Dear Io,
–Madeleine Wattenberg
Photo by IGOR FIGUEREDO on Unsplash
Dear Io
poetry reading
now a darkness is coming
family
Family
–Eiléan Ní ChuilleanáinWater has no memory
and you drown in it like a kind of absence.
It falls apart
in a continual death
a hundred-gallon tank as
innocent as outer space.
Earth remembers
facts about your relations;
wood passes on patristic
characteristics,
bone and feather,
scandal,
charcoal remembering
and every stone recalls its quarry and the axe.
Photo by Victor Malyushev on Unsplash
the ungay science
The Ungay Science
–Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Translation
A Ingaia ciência
A madureza, essa terrível prenda
que alguém nos dá, raptando-nos, com ela,
todo sabor gratuito de oferenda
sob a glacialidade de uma estela,a madureza vê, posto que a venda
interrompa a surpresa da janela,
o círculo vazio, onde se estenda,
e que o mundo converte noma cela.A madureza sabe o preço exato
dos amores, dos ócios, dos quebrantos,
e nada pode contra sua ciênciae nem contra si mesma. O agudo olfato,
o agudo olhar, a mão, livre de encantos,
se destroem no sonho da existência.
Photo by Kirill Balobanov on Unsplash
end of marriage
At the End of My Marriage, I Think of Something My Daughter Said About Trees
–Maggie SmithWhen a tree is cut down, the sky’s like
finally, and rushes in.Even when you trim a tree,
the sky fills in before the branchhits the ground. It colors the space blue
because now it can.
Photo by Erwin Voortman on Unsplash
why we are all afraid to be
Why We Are All Afraid to Be
–Nikita GillShe speaks to me fondly
of passions and talents,
of guitars and stars,
with such breathless intensity
then stops short and
apologizes, ashen-faced
for speaking at all.All because somewhere in her life,
someone she loved broke her heart
by lashing out with ignorance
at her sublime and pure words
and telling her to
be quiet, stop talking,
because nobody cares.If you pay attention long enough,
it’s a familiar story.
The boy who rarely participates.
The old woman who is too hesitant
to join in a conversation.
The man who thinks three seconds
too long before he speaks.People aren’t born sad.
We make them that way.
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
power
Power
–Andrei CodrescuPower is an inferiority complex wound up like a clock by an
inability to relax. At the height of my power I have to be taken to
a power source in the woods where I am recharged. This power
source is not actually in the woods: it’s in my mother. It hums
quietly in her heart like an atomic plant and the place to plug in is
her eyes.
Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash
3 corners
The 3 Corners of Reality
–Marvin Bell
Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash
slowly started
Poem (The Day Gets Slowly Started)
–James SchuylerThe day gets slowly started.A rap at the bedroom door,bitter coffee, hot cereal, juicethe color of sun whichisn’t out this morning. Acool shower, a shave, soothingNoxzema for razor burn. A bedis made. The paper doesn’t comeuntil twelve or one. A gray shineout the windows. “No oneleaves the building untilthose scissors are returned.”It’s that kind of a place.Nonetheless, I’ve seen worse.The worried gray is meltinginto sunlight. I wish I’dbrought my book of enlighteningliterary essays. I wish itwere lunch time. I wish I hadan appetite. The day agreeswith me better than it did, or,better, I agree with it. I’llslide down a sunslip yet, thiscrass September morning.
Photo by Bastian Pudill on Unsplash
to take back a life
