Until they look around
to the wide world and all her fading sweets,
there is your book, just as you laid it down,
the sun crawling inside the sheets
behind the wall thin as a wren’s bone:
a heap of broken images where the sun beats.
So at the edge of my home town
I drive around the streets
with neither name nor face.
A bottle of red wine each night moved her along
(and this gray spirit yearning in desire).
Each moment is a place.
Huge pangs, and strong,
until the lengthening wings break into fire.
Emily Dickinson | Facts by Our Side Are Never Sudden
William Shakespeare | Sonnet 19
Edna St. Vincent Millay | Interim
Anne Sexton | The Break Away
Dylan Thomas | Vision and Prayer (I)
T. S. Eliot | The Waste Land
William Stafford | Boom Town
Charles Bukowski | I Made a Mistake
Ogden Nash | A Tale of the Thirteenth Floor
Nick Flynn | You Asked How
Alfred, Lord Tennyson | Ulysses
Mark Strand | Black Maps
John Milton | Upon the Circumcision
Elizabeth Barrett Browning | Sonnet 22
C E N T O R A M A
Happy Home of the Recombinant Poem
1.18.2018
One More Heinous Crime
1.05.2018
Tanka after Titles from The Devil's Tour, by Mary Karr
Etching of the plague
years. Winter in the city
of friendship. Rounds, sad
rite, soft mask. Grace. The legion
bayou. The unweepables.
years. Winter in the city
of friendship. Rounds, sad
rite, soft mask. Grace. The legion
bayou. The unweepables.
12.08.2017
In Tranquillity
When I think of it now, the danger, the eventual gunshots echoing off gray brick, I remember
the panicked yells of inquiry,
two wild, one found only in cultivation.
A vessel in Juan’s brain begins to bleed.
We go on and we tremble,
return to sip coffee quietly.
Santee Frazier | The Robbery
Josephine Miles | Fields of Learning
Linda Kunhardt | Order
Frank Stanford | Pits
Martín Espada | Imagine the Angels of Bread
the panicked yells of inquiry,
two wild, one found only in cultivation.
A vessel in Juan’s brain begins to bleed.
We go on and we tremble,
return to sip coffee quietly.
Santee Frazier | The Robbery
Josephine Miles | Fields of Learning
Linda Kunhardt | Order
Frank Stanford | Pits
Martín Espada | Imagine the Angels of Bread
11.15.2017
Turning Away Quite Leisurely
The quotidian violence of the world!
Knowing this is by no means death
(though the death-tined rioting peasant’s rake
is cozening the Princesse de Clèves into a midnight micturition spree
with no end, but brilliant nonetheless),
I’ll have to wear dark glasses and carry the cane.
Arthur Size | Shooting Star
Denise Levertov | At the Justice Department November 15, 1969
Ed Sanders | Yiddish Speaking Socialists of the Lower East Side
John Ashbery | Daffy Duck in Hollywood
Terence Winch | The Them Decade
David Trinidad | Evening Twilight
Knowing this is by no means death
(though the death-tined rioting peasant’s rake
is cozening the Princesse de Clèves into a midnight micturition spree
with no end, but brilliant nonetheless),
I’ll have to wear dark glasses and carry the cane.
Arthur Size | Shooting Star
Denise Levertov | At the Justice Department November 15, 1969
Ed Sanders | Yiddish Speaking Socialists of the Lower East Side
John Ashbery | Daffy Duck in Hollywood
Terence Winch | The Them Decade
David Trinidad | Evening Twilight
10.13.2017
A Shovel the Only Sound
My mom often said he wasn’t the man
running down the stairwell in the garden . . .
When she was found, she was lying on her face.
And I made one big mistake tonight.
I did not call to the Holy Spirit or whistle My lordy, lordy.
Nin Andrews | Something Else
Charles Reznikoff | Domestic Scenes
Blas Falconer | Dear Friend
John Giorno | I Resigned Myself to Being Here
David Biespiel | Marvel
running down the stairwell in the garden . . .
When she was found, she was lying on her face.
And I made one big mistake tonight.
I did not call to the Holy Spirit or whistle My lordy, lordy.
Nin Andrews | Something Else
Charles Reznikoff | Domestic Scenes
Blas Falconer | Dear Friend
John Giorno | I Resigned Myself to Being Here
David Biespiel | Marvel
10.11.2017
Almost Up to Modernism
Here is a factory made fresh by broken windows.
