Big Window

In the Trance by Brenda Hillman

A pretty anarchist said to me
It’s not that a great love happens
What happened became your great love

Her echo had an ancient glow & so
proved buoyant for my little craft

I left the world & felt a world

The bee loading its gloves with powder
The albatross wanting one thing from the sea

Nothing can wreck our boat said she

& when the water felt the glacier
The future held a present tense
The present held a future without cease

by Brenda Hillman

published by POOL

Leaves/Tongues by Molly Bendall & Gail Wronsky

       

Let    me    be                      "straight"
                  with you
            where                      I'm coming        from:
  a word-            like                      Orphic          wind-egg
(to            sigh        to wink                  to        nod      to      kneel
to            shake            my              stumps      at    heaven)
                          I'm          so            sure
        it's a              Notorious              B.I.G.   deal
                          so what/bimbo
            I saw                        your&          little            mouth-thing
    now I'm                swayin
                                              Get
                a life                    a      Sybil-leaf          a        tulle-box
    by still practice          learn to
                                                      know      my
                        m(out)h                        Watch                "dawn"
  slink      down
                            this    catwalk                      wearing
                      lair du temps

Copyright © 2009 Molly Bendall & Gail Wronsky All rights reserved
from Bling & Fringe
What Books Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission

Love Calls Us to the Things of This World by Richard Wilbur

The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.

Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

Now they are flying in place, conveying
The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.
The soul shrinks

From all that is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessed day,
And cries,
``Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.''

Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,

``Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,

keeping their difficult balance.''

by Richard Wilbur

DIY Dream Poem

Here's a fun sounding exercise from Read Write Poem. It's by Bruce Covey. Let us know if you give it a try!

X=13, Y=21

Where there are coins, there’s matter,
A narrow strip of over 700,000 in this province.
Today the birds are green and the roofs are woven
Of string. You pick the spot, please:
Its zoo built with moment upon moment of cola fountains
(although the one at the center sprouts ginger ale), or
The checkerboard landscape with a single checker making me sweat.
A nest of spiders spins its lines of code — where something is and isn’t —
underneath the netting, the surface para-graph,
A wooden barrel in front of every scrap.
Half kangaroo and half gorilla would be very versatile,
Especially here, where rain has turned the road to muck.
Next to the thicket and upon a rock, my translator
Teaches card tricks to all the babies, changes their diapers.
Later we played an asphalt fight until the killer bees,
Digitally enhanced, came — an extensive natural race
That brings the good in night, its tropical players.

by Bruce Covey

City Beach by Dora Malech

Your mouth said so long from so long said

high tide's not a timid girl is what is missing.

I could clap flippers skip the asterisk

and hop a plane. Some mouths say nets and not

nets to trust around anyone's daughter.

Ask what's on tap in the shape of a ship.

A mouth in a bottle is no kiss sealed

to sender. In it remainders and no answer

and a thin relic at that. Any ocean

is old enough to know better. Your mouth

to mine is departures arrivals a flawless ledger.

Some mouths say swim at your own risk say salt

again is stingy dinner. My mouth remains

a faithful measure. Some mouths say shark

in shallow water but I suspect the waves

wash in on empty and someone had to

truck in all this sand from elsewhere here.

by Dora Malech

published in Poetry London

and also by Verse Daily® 

photo by bskar via flickr

Troubleton by Sarah Guess

There's a great new issue of Sixth Finch up this month. Here's an amazing poem by Carol Guess:

 

Absence Makes the Heart

Have you seen the wondrous new issue of Absent Magazine?  Exemplifying said awesomeness, I've re-posted "love Poem" by Lauren Ireland. Also represented in this issue are:

Dan Boehl
Karen Carcia
Darcie Dennigan
Jessica Fjeld
Andrea Henchey
Matthew Klane
Reb Livingston
Marc McKee
Daniela Olszewska
Matt Shears
Kim Gek Lin Short

~

Love Poem

I am not ready for dark    dear friend    I shout    and we walk

underground    a tiny city roars over    a tiny city below    and

it is hard to say this    I am dead tonight    I had been practicing

walking light    and slow    through a museum    the imaginary

groves    and turning to love you    rough like a clever boy but I

am dead tonight    friend    O kill me I am dead

by Lauren Ireland

photo by Michel on flickr

EOAGH 5: The Mega Mega Edition

 
Another amazing edition of EOAGH has been posted, and it's huge and, as I said, amazing!  Here's one by the poet Robyn Art. Please hustle on over and see the rest!

