut everything I know is contained in capsules\nof macha that break down\nin my bloodstream\n\nAnd I wouldn't recommend it\nfor the fairer sex\nwho should buck up and study up\non their condition\n\nI used to feel sick for all my sloth\nbut not anymore\n\nIn wanting to please\nI have sinned\nIn leaning in I have sinned\n\nIn breaking in two\nI feel sin\nSo\n\nVete ya\nA haircut and a hard cock\nis all I need\n\nTo govern a family\nMy rod\n\ncutting them down\u00a0\nsupplicant on the ground\n\nFor I was the first real white girl ever born\nin this country of flat skulls\n\nThat's why I'm so cocky\nwith my staff\n\nand my rule rock hard and inconsistent\nwith my favor\n\nThe mouths of L'Age d'Or\nsucked well at my pre-war stockings\nbefore cocktail hour\n\nBells rang and trays of mosquitos\nwere served with tarts\n\nWe hadn't meant to kill them with La Macha\nwhich includes but is not limited to:\n\na goddess religion\nunfaultering at the altar of shade\nan erotics of object-identification\nand compassion extending beyond the grave\n\nMy sister and I drank mournfully but afterwards\nwe still danced all night\n\nwearing quite literally bedazzled bustiers\nand veils of a dead boy's smoke\n\nque mala after beating their macho dead\nin ultra-feminine swoops\n\nHow do they want us to think of them now\nour brothers haviing left so little charisma behind\n\non the internet\nto aggrandize\n\nSuch small mosquitos\nAnd though we are mourning we are still so macha\n\nas we chip the thin teeth of traitors\nand huff the scent of babies\nand slap each other on the asses\nand father seven times\nand punish the bull\nwith its own marbled horns\n\nBut though we're cocky we are still martyrs\nMy sister says quita la macha\nand I'm like why\n\nIt's okay to make up slogans in the spirit of revolution\nand she's like ok but\n\nafter you systematically destroy machismo you must\nput his teeth to gnash at your engorged breasts\nfor any sort of catagenesis to occur\n\nand I'm like that could be hot\nBut it isn't the new love\nconceived by and for macha\n\nor is it?\nidk\nidk either\ni really dk\n\nSo we taught our brothers all these methods of cameo\nthat they may take a small symbol of macha\nto wear around their necks\nto the part of culture where the money\nused to be kept\n\nMay they remember the strength\nof their mother's biceps as they show mercy\nto their fathers who are teleological\n\ntill the end of supremacy\nwhich is the beginning of macha\n\nKiss the black lips that feed you\nthe corn hips that rock you\nand blight the prayers after you've said them\n\nSanta Mala\nMadre de Mala\nruega por nosotros pecadores\nahora y en la ahora de nuestra muerte\u00a0\n\nHand me my beads\nWar without end\nAm\u00e9n\n\n\n", "title": "Macha", "id": 58408, "author": "Monica McClure"}
{"poem": "Oh! Hucklebuck! Treat her right! Yes, you, Text-Deft James. He says, \u201cI swear by the mud below my feet. When I read, I don\u2019t grind. A great text has great beauty. A great horse, too, has great beauty. Horses, equine, all this Alan from Equus-esque worship at the altar, but then comes the eye spike. Like Odin. I guess we always come back to the eyes. They beat the horse to flies, above, inside, around. They write papers that grind horses into dog grub ... \u201d\n\u00a0 \u00a0Sestina: \u201cMy rugged poetic sensibilities allow me to embrace \u2028extended metaphorical diction of disturbing, lurid carnage. But please, please. Spare your doggish death rattle. First dates occur once. Among the dates\u2019 participants, that is; e.g, me, you. So, if you will, ax the horse talk. I prefer rubbery arms, Espada\u2019s cockroaches, axes on frozen pond sludge. Sibilant rush. Gimme Yusef\u2019s Orpheus. Or Ferlinghetti from Coney Island to North Beach. Gimme Wis\u0142awa Szymborska (a name I can pronounce, FYI. RIP.)