Books
–Andrei Codrescudeath covers me with fine dust.
i love used fat books. they are
like used fat bodies coming out of sleep
covered with fingerprints and shiny
snail trails.
i wish to read the way i love:
jumping from mirror to mirror like a drop of oil
farther and farther from my death.
but god gives us fat books and fat bodies
to use for different reasons
and less a metaphor i cannot say
what haunts me
Photo by Robert Anasch on Unsplash
Song
–Laura KasischkeThe floor of the brain, the roof
of the mouth, the locked
front door, the barn
burned down, a dog
tied to a tree, not howling, a dark
shed, an empty garage, a basement
in which a man might sip
his peace, in peace,
and a table
in a kitchen
at which
the nightingales feasted on fairy tales,
the angels stuffed themselves with fogAnd a tiny room at the center of it all,
and a beautiful woman the size of a matchstick
singing the song that ruined my father:his liver
his lifeThe kind of song a quiet man
might sing a silent house around.
Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash
Fifty
–Marie Howe
Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash
Fifty
–Christian Wiman“Renouncing kingship like a snot of phlegm”
I go out into the park. I have my death with me,
iron friend, and a few feather regrets
that one by one lift from me in the wind.
I have two daughters and one cloud, an old oak
and a great love, elected solitude, given sun.
There never was a now this golden one.
Photo by Simon Wilkes on Unsplash
The Subject of Retreat
–Yona HarveyYour black coat is a door
in the storm. The snow
we don’t mention
clings to your boots & powders
& puffs. & poof. Goes.
Dust of the fallen. Right here
at home. The ache
of someone gone-missing. Walk it off
like a misspoken word.
Mound of snow. Closed door.
I could open it.Or maybe just, you know—
brush it off.Then what? The snow
on the other side. The sound
of what I know & your, no, inside it.
On Starting
–Phil KayeYour ideas are fish
you are trying to catch
with your bare handsonly with a quiet mind
is the surface glassy enough
for you to plunge your arms below
hold on to
the squirming gift
wide-eyed & fat
stunned at its own reflection
as it inhales out of the water
Contagion
–P.K. Page
PortraitStrong women
know the taste
of their own hatred
I must always be
building nests
in a windy place
I want the safety of oblique numbers
that do not include me
a beautiful woman
with ugly moments
secret and patient
as the amused and ponderous elephants
catering to Hannibal’s ambition
as they swayed on their own way
home.
Morning Song
–Alan DuganLook, it’s morning, and a little water gurgles in the tap.
I wake up waiting, because it’s Sunday, and turn twice more
than usual in bed, before I rise to cereal and comic strips.
I have risen to the morning danger and feel proud,
and after shaving off the night’s disguises, after searching
close to the bone for blood, and finding only a little,
I shall walk out bravely into the daily accident.
Popocatepetl
–Isaac BerlinerPopo—
laying stolid with a plumage of stone,
crying from your body, with a quiet scream,
are thousands of years.in the bluish dawn of rose,
the sun hides its whitish head
with rainbow stripes,
like a hair band.Winds—
hidden monsters in the gallop,
throwing themselves onto you, yelling as they pillage,
humming songs and whistling
from unknown lands.what secrets,
stored in the passing of generations,
are hidden inside you?what scars
stapled in blood,
are engraved in individual stones?Carry me inside your body, Popo,
stone-like,
conveying
your mysteries in my silence.Popo—
furtive hoary giant,
the sun throws you a ray
in the darkening moments of dusk,
enlightening you fully.I see in you now
ancient generations gone,
their blood spilled
from your vertebral column.What plethora of travelers wandered on your silvery skin?
Have you counted their steps?At your knees
death announces its journey,
and on your back,
this frigid, whitish inscrutability
pours . . .