Columns constructed from delirious dust
split into a roomful of pictures that shimmer along walls
speaking in tongues,
destroying the Lake Poets in the process.
Elaine Equi | A Bouquet of Objects
Diane Ward | Lovely Stuff
Donna Masini | Nightscape
Yusef Komunyakaa | “Everybody's Reading Li Po” Silkscreened on a Purple T-Shirt
Michael Davidson | Thinking the Alps
Columns constructed from delirious dust
split into a roomful of pictures that shimmer along walls
speaking in tongues,
destroying the Lake Poets in the process.
Elaine Equi | A Bouquet of Objects
Diane Ward | Lovely Stuff
Donna Masini | Nightscape
Yusef Komunyakaa | “Everybody's Reading Li Po” Silkscreened on a Purple T-Shirt
Michael Davidson | Thinking the Alps
10.05.2017
Thick Clouds Conspire
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
holding quiet conversations with an early moon.
Key West sank downward under massive clouds
you will feel against your ankles as you pass through.
Langston Hughes | Let America Be America Again
Elizabeth Alexander | Praise Song for the Day
Amy Lowell | Lilacs
Wallace Stevens | Farewell to Florida
Lucie Brock-Broido | Domestic Mysticism
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
holding quiet conversations with an early moon.
Key West sank downward under massive clouds
you will feel against your ankles as you pass through.
Langston Hughes | Let America Be America Again
Elizabeth Alexander | Praise Song for the Day
Amy Lowell | Lilacs
Wallace Stevens | Farewell to Florida
Lucie Brock-Broido | Domestic Mysticism
9.26.2017
Home Invasion with IKEA Bath Textiles
She was born to tease
and lay there in the middle of the bed.
Three boys beyond their mothers’ call
shed tears, bodily fluids, at all this trust, at even the thought.
Along the wall, the family’s bright towels.
Carla Drysdale | Video Game
Elaine Sexton | Rethinking Regret
Mary Cornish | Numbers
Denise Duhamel | Buying Stock
Marie-Elizabeth Mali | Cabana Boy
and lay there in the middle of the bed.
Three boys beyond their mothers’ call
shed tears, bodily fluids, at all this trust, at even the thought.
Along the wall, the family’s bright towels.
Carla Drysdale | Video Game
Elaine Sexton | Rethinking Regret
Mary Cornish | Numbers
Denise Duhamel | Buying Stock
Marie-Elizabeth Mali | Cabana Boy
9.21.2017
Risen from Her Bed of Troublesome Snacks
Without saying hello, in the restaurant
my Great Aunt Sarah
drives back another wad of tobacco,
spits it into the pan of eggs.
And just what the fuck else was she supposed to do?
Jeffrey McDaniel | The Quiet World
Robert Lowell | My Last Afternoon with Uncle Devereux Winslow
Dara Wier | Fear
Sylva Fischerová | Eggs, Newspaper, and Coffee (trans. Sylva
Fischerová and Stuart Friebert
Jayne Cortez | Rape
my Great Aunt Sarah
drives back another wad of tobacco,
spits it into the pan of eggs.
And just what the fuck else was she supposed to do?
Jeffrey McDaniel | The Quiet World
Robert Lowell | My Last Afternoon with Uncle Devereux Winslow
Dara Wier | Fear
Sylva Fischerová | Eggs, Newspaper, and Coffee (trans. Sylva
Fischerová and Stuart Friebert
Jayne Cortez | Rape
9.11.2017
On This a Whole Kingdom Hung
The mills locked their doors and I thought I heard voices.
I had already been weeping quietly.
A man sweating and stoking,
the yellow hulk of Cats winding bay front chip yards—
we were the fragrance of the idea of the meaning of not. We didn’t want destruction.
Meanwhile, the sunlight off broken glass is everywhere.
Gabrielle Calvocoressi | Late Twentieth Century in the Form of Litany
Patrick Donnelly | Prayer at the Opera
Anthony Walton | Third Shift
Michael McGriff | Coos Bay
Adrian Blevins | Why the Marriage Failed
Oliver de la Paz | Hello,
I had already been weeping quietly.
A man sweating and stoking,
the yellow hulk of Cats winding bay front chip yards—
we were the fragrance of the idea of the meaning of not. We didn’t want destruction.
Meanwhile, the sunlight off broken glass is everywhere.
