Month: May 2021

a study of forgiveness as a piñata

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A Study of Forgiveness as a Piñata
–Sierra DeMulder
It is definitely an animal, but nobody can tell
which kind. Half donkey, half rodeo clown.

Part cow, part hummingbird. People

only care what’s inside, and how eventually
it will be violent(ly) drawn out — the wild

staggers of the blindfolded, how the body

acts as a volume knob: the closer the swing,
the louder the shrieks. That satisfying thud,

aluminum against papier-mâché, dull

and electric. In these years after you, I too
have thrashed in the dark, have swung madly

at sounds, have prayed for impact, or at least

purpose. I confess I have noosed your memory,
waved my bat like a shameful finger, waited

beneath it, ready to collect my lump of closure.

Thump. I forgive you. Thump. I forgive you.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Nothing ever falls out.

argument to love as a person

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Argument to Love as a Person
–Alan Dugan

The cut rhododendron branches
flowered in our sunless flat.
Don’t complain to me, dear,
that I waste your life in poverty:
you and the cuttings prove: Those
that have it in them to be beautiful
flower wherever they are!, although
they are, like everything else, ephemeral.
Freedom is as mortal as tyranny.

death is too easy

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Death is Too Easy
–Robert M. Drake

Death is too easy
and too simple.

We all know
how it goes,
but believe me,

the hardest thing
in the world is to live

and to live for something.

Something that burns

the soul,

something hard

to forget.

Photo by Jakub Kriz on Unsplash

i will have to begin

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I Will Have to Begin
–Yehuda Amichai

I will have to begin to remember you
When someone else begins to discover you, the inside
Of your soft thighs above the stockings and when you laugh,
Developing the first pictures for his future dreams.

And I will have to forget you.
When someone else begins to remember you
When some other elses begin to discover you.

And my life is empty like a flower when they plucked
All its petals: yes, no, yes, no, yes.

And to be alone is to be in a place
Where we were never together, and to be alone is
To forget you are like this: to want to pay for two
In a bus and travel alone.

Now I shall cover the mirror like your pictures
And lie down to sleep. The birds of the sky will eat
The flesh of my sleep. The dogs will lick
My blood inside. You won’t see a thing outside.

prose poem

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Prose Poem
–Aleš Debeljak

Your story’s simple. You won’t see many loved ones when
you return, like an otter surfacing in a lake to catch its
breath. You won’t find words for short greetings, the seasons,
unsuccessful missions, white phosphorous lighting the
passion in soldiers’ eyes, a distant whistle on steep hillsides
you never climbed, children’s cane baskets floating silently
across a river basin, the way you have a constant burning
pain, the constellations discovered in a premonition,
Oriental love songs, the disappointment of everything we
were and will be. Believe me: this is your story. Later, I’ll tell
it again — only better.

Photo by Daniel Tong on Unsplash

midsummer, tobago

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Midsummer, Tobago
–Derek Walcott

Broad sun-stoned beaches.

White heat.
A green river.

A bridge,
scorched yellow palms

from the summer-sleeping house
drowsing through August.

Days I have held,
days I have lost,

days that outgrow, like daughters,
my harbouring arms.

our gang

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Our Gang
–Charles Simic

Like moths
Around a streetlamp
In hell
We were,
Lost souls,
One and all,
If found,
Return to sender.

Photo by Ethan Sykes on Unsplash

spirit of place

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FROM The Spirit of Place
–Adrienne Rich

Are we all in training for something we don’t name?
to exact reparation for things
done long ago to us and to those who did not

survive what was done to them    whom we ought to honor
with grief    with fury    with action
On a pure night    on a night when pollution

seems absurdity when the undamaged planet seems to turn
like a bowl of crystal in black ether
they are the piece of us that lies out there
knowing    knowing    knowing

Photo by Allec Gomes on Unsplash

grammar

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Grammar
–Andrei Codrescu

[[1]] by mistake, one day, i unplugged grammar, the refrigerator of
language, and all the meats of prejudice began to rot

[[2]] grammar is plugged into the wall of our minds and if i concentrate
long enough i can still feel my mother’s deft fingers inserting the
prongs

[[3]] i can, for that matter, also remember trying to put my cock
through a noun and ending up fucked by a mysterious “it”

[[4]] there was a man who spoke in complete sentences and one day he
was run over by a train

[[5]] translation can make what comes “after” come “before” and
thanks to this i am capable of filling in endless forms with a smile

[[6]] i have a dim view of commas when i walk

[[7]] the cannibal group i belong to is presently engaged in wiping its
many mouths of dripping pieces of syntax with the long towel of
my mother’s skirt

Photo by Latrach Med Jamil on Unsplash

torso of air

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Torso of Air

–Ocean Vuong

Suppose you do change your life.
& the body is more than

a portion of night — sealed
with bruises. Suppose you woke

& found your shadow replaced
by a black wolf. The boy, beautiful

& gone. So you take the knife to the wall
instead. You carve & carve

until a coin of light appears
& you get to look in, at last,

on happiness. The eye
staring back from the other side–

waiting.