[Theories of Colony Collapse Disorder]

1.Because the river is full of holes. 2. Because his hands. 3. Because those were
the pearls that were his eyes. 4. Larceny. 5. Infamy. ^. The churlish disquietude
of the Tastee-Freeze truck. 7. Because of spinning it old school. 8. The same wack
shit. 9. Because lengthening shadows, doing their crepuscular dance. 10. Because
“crepuscular.” 11. High school (bad hair, misery.) 12. The very idea of him. 13.
Recurring dream #1: the house by the water (lake? ocean?) 14. Because the death
of analog. 15. Because the death of the push-mower. 16. Because death 17. in a kinda
general, all-around way. 18. Three weeks late. 19. Rescinded handshake. 20. Fantasy
baseball. 21. Collision of cosmic spheres, a dissonant humming. 22. Blood in the
drain. 23. Recurring dream #2: the Forbidden Room (blood-red drapes, a la The Shining?)
24. Because the day job 25. can’t swing the high overhead. 26. Sleeplessness. 27.
Her bituminous eyes. 28. Because Father Time, one seriously-underhanded motherfucker.
29. Broken strap. 30. Severed toe buried in sand. 31. Because he wanted to. 32.
Because he wanted. 33. Because he. 34. Flooded engine. 35. Invention of cheese-in-a-can.
36. Because genial affection, furious loathing 37. and tenderness. 38. Exhibit A:
syringe, rubber hose, earmarked copy of “Explore St. Louis!” 39. The way you heard
it. 40. Because the tongues of a thousand bedraggled and timorous mortals. 41. Because
rain. 42. Winter: a single thread, unraveling. 43. Better get. 44. Better get yo’
hustle on.

by Robyn Art

published by EOAGH

Fargo Bardo by Paula Cisewski

By sandbag

by flood

by fire and

by beetstink

by traincars

by offers

by youth

by wrinkledom

by hospital by

cowardice by

a slapdash collection

of ands by

a stalwart obsession

with carrion

birds by living

by living within

a set of

escape hatches by

sandbagging

by flood

by silence

by ricochet by

spores on the wind

by circus tent neighborship

by breathing

by motherhood

by fors and

by nors really

any conjunction

that sandbag

that flood

by witness by forgiveness by

forgetness by dreaming

by thoughtful love by

trainwreck love

by the luminosity

of the true nature

or even

by real dullness

of the spirit

hand me that sandbag

by the wine key

the flooding like clockwork

by poems about crossroads

by songs about crossroads

challenge that water

to a fistfight I

dare you I

am on a roll

and have just told

my typo keyboard

to fuck off

a river crests

by the corkscrew

rollercoaster

not by songs about the luminosity

not by poems about the luminosity

sandbag atop sandbag

I don’t know about fate

but certainly

by accident

by northness

by entrapment

by vision

by death mostly

by some form

of death,

rebirth is

a real possibility.

But we could

be waiting here

awhile. Have we

prepared ourselves

for this waiting.