Gabrielle Calvocoressi | Late Twentieth Century in the Form of Litany
Patrick Donnelly | Prayer at the Opera
Anthony Walton | Third Shift
Michael McGriff | Coos Bay
Adrian Blevins | Why the Marriage Failed
Oliver de la Paz | Hello,
Labels:
Adrian Blevins,
Anthony Walton,
Gabrielle Calvocoressi,
Michael McGriff,
Oliver de la Paz,
Patrick Donnelly
9.08.2017
Since Your Love Died
The disobedient mind is the fruit of inactivity swaying upon
petals on a wet, black bough
drying inward from the edge.
To know there’s no one here to save you:
ah guess ah’ll go up Echo Mountain and crah.
Philip Whalen | Many Colored Squares
Ezra Pound | In a Station of the Metro
Edna St. Vincent Millay | Ebb
Gabrielle Calvocoressi | Save Me Joe Louis
Edward Field | Unwanted
petals on a wet, black bough
drying inward from the edge.
To know there’s no one here to save you:
ah guess ah’ll go up Echo Mountain and crah.
Philip Whalen | Many Colored Squares
Ezra Pound | In a Station of the Metro
Edna St. Vincent Millay | Ebb
Gabrielle Calvocoressi | Save Me Joe Louis
Edward Field | Unwanted
9.07.2017
Dark Harvest
It was late September. I’d just poured a glass of wine, begun
to think I had sent the postman and his donkey
out of the barn and
into the static. And as I heard my father
(someone dying of love, someone from whom time had taken
flags and honking cars,
the various and gathered families)
howl down the spiral staircase
Come all ye faithless
I drove into town to drink tea in the cafe.
Carol Ann Duffy | Mrs Midas
Rod Jellema | Letter to Myra Sklarew, Visiting Mekounida, on the Island of Evvoia,
in Greece
Curtis Bauer | A Splinter Becoming a Burning Plank
Kevin Clark | Radio Fate
Louise Glück | The Balcony
Gary Soto | Envying the Children of San Francisco
David St. John | The Swan at Sheffield Park
Albert Goldbarth | Reality Organization
C. D. Wright | The Secret Life of Musical Instruments
Robert Hass | Happiness
to think I had sent the postman and his donkey
out of the barn and
into the static. And as I heard my father
(someone dying of love, someone from whom time had taken
flags and honking cars,
the various and gathered families)
howl down the spiral staircase
Come all ye faithless
I drove into town to drink tea in the cafe.
Carol Ann Duffy | Mrs Midas
Rod Jellema | Letter to Myra Sklarew, Visiting Mekounida, on the Island of Evvoia,
in Greece
Curtis Bauer | A Splinter Becoming a Burning Plank
Kevin Clark | Radio Fate
Louise Glück | The Balcony
Gary Soto | Envying the Children of San Francisco
David St. John | The Swan at Sheffield Park
Albert Goldbarth | Reality Organization
C. D. Wright | The Secret Life of Musical Instruments
Robert Hass | Happiness
Labels:
Albert Goldbarth,
C. D. Wright,
Carol Ann Duffy,
Curtis Bauer,
David St. John,
Gary Soto,
Kevin Clark,
Louise Glück,
Robert Hass,
Rod Jellema
9.06.2017
Gone Astray in Trackless Wastes
I no longer believed in the revolution
but what is there for a man to do with his life?
It gave purpose to my wanting to be alone.
The aftermath is two people breathing.
I am used up, a waste gas.
And there are other, worse, symptoms.
Derek Wolcott | The Schooner Flight
Russell Edson | Angels
Terry Ehret | The Author of This Poem Will Grant an Interview
David Roderick | Self-Portrait in 1969 (Summer)
Brian Spears | Hurry
Eric McHenry | Litte Viral Song
but what is there for a man to do with his life?
It gave purpose to my wanting to be alone.
The aftermath is two people breathing.
I am used up, a waste gas.
And there are other, worse, symptoms.
Derek Wolcott | The Schooner Flight
Russell Edson | Angels
Terry Ehret | The Author of This Poem Will Grant an Interview
David Roderick | Self-Portrait in 1969 (Summer)
Brian Spears | Hurry
Eric McHenry | Litte Viral Song
Labels:
Brian Spears,
David Roderick,
Derek Wolcott,
Russell Edson,
Terry Ehret
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