After Paradise Don’t run any more. Quiet. How softly it rains On the roofs of the city. How perfect All things are. Now, for the two of you Waking up in a royal bed by a garret window. For a man and a woman. For one plant divided Into masculine and feminine which longed for […]
Poetry
(Not) Easy Puzzles
Calibrate How happy am I to apply this brief kiss, or can I say, today I am a woman, perhaps clay, perhaps human. Rushing along the galaxy, this string bag of easy puzzles. To make matters worse, I’m happy. Calibrate: A veil of wet snow, a diffuse sun, there are the planks of the porch, […]
Nothing But Wild Emptiness
Grace When I think of how you move— when you enter a room, how the room enters you; when you step out into the night, how the night sky falls into your hair— when I think of how you stand as if with nothing in your hands and I have nothing to offer you now […]
Choose Your River Carefully
The Niagara River As though the river were a floor, we position our table and chairs upon it, eat, and have conversation. As it moves along, we notice—as calmly as though dining room paintings were being replaced— the changing scenes along the shore. We do know, we do know this is the Niagara River, but […]
Ruth Stone: Black High Flung Patterns of Flocking Birds
Always on the Train Writing poems about writing poems is like rolling bales of hay in Texas. Nothing but the horizon to stop you. But consider the railroad’s edge of metal trash; bird perches, miles of telephone wires. What is so innocent as grazing cattle? If you think about it, it turns into words. Trash […]
Poetry, Politics and Inaugurations
The only truly uncomfortable moment for me during Obama’s inauguration was the moment I least expected to dislike—Elizabeth Alexander’s poetry reading. I haven’t wanted to talk about that particular feature out of respect for what was an emotional and history making moment. But enough time has passed I suppose, and the rattle of discontent from […]
Through the Walls
Overheard Through the Walls of the Invisible City . . .telling those who swarm around him his desire is that an appendage from each of them fill, invade each of his orifices,– repeating, chanting Oh yeahOh yeahOh yeahOh yeahOh yeah until, as if in darkness he craved the sun, at last he reached consummation. Until […]
Small Animals
My friend LP continues to feed my poetry habit. She posted the following poem by Larissa Szporluk on her site over the weekend. I immediately went scurrying through the web for more information about S’s work. So following the poem posted below is an excerpt from an interview with the poet from Perihelion. The sensibilities […]
Poetry and Politics
His Springboard Resolve For his firmness is most fog horn. For he’s darning our fraying hem with fine thread; for he’s following a plan. Be it a progression from detention to due process. Be it a declaration of Middle-East and market collapse mazes unmazed. Be it settled. From this day forward, a little less fetus, […]
Nothing But Gifts
You talked but after your talking all the rest remains. After your talking—poets, philosophers, contrivers of romances—everything else, All the rest deduced inside the flesh Which lives & knows not just what is permitted. I am a woman held fast now in a great silence. Not all creatures have your need for words. Birds you […]