by Paula Cisewski

published in H_NGM_N

Dream by Dorothea Lasky

The woman we did not know the

Woman, she was unloved

We started first with shame

And told her not to have any

We sat her down

At the table with us

It was at this point

That has I saw the dot

Small and red

That had only been white wall

It had only been white wall                                                                                                    

A moment before

But upon looking it was big

When you listen to a sound

It gets bigger

I went up to the dot

And it was really a T and green

And then it was not that

As I looked closer

But a series of letters

And then more and then more

I looked at the woman

And said something about emotions

She seemed to understand

I said

Like a fire within a fire

It is the beating heart which beats the hand

I woke up

I said this dream out loud so that I would remember

It was supposed to end there

I went into the bathroom

And saw the red beneath my eyes

A lit fire

The skin in front of light

With the blood contained looks like fire

Everything is Prophecy now

Even my own body

Everything looks to be

Prophetic now

Even the days that stretch

Out in front of us and become one life

Even in the million books

It was the one book that really mattered

Even in the million lovers

It was you that really mattered

Though I couldn’t have known it

This dream is the only dream that

Really matters

This day is the only day that really matters

Rustle rustle goes the time

Away from me

It is this one divine

Second that really matters

Not the others

Folding over into some infinite

Russian doll that holds the others

Red and green and white

And gold

The doll is always part gold

And I am part gold too

But it is only in this moment that I tell you

That this really matters

Time, music, the dead

We leave them for one second

It is a million seconds that we leave

I can’t know

The time I have left this world and come back

But that I came back

Is why you are listening

And when you listen it sounds like a word

And when you listen closer

It is a million words

And closer too

It is a million voices

And beyond that it is the world

Which is small and insignificant

But upon looking

It is where we are

And we are everything, living things

We are everything

I know this now

The ego leaves

And is submerged into a great fire

But we live in the midst of that

Always rushing through it

Like we can’t know

But we do

If we strain to the top of it

But we do know

If we turn around and look

At the top of it

See one thing contained

And then the rest cascading from that

A windmill of deep emotions

That spill upon unlocking

It is the one human emotion

That upon looking

Become the feelings that matter most

I am gold

But you only see my skin

But there is gold underneath this skin

That I cut and let out

And it sounds beautifully

A gold sun spray

Across the room

That comes forth as sound

It is not beautiful anymore

It is a million sun sprays

Letting themselves spill out into the room

And when you look closely at the spray

You go blind

There is no way to separate the one from the other

But when you kiss me

You do not go blind

You build up

A million sprays to come forth

That look like sound

That become art

That feel like touch

They are not touch

The sun contained in me is not touch

That is what we have touch for

To bring about the thing contained

by Dorothea Lasky

published in Puppyflowers 11

Kelp by Paul Farley

A puppet forest has gone to wrack
and ruin: it rubbernecked the prom
but lies unspooled now on the rocks.

Two shows a day, the celluloid of the sea.

We're building a projector from
a tide-pool's moving parts, the salt
driftwood, smooth plastics, and the snarls

of rope that come in blues, oranges and greens.

For sound: we'll sync up shells.
For editing: we'll dupe the verb splice.
For censorship: a big X in the wet sand.

Backwash and suck can be our Pearl & Dean.

`A classic of Whorled Cinema,
we bring you sunlight, tidal power...'
a voice as deep as Neptune's says,

and then the film, the film called Kelp, begins.

by Paul Farley

published Poetry London

republished by Verse Daily®

and now, here on Big Window!

kelp photo by Jean Tresfon via flickr

A Certain Swirl by Mary Ruefle

The classroom was dark, all the desks were empty,
and the sentence on the board was frightened to
find itself alone. The sentence wanted someone to
read it, the sentence thought it was a fine sentence, a
noble, thorough sentence, perhaps a sentence of
some importance, made of chalk dust, yes, but a sen-
tence that contained within itself a certain swirl not
unlike the nebulous heart of the unknown universe,
but if no one read it, how could it be sure? Perhaps it
was a dull sentence and that was why everyone had
left the room and turned out the lights. Night came,
and the moon with it. The sentence sat on the board
and shone. It was beautiful to look at, but no one
read it.

by Mary Ruefle
from The Most of It
Wave Books

republished by Verse Daily®

art by Cy Twombly

from 60 Morning Walks by Andy Fitch

Friday

Fearing bronchitis I slept through the alarm and didn’t get out until 9:15. From the courtyard sparrows whistled on either side. The day felt complete, a little tiring even. A police officer propped against a red door frowned when my glance made him self-conscious. It turns out the building east of mine’s a corrections facility. I’d always thought it was a school.