\nPlease.\nPlease, Text-Deft James.\nNot equinicide. I\u2019ve seen bearded ladies whisper acclaim, whimper shame. Devil nuns. I whisper a clipped utterance of the ineffable. The untied united. Not only ineffable, but tangible ... \u201d (unsaid: I take my tongue, propelled by chemical soul, and I have a dirty, nasty, downright raunchy time with it. I\u2019m talking sheets off the bed, candles tipped over, shower flooding the bathroom tile. T-shirt grimy from fun crust. That type of night. I, Sestina, won\u2019t share such thoughts. Instead\u2009\u2014) \u201c ... know my resurrected heart beats brick red. Know that I seek poetry in moose lodges, in homeless shelters, in candy shops. I do remember walking down Northern Blvd. with Granny J, begging for sour candy. Bears dipped in sugar: cherry, orange, lime mixed. Let\u2019s hover above this grass. As a kid, I went to Shea Stadium, waved a foam finger, and I was sure I\u2019d marry a Met, maybe Al Leiter. As we stand here in front of this rustic pavilion, I\u2019d like to ask you on another date. The Mets have few home games left, and I\u2019d love some BBQ.\u201d", "title": "The Mad Man from Macon", "id": 58365, "author": "Maceo J. Whitaker"}
{"poem": "The child is not dead.\nShe is sleeping. \n\nGone from this world\nWhich is broken.\n\nThe angel of Michael\nOutside the garden\nHis circle of fire \nMaddening around the tree. \n\nHe put the word \nBack into her:\nA heavy kind of music.\n\nThen she was free.\nAs we all are.\n\nAll night I stood in the icy wind, \nPraying for the storm to destroy me.\n\nBut the wind blew through me\nLike I was a hologram.\n\nIf you say I am a mystic,\nThen fine: I\u2019m a mystic.\n\nThe trees are not trees, anyway.\n", "title": "Midnight Office", "id": 58356, "author": "Cynthia Cruz"}
{"poem": "Since we nail\nwings to the dead,\nshe calls ravens\nfrom the sky\nto inspect our work. \u201cFor flight,\u201d\nthey say, \u201cfirst remove their boots.\u201d\n\nShe leans in,\ninspects a fresh hex \nbehind my eyes,\ntakes my feet\nand lays them on the fire,\nto burn it out, roots first.\n\nWe\u2019re the last,\nbabi\u010dka and me.\nWe\u2019ve survived on \nchance and bread\nbaked from the last store of grain.\nAnd as we\u2019re out of both,\n\nwe will die soon.\nThey are gathering\nin the well.\nWe disrobe.\nShe hums whilst I nail her wings,\nshe tells me a tale, her last gift\u2009\u2014\n\n\u201cThis dark stain,\npassed kiss to kiss-stained\nfevered mouth,\nblights love, is pulsed\nby death-watch beetle\u2019s\ntick, timing our decay.\n\nThey know this.\nThey wait by water,\ngulping despair.\nThe ravens keep watch,\nthey say the contagion\u2019s here,\nthey promise to take us first.\u201d\n\nHer tale done,\nwe go winged and naked\nto the well.\nWe hear them\nclimbing the walls, caterwauling,\nbut ravens are swift, and swoop.\n", "title": "Nailing Wings to the Dead", "id": 58344, "author": "Eleanor Hooker"}
{"poem": "1\n1\n\nThat a memory,\ncaught and mounted\n\nfor permanent display,\nis not much\n\nlike anything that happens\ncan\u2019t be surprising.\n\nBut where does that leave us?\nNight at the Museum,\n\nthe set pieces\nin their comic\n\nignorance of one another\ntake the stage.\n\n\n2\n2\n\nIn this series,\nhe tosses her\n\non the bed\nlike laundry\n\nas she struggles\nirrelevantly\n\nagainst the stickiness\nof tape\n\nand it\u2019s just this:\n\nthe blind persistence\nof her struggle\n\nand his (feigned?)\nindifference,\n\nthe way each proceeds,\nblinkered and mechanical,\n\ninto whatever\nthis recreates", "title": "Object Lesson", "id": 58349, "author": "Rae Armantrout"}
