Like death in my arms
–Antjie Krog
Original
I want nothing
mind-space into shape
Apophatic
–Dan Beachy-Quickfor Peter Gizzi
nothing changes nothing
grows wild nothing grows
tame nothing bends weird
the mind-space into shape
of tether and memory of
ankle gone lame the whole
hurt song called irony can-
not know how chaos aches
beneath the facts it wears
for a face the fact of a
blank page being a form
of a map that is a kind of
mask missing a mountain
or a mouth or a marble
pedestal from which the riddle
pours down and you know
a man is the answer a man
but nothing changes nothing
bends absence bright into a
silence called paper white
sun circle or solar sail or lonely
wind across vast despair or
blank hope bearing small repair
that this finger I point at
myself answers the question
what is not is everywhere
syllables have scuttled
The Men You Were
–Antjie Krog
Photo by Guillaume Jaillet on Unsplash
strapped in
Kaddish
–David Feinstein
Photo by Thibault Valjevac on Unsplash
cobalt
Cobalt
–Rolf Jacobsen
Colors are words’ little sisters. They can’t become soldiers.
I’ve loved them secretly for a long time.
They have to stay home and hang up the sheer curtains
of our familiar kitchen, bedroom and den.I’m very close to young Crimson, and brown Sienna
but even closer to thoughtful Cobalt with her distant eyes and
untrampled spirit.
We walk in dew.
The night sky and the southern ocean
are her possessions
and a tear-shaped pendant on her forehead:
the pearls of Cassiopeia.
We walk in dew on late nights.But the others.
Meet them on a June morning at four o’clock
when they come rushing toward you,
on your way to a morning swim in the green cove’s spray.
When you can sunbathe with them on the smooth rocks.
-Which one will you make yours?
Original
Kobolt
Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash
rough churn
At Some Point They’ll Want to Know What It Was Like
–Tracy K. Smith
There was something about how it felt. Not just the during —
That rough churn of bulk and breath, limb and tooth, the mass of us,
The quickness we made and rode — but mostly the before.The waiting, knowing what would become. Pang. Pleasure then pain.
Then the underwater ride of after. Thrown-off like a coat over a bridge.
Somehow you’d just give away what you’d die without. You just gave.The best was having nothing. No hope. No name in the throat.
And finding the breath in you, the body, to ask.
you
Oh, this one makes me ache. Ache. Ache. “Surely this/is the only thing we’ve never/wanted to talk about”.
To You
–Rolf Jacobsen
Original
Til deg
Tiden går (hva skal den ellers ta seg til).
En dag hører du den banker på døren din.
Den har banket på hos oss,
men jeg lukket ikke opp.
Ikke denne gang.Vet du,
jeg har ofte stått og sett litt på deg,
sånn om morgenen foran speilet der
når du kjemmer håret ditt, det
knitrer i det, som i sne i påskefjellet
og du bøyer deg litt frem (jeg ser det godt)
– er det kommet en rynke til?
– Det er det ikke. For meg
er du ung.
Det er sevje i deg, skog. Et treog med fugler i. De synger enda.
Kanskje litt lavt i høst, men likevel.
– Ikke en dag uten en latter i strupen,
eller det sakte streifet av en hånd.En gang
må jeg holde den enda fastere,
for du vet, vi skal ut å reise snart,
og ikke med samme båt.
Noen har banket på døren vår, men gått igjen.
Dette
er visst det eneste vi aldri
har villet snakke om.
Photo by tony fortunato on Unsplash