Sudsy water along the curb made Fifth Ave. expansive and sensual. Bedrooms projected a broadcaster’s voice. I can’t remember crossing commuter tracks. Along the James Weldon Johnson Homes a black woman pointed at a white man’s chest: You should have attended the meeting I assigned! Audiocassette tape dangled from branches. Somebody called to a seventh-floor window I’m optimistic cause they said come back on Monday. Cars proclaimed themselves Trinidadian with red-and-white-striped everything. Sparrows guarding slices of toast stayed surprisingly adept at repulsing pigeons. A dirtbike abandoned next to boxes spun its wheels.

From 125th St. people on train platforms looked glamorous and made of vapor. Asians assessed a storefront with all its wiring exposed. A woman with crutches propped herself to wait for the 101. Groups stood outside delis now that it was warm. The Bus Stop Kitchenette was packed—the diner exhaust smell made me think of families.

Pink and beige balloons had become entwined to the back of a building called TRICHA 6. Within a block the streets turned barren. Spotting stuffed animals restored my inner strength. Both contact lenses began to flutter. When loud teens approached I stared ahead with a sense of purpose. A stream poured from one eye. I feigned wiping a nostril, just to somehow gesture, then lunged bizarrely towards them as they passed.

Amidst the Abraham Lincoln Homes a statue caressed a rising black boy’s cheek. Cars veered around garbage cans wedged into potholes. Cigarettes lined the curb: McGeorge or something. A Peter Pan bus sped by en route to Boston and I remembered being sad to leave the city like this.

Where the Madison Avenue Bridge began a crushed grape jelly jar spread across pavement. I’d ascended out among tan projects. Industrial currents brought on a headache, made me feel like the product of furious whittling. When I bent I found photographs of Bill Clinton. He looked angelic. An old guy in a Yankees cap biked around construction barrels. Demolished cars below had prices chalked across dashboards.

On the trip back to Manhattan I sensed that from one New York bridge you can always see others. A man slowed, saluted, said How you feeling chief? Wondering if Bronx people are extra friendly I made a Cuban jogger frown wishing her hello. My jacket pocket swelled and grazed a taut kid’s thigh. An older Puerto Rican peddled down Madison at just my pace. His bicycle gears creaked. The harmony with my mood and general worldview was exquisite. Beside people in wheelchairs waiting for busses a woman chewed on lottery printouts. A big white Italianate house’s gingerbread drew me west. Someone around forty leaned from his van to engage a boy dropping carpet at the curb. Two guys alternated squats on a Soloflex machine. They knew everybody.

The occasional white person crossing Lenox looked relieved to have me to fixate on. A drunken blonde in drag said Honey don’t tell me you don’t have a quarter. Rice covered sidewalk but there wasn’t any church. An abandoned wheelchair blew against trash. A Jewish woman with a chihuahua in her bag asked if we were at all close to Columbus. The dog crouched (quiet and attentive).

Around 112th a Dominican man got lost imagining an argument. His voice kept coming as the distance grew between us. Beneath scaffolds I dodged dust clouds as debris hit dumpsters. By then it had to be about fifty degrees. 

by Andy Fitch

published in There Journal

Eclipse the Light & Crudely Divide by Amy King

Milk is a mythical moth that sees its own heart, mostly
in summer. Some kind of pillow moves me too
and dissolves my palate; I cannot taste
the shabby white wings
and behold each shadow’s infancy
beneath the definition of sleep.
I’m the kind of person who rides between towns
in terra cotta music, green’s death beat
turning air into earth, a Roman ruins kind of day, impolitic.
Blank sheets of ice to float on appear,
saving me from my lackluster heart, a platter adrift,
so that to carry you is
my only dark sleeve
essayed to reduce the people of things.
You say you know me, understand my ways,
but people love their homes, their locks that work
both ways. My hands are the in ’s that tremble
out the beats of verbatim, infection, bacterial electrics.
Roused, I was reading a book that fell
from your hands while we paddled,
completing the myth of our symmetry.
It held many pages and was a prefix
to our relations.
I am the gruntwork and a mystery of the gruntwork
precedes the masks along the entrails
reflecting our lives. Stand here in the rain
on this coral shelf, hold out for land.
We’ll make way if we eclipse the light
and crudely divide, dissolution of the mewing
across the decks of countless ships, home to the anti-us.

by Amy King

published in NOO Journal

photo of Columbus Circle by T. Scott Carlisle

Fonder a Care Kept by Heidi Lynn Staples

I was barn. I was razed.