{"poem": "I have built a house in the middle of the Ocean\nIts windows are the rivers flowing from my eyes\nOctopi are crawling all over where the walls are\nHear their triple hearts beat and their beaks peck against \u2028the windowpanes\n\nHouse of dampnessHouse of burningSeason\u2019s fastnessSeason singingThe airplanes are laying eggsWatch out for the dropping of the anchor\nHouse of dampness\nHouse of burning\nSeason\u2019s fastness\nSeason singing\nThe airplanes are laying eggs\nWatch out for the dropping of the anchor\n Watch out for the shooting black ichor \nIt would be good if you were to come from the sky\nThe sky\u2019s honeysuckle is climbing\nThe earthly octopi are throbbing\nAnd so very many of us have become our own gravediggers\nPale octopi of the chalky waves O octopi with pale beaks\nAround the house is this ocean that you know well\n\u00a0 And is never still\n\u00a0 And is never still\n\nTranslated from the French\u00a0\nTranslated from the French\u00a0", "title": "Ocean of Earth", "id": 58343, "author": "Guillaume Apollinaire"}
{"poem": "The my becomes \n\na the, becomesthe state\u2019s\na the, becomes\nthe state\u2019s\n\nthe coroner\u2019s, \na law\u2019s, somethingassignable,\na law\u2019s, something\nassignable,\n\nby me, alone, \nthough it will notbe the I\nthough it will not\nbe the I\n\nI am on \nleaving it, nolonger to be\nleaving it, no\nlonger to be\n\ndesignated human or \ncorpse: cadaverit will be,\ncorpse: cadaver\nit will be,\n\nnameless patient \nstored inthe deep hold\nstored in\nthe deep hold\n\nof the hospital \nas in the storageof a ghost ship\nas in the storage\nof a ghost ship\n\nrun aground\u2009\u2014\nthe secret in itthat will,\nthe secret in it\nthat will,\n\nperhaps, stir again \nthe wind thatfailed. It\nthe wind that\nfailed. It\n\nwill be preserved, \nkept like larva,like a bullet\nkept like larva,\nlike a bullet\n\nsealed gleaming \nin its chamber.They will gather\nin its chamber.\nThey will gather\n\naround it, \nprobe and sample,argue\u2009\u2014\u2009then\nprobe and sample,\nargue\u2009\u2014\u2009then\n\nreturn it \nto its between-world, remove\nto its between-\nworld, remove\n\ntheir aprons \nand glovesand stroll, some evenings,\nand gloves\nand stroll, some evenings,\n\na city block \nfor a beer,a glass of chilled\nfor a beer,\na glass of chilled\n\nwhite wine. Even there, they \nwill continueto speak of it,\nwill continue\nto speak of it,\n\nwhat they \nglean from beneaththe narrative\nglean from beneath\nthe narrative\n\nof scars, surgical \ncavities, thewondrous\ncavities, the\nwondrous\n\nmess it became \nbefore I left itto them\nbefore I left it\nto them\n\nwith what\u2019s \nleft of me, thisname, a signature,\nleft of me, this\nname, a signature,\n\na neatened \nsuture, perfect, thislast, selfish stitch.\nsuture, perfect, this\nlast, selfish stitch.", "title": "On Leaving the Body to Science", "id": 58359, "author": "Claudia Emerson"}
{"poem": "Evidently, this was needed. Because people need\nto be screamed at with proof.\nBut he knew his friends. Before they were\nhe knew them. And they knew\nthat he would never leave them\nthere, desolate. So he let his exhausted eyes close\nat first glimpse of the village fringed with tall fig\ntrees\u2009\u2014\u2009\nimmediately he found himself in their midst:\nhere was Martha, sister of the dead\nboy. He knew\nshe would not stray,\nas he knew which would;\nhe knew that he would always find her\nat his right hand, \nand beside her\nher sister Mary, the one\na whole world of whores\nstill stood in a vast circle pointing at. Yes,\nall were gathered around him. And once again\nhe began to explain\nto bewildered upturned faces\nwhere it was he had to go, and why.\nHe called them \u201cmy friends.\u201d The Logos, God\u2019s\ncreating word,\u2009\u2014\u2009the same voice that said\nLet there be light.\nYet\nwhen he opened his eyes,\nhe found himself standing apart.\nEven the two\nslowly backing away, as though\nfrom concern for their good name.