I was mot this flame with no’s sum else blue’s blame noir yearning down the house.

No, it was I and I blank I bandit blather that louse that fiddle-dee-dee little lame chimera that came as the name yes different.

I wracked my refrain, that blousy souse.

I was bard. I was crazed.

I was dog girl’s shame.

So, I culled my maim. My maze read, you heave to rip rove your aim (she knock-knocks my nows and raves my here a quickened tousle), spell your dreams with a big and, and play for the game. I was har. I was phrase.

I was aroused by many’s uttered same.

by Heidi Lynn Staples

from her book Dog Girl (Ahsahta Press, 2009)

photo by Jenny Gacy via flickr

[white spring] by Lisa Olstein

I am working on a specimen so pale it is like staring at snow from the bow of a ship in fog. I lose track of things—articulation of wing, fineness of hair—as if the moth itself disappears, but remains as an emptiness before me. Or, from its bleakness, the subtlest distinctions suddenly increase: the slightest shade lighter in white begins to breathe with a starkness that’s arresting and the very idea of color terrifies. It has snowed and the evening is blue. The herders look like buoys, like waders the water has gotten too deep around. They’ll have to swim in to shore. Their horses are patient. They love to be led from their stalls. They love to sharpen their teeth on the gate. They will stand, knees locked, for hours.

by Lisa Olstein from her book Lost Alphabet (Copper Canyon 2009)

published on poets.org

photo by Gaëtan Bourque from flickr

Open 47: Death and Shoes (Stolen from Linda Jacobs)

I like this writing exercise by Linda Jacobs so much that I've stolen it. Well, provided a link to it anyway.  Check out her idea of writing about death and shoes on the blog, Totally Optional Prompts. I think it's a keeper. If you give this one a try, let us know. And you get extra points if you remember the old gospel song, Traveling Shoes.

Death Came A Knockin (Travelin Shoes) - Ruthie Foster

Consonant Clusters

Check out a new vispo ezine by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen called Consonant Clusters. In this ezine he publishes some of his own work (as in the example below) as well as other visual poets from around the world. It's a great blog.

After Tourism by Ann Lauterbach

Disturbed over her marvel I heard her say
something nocturnal I saw
mystery as merely change I saw
envy and the illegitimate mile I saw
under the formal atrocity at the messy embankment
all these and vocabulary lagging behind its science
tramp unknown soldier cop
talking strange talk
under an altered light under daze
I heard her say tomorrow as if she knew
I heard her say come back
and I choose you
as analogue of the yet to be.
Do not foreclose
investigation, but come along.
I will try not to protract my look into
now I will continue as if
you were next if you will I heard a man say
on the radio the other day, well, yesterday
talking about headaches
if you will
and today I had a look at
a Chinese cabinet only it is not clear
it is Chinese it
may be from another country I took
measurements nevertheless
for my next life I am thinking of requesting librarian
although I am as yet not on a list
of possible survivors I am
thinking of erasing the word sorrow from
the world, hurting under an illusory pennant
master of ceremonies hidden behind its junk
I am thinking of coming back as
part of your coat as a tree is part wind.

by Ann Lauterbach

published at Poetry Daily 

from her most recent book, Or to Begin Again (Penguin Books)

photo by Samuel Monson via flickr

Toon Tune by Gustave Morin

This is part of a series of post on Visual Poetry that Geof Huth did for the Poetry Foundation.  Here's an excerpt about Gustave Morin's fun example of VisPo:

Gustave Morin's primary form is the collage poem. His "toon tune" is a remarkable piece of craftsmanship. Its sixty-three individual fragments of text are cut into the shapes of jigsaw puzzle pieces and are fit perfectly together in a rectangular grid. The "words" of the poem consist almost entirely of the extravagant visualizations of onomatopoeia from comic books, producing a visual symphony of crashes and cries.—Geof Huth

Sleepless Graffiti by Lee Ann Roripaugh

Warning hiss of sinusitis—right eye socket’s emergency road flare of pain flickering the morning dark.