\nThen he began to hear voices;\nwhispering\nquite distinctly,\nor thinking:\nLord,\nif you had been here\nour friend might not have died.\n(At that, he slowly reached out\nas though to touch a face,\nand soundlessly started to cry.)\nHe asked them the way to the grave.\nAnd he followed behind them,\npreparing\nto do what is not done\nto that green silent place\nwhere life and death are one.\nBy then other Brueghelian grotesques\nhad gathered, toothlessly sneering\nacross at each other and stalled\nat some porpoise or pig stage\nof ontogenetical horrorshow, keeping\ntheir own furtive shadowy distances\nand struggling to keep up\nlike packs of limping dogs;\nmerely to walk down this road\nin broad daylight\nhad begun to feel illegal,\nunreal, rehearsal,\ntest\u2009\u2014\u2009but for what!\nAnd the filth of desecration\nsifting down over him, as a feverish outrage\nrose up, contempt\nat the glib ease\nwith which words like \u201cliving\u201d\nand \u201cbeing dead\u201d\nrolled off their tongues;\nand loathing flooded his body\nwhen he hoarsely cried,\n\u201cMove the stone!\u201d\n\u201cBy now the body must stink,\u201d\nsome helpfully suggested. But it was true\nthat the body had lain in its grave four days.\nHe heard the voice as if from far away,\nbeginning to fill with that gesture\nwhich rose through him: no hand that heavy\nhad ever reached this height, shining\nan instant in air. Then\nall at once clenching\nand cramped\u2009\u2014\u2009the fingers\nshrunk crookedly\ninto themselves,\nand irreparably fixed there,\nlike a hand with scars of ghastly\nslashing lacerations\nand the usual deep sawing\nacross the wrist\u2019s fret,\nthrough all major nerves,\nthe frail hair-like nerves\u2009\u2014\u2009\nso his hand\nat the thought\nall the dead might return\nfrom that tomb\nwhere the enormous cocoon\nof the corpse was beginning to stir.\nYet nobody stood there\u2009\u2014\u2009\nonly the one young man,\npale as though bled,\nstooping at the entrance\nand squinting at the light,\npicking at his face, loose\nstrips of rotting shroud.\nAll that he could think of\nwas a dark place to lie down,\nand hide that wasted body.\nAnd tears rolled up his cheek\nand back into his eyes,\nand then his eyes began\nrolling back into his head ...\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a\nPeter looked across at Jesus\nwith an expression that seemed to say\nYou did it, or What have you done?\nAnd everyone saw\nhow their vague and inaccurate\nlife made room for his once more.\n", "title": "The Raising of Lazarus", "id": 58345, "author": "Franz Wright"}
{"poem": "We were not green in judgment or cold\nin blood like Cleopatra in her youth\nwho still was ordering chopped radish\nin her bowls back then,\nthe hearts all gone to pieces\nnext to the winter greens\nthat in our days we never had use for\nso smitten were we with fire\nand ovens that I was gravy in judgment,\nwhich might not mean much\nunless you\u2019ve taken a spoon\nof it and poured it back over a dumpling\nshaped like your heart\nso that it became even softer,\nsomething you could not have thought possible.\nIt\u2019s all happening now,\nyou liked to say, and I agreed,\nthough it was not the news\nfrom the outside I relished,\nbut the daily Extra! Extra! the light\nof the morning brought to my attention\nevery time we woke in your house\nor my house and my heart\n\u2014\u2009salty, risen\u2009\u2014\u2009was warm\nagain in a way it hadn\u2019t been for years.\nOrgan of passion, organ of righteousness\nthat has never had a single flavor cross its lips,\nhow could you know\nhow much I would miss the honey of those days,\nher drizzle of it on the turkey bacon,\nmy cracking pepper up and down the pan,\nthe sweet meat of happiness \nI would no longer let pass between our teeth.\n", "title": "Salad Days", "id": 58370, "author": "Tom\u00e1s Q. Mor\u00edn"}