All night long, thoughts you didn’t want to think which nonetheless still insisted on being thought about cylindered inside your skull like the chilled spin of marbles slanting down a hardwood floor.

Cold drizzle on snow made a treachery of last night’s streets. Happenstance accidents. Morning’s rupture of snow. Everything disintegrates, flakes away like dried flecks of sour milk. Fresh layers of disappointment erasing icy footprints leading nowhere.

by Lee Ann Roripaugh

who is featured in the most recent edition of Anti-

Clare's Song by Evie Shockley

blonde   fair   bleached   faded   pale   pastel   light
blameless   clean   guiltless   innocent   pure   clear
anatomy   build   figure   person   physique   form
complexion   countenance   hue   mien   tint   cast
bead   dab   dash   iota   ounce   spot   trace   drop
succeed   answer   do   qualify   suffice   suit   pass

authorization   permit   ticket   license   paper   visa   pass
effortless   facile   moderate   smooth   undemanding   light
abandon   dismiss   disown   quit   reject   renounce   drop
jump   leap   hurdle   negotiate   surmount   vault   clear
actors   artists   characters   company   players   roles   cast
behavior   conduct   custom   manner   practice   rite   form

arrange   assemble   concoct   create   devise   forge   form
cross   depart   flow   go   move   proceed   travel   pass
copy   duplicate   facsimile   mold   plaster   replica   cast
amusing   blithe   gay   merry   pleasing   witty   light
accumulate   acquire   gain   net   realize   secure   clear
decrease   decline   downturn   reduction   slump   drop

bleed   dribble   leak   ooze   seep   splash   trickle   drop
character   class   grade   make   species   variety   form
audible   coherent   distinct   lucid   plain   precise   clear
canyon   cut   gap   gorge   path   opening   ravine   pass
airy   buoyant   delicate   feathery   unsubstantial   light
emit   diffuse   radiate   shed   spray   spread   scatter   cast

appoint   assign   choose   designate   name   pick   cast
abyss   chasm   descent   dip   plunge   precipice   drop
angle   approach   aspect   attitude   slant   viewpoint   light
application   sheet   chart   questionnaire   blank   form
advance   overture   proposition   approach   play   pass
absolute   convinced   decided   satisfied   sure   clear

bare   empty   free   stark   vacant   vacuous   void   clear
boot   fling   heave   hurl   launch   project   toss   cast
predicament   contingency   crisis   plight   state   pass
collapse   duck   flop   tumble   pitch   plummet   drop
format   framework   order   scheme   structure   form
beacon   bulb   dawn   flash   ray   shine   torch   light

model   pattern   fashion   form   appearance   contour   cast
luminous   radiant   clear   sunny   ablaze   aglow   light
ebb   fade   wane   depart   drop   end   die   decease   pass

                                                            —after nella larsen

by evie shockley

published in ekleksographia

The Love Song of the Square Root of Minus One (i) by Richard Siken

I am the wind and the wind is invisible, all the leaves tremble but I am invisible, blackbird over the dark field but I am invisible, what fills the balloon and what it moves through, knot without rope, bloom without flower, galloping without the horse, the spirit of the thing without the thing, location without dimension, without a within, song without throat, word without ink, wingless flight, dark boat in the dark night, shine without light, pure velocity, as the hammer is a hammer when it hits the nail and the nail is a nail when it meets the wood and the invisible table begins to appear out of mind, pure mind, out of nothing, pure thinking, hand of the mind, hand of the emperor, arm of the empire, void and vessel, sheath and shear, and wider, and deeper, more vast, more sure, through silence, through darkness, a vector, a violence, and even farther, and even worse, between, before, behind, and under, and even stronger, and even further, beyond form, beyond number, I labor, I lumber, I fumble forward through the valley as winter, as water, a shift in the river, I mist and frost, flexible and elastic to the task, a fountain of gravity, space curves around me, I thirst, I hunger, I spark, I burn, force and field, force and counterforce, agent and agency, push to your pull, parabola of will, massless mass and formless form, dreamless dream and nameless name, intent and rapturous, rare and inevitable, I am the thing that is hurtling towards you...

by Richard Siken

published in CUE

Richard Siken is the author of CRUSH. You can keep up with him on his blog.

I Am Followed by Strange Ghosts by Sarah Manguso

They look at me lovingly and rattle their chains a little. When I awaken they are already standing around the bed, looking at me as if ready to speak, but they never speak.

Whose memories are these?

After My Great-Grandmother Frances Got a Cochlear Implant, She Raised Her Voice a Little When She Asked My Mother, "What’s That Noise?"

Birds.

by Sarah Manguso

This poem appears in the new online issue of CUE. There are lot of other great poems there too, including new work by Reb Livingston, Elizabeth Willis, Richard Siken, Matt Hart, Dorothea Lasky, Tim Peterson, Mathias Svalina and Julia Cohen.

Hands Washing Water by Chris Abani

Even in the falling
a train breaks for the light.
The tunnel, the darkness – never

sweeter. This body is not
real. Yet living.
This living body.

There is a child. The blessed
coolness of water.
And hands

by Chris Abani

This is the title poem from his new book published by Copper Canyon Press.

My Heart by Frank O'Hara

I'm not going to cry all the time
nor shall I laugh all the time,
I don't prefer one "strain" to another.
I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie,
not just a sleeper, but also the big,
overproduced first-run kind. I want to be
at least as alive as the vulgar. And if
some aficionado of my mess says "That's
not like Frank!", all to the good! I
don't wear brown and grey suits all the time,
do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera,
often. I want my feet to be bare,
I want my face to be shaven, and my heart--
you can't plan on the heart, but
the better part of it, my poetry, is open.

by Frank O'Hara

136 Syllables at Rocky Mountain Dharma Center by Allen Ginsberg

Tail turned to red sunset on a juniper crown a lone magpie cawks.

Mad at Oryoki in the shrine-room -- Thistles blossomed late afternoon.

Put on my shirt and took it off in the sun walking the path to lunch.

A dandelion seed floats above the marsh grass with the mosquitoes.

At 4 A.M. the two middle aged men sleeping together holding hands.

In the half-light of dawn a few birds warble under the Pleiades.

Sky reddens behind fir trees, larks twitter, sparrows cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep.

by Allen Ginsberg

Born - Again!

The new issue of Born Magazine is wonderful.

My two favorites are:

Zoology
Writer: Sasha West / Artist: Ernesto Lavandera

I Can No Longer Think.
Writer: Emma Ramey / Artists: Moto Interactive / Isaac Ruiz

Beautiful!

Your Own Winnebago by Sandra Simonds

There's a volcano in my Alaska, a Paris
      in my mesa and the bulldog
at the wheel looks at me with her awful

eyes and says "Sandra, there's no time for
          a vinyasa, so skedaddle," and in
dog paddling to the Eiffel Tower I see

the shenanigans of topography,
the loop-a-doop shooting stars crushing under their own weight,
              outrageously obese men and women
strolling down main street, happy as
      snapping fingers to the brain stem's want, the penny
slots spitting rednecks as the song goes

"there's a crater in my Moscow, a hickey
      on my Himalaya, a quicksand pit
on my 9th Tokyo, a Yucatan on this meteor impact

more idiotic than the Patriot Act, more
    ancy than Shay's rebellion," so drop a few
bouillon cubes in this verb

brimming stew and call it petroleum,
    the new gold!, a wasp that flies
into the vehicle and makes you double over
the yellow lines for good measure.

This poem is by Sandra Simonds, author of Warsaw Bikini.
Published in Columbia Poetry Review
Republished by Verse Daily® 

Photo by Deconstructtheworld via flickr

Poem by Donald Revell

A line of hills
Then a line of hills where the grass ends
And heat travels through trees
Into a happiness
Akin to the great happiness of imaginary children
Whitens the sky

How wonderful and final
My life becomes
The grit of the deathbed earth grows soft
A flight of swifts
Lifts an agate meadow to the sky

Kittenish alpine blown-apart dandelion
I have caught sight of my true friend
Rounding the hillside in his cloak of rain

by Donald Revell

published in the Columbia Poetry Review

republished by Verse Daily®