February 2012
1 post
January 2012
4 posts
I'm Hot by Nick Demske
“Fire is inspirational.”
—Richard Pryor
For Jenetta
After Mims, ODB, Jeff Bezos & Danny Khalastchi
Because I’m on fire. Because I’m a church. Because I’m Richard Pryor. Because I’m Google search.
Because O snap, Branch Davidian Gideon, a real burner, cinder incinerate drunk tank caloric intake shake. And bake. And I helped.
I perpetuated the mythology. I forwarded the...
After a Greek Proverb by AE Stallings
Ουδέν μονιμότερον του προσωρινού We’re here for the time being, I answer to the query— Just for a couple of years, we said, a dozen years back. Nothing is more permanent than the temporary. We dine sitting on folding chairs—they were cheap but cheery. We’ve taped the broken window pane. TV’s still out of whack. We’re here for the time being, I answer to the query. When we crossed the water, we...
From "The Propositions" by Robert Duncan
3. This is THE SENDING OUT.
I see the tree. It changes. Mineral vegetable animal. Of generations. It exceeds me. Come back. Come back. Tell us of excess. What was the sign that limited?
Do not serve the tree. This is the sending. This place is littered with great stones. No more! Return to the shore we remember. Do not go beyond...
January First by Octavio Pas trans. Elizabeth...
The year’s doors open like those of language, toward the unknown. Last night you told me: tomorrow we shall have to think up signs, sketch a landscape, fabricate a plan on the double page of day and paper. Tomorrow we shall have to invent, once more, the reality of this world. I opened my eyes late. For a second of a second I felt what the Aztec felt, on the...
December 2011
1 post
Erthe Toc of Erthe or Earth Took of Earth by...
Erthe toc of erthe erthe wyth woh, erthe other erthe to the earthe droh, erthe leyde erthe in erthene throh, tho hevede erthe of erthe erthe ynoh.
Earth took of earth earth with ill; Earth other earth gave earth with a will. Earth laid earth in the earth stock-still: Then earth in earth had of earth its fill.
ca 13th Century
MM
November 2011
1 post
An Ordinary Evening in New Haven, XXX by Wallace...
The last leaf that is going to fall has fallen.
The robins are la-bas, the squirrels, in tree-caves,
Huddle together in the knowledge of squirrels.
The wind has blown the silence of summer away.
It buzzes beyond the horizon or in the ground:
In mud under ponds, where the sky used to be reflected.
The barrenness that appears is an exposing.
It is not part of what is absent, a halt
For...
October 2011
2 posts
As I Walked Out One Evening by W.H. Auden
As I walked out one evening, Walking down Bristol Street, The crowds upon the pavement Were fields of harvest wheat. And down by the brimming river I heard a lover sing Under an arch of the railway: ‘Love has no ending. ‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you Till China and Africa meet, And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street,...
New York, New York by David Berman
A second New York is being built a little west of the old one. Why another, no one asks, just built it, and they do.
The city is still closed off to all but the work crews who claim it’s a perfect mirror image.
Truthfully, each man works on the replica of the apartment building lives in, adding new touches, like cologne dispensers, rock gardens, and doorknobs marked for the grand hotels.
...
September 2011
3 posts
The Unbeliever by Elizabeth Bishop
He sleeps on the top of a mast. - Bunyan He sleeps on the top of a mast with his eyes fast closed. The sails fall away below him like the sheets of his bed, leaving out in the air of the night the sleeper’s head. Asleep he was transported there, asleep he curled in a gilded ball on the mast’s top, or climbed inside a gilded bird, or blindly seated himself astride. “I am founded...
The Layers by Stanley Kunitz
I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, over which scavenger angels wheel on...
Promised Land Valley, June '73 by Alfred Corn
The lake at nightfall is less a lake, but more, with reflection added, so this giant inkblot lies on its side, a bristling zone of black pine and fir at the dark fold of the revealed world. Interpret this fallen symmetry, scan this water and these water lights, and follow a golden scribble toward the lantern, the guessed boat, the voices that skip across sky to where we stand. You...
August 2011
1 post
On the Beach at Night Alone by Walt Whitman
On the beach at night alone, As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song, As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of the future. A vast similitude interlocks all, All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets All distances of place however wide, All distances of time, all inanimate forms, All...
July 2011
5 posts
for women who are difficult to love. by Warsan...
you are a horse running alone and he tries to tame you compares you to an impossible highway to a burning house says you are blinding him that he could never leave you forget you want anything but you you dizzy him, you are unbearable every woman before or after you is doused in your name you fill his mouth his teeth ache with memory of taste his body just a long shadow seeking yours ...
Jiang Kui by Jeffrey Yang
Jing Wang translates Jiang Kui of the Northern Song: “In writing poetry, it is better to strive to be different from the ancients than to seek to be identical to them. But better still than striving to be different is to be bound to find one’s own identity with them, without striving to identify; and to be bound to differ with them, without striving to differ.” Check out Jeffrey...
Check out my new poem published in The Open End, an online collaborative journal.
- Mitch
Texas by Jorge Luis Borges trans. Mark Strand
Here too. Here as at the other Edge of the hemisphere, an endless plain Where a man’s cry dies a lonely death. Here too the Indian, the lasso, the wild horse. Here too the bird that never shows itself, That sings for the memory of one evening Over the rumblings of history Here too the mystic alphabet of stars Leading my pen over the page to names Not swept aside in the continual ...
An Alphabet by David Ferry
ABC You and me
DEF Dumb and deaf
GHI Blind of eye
JKL What’s to tell?
MNO All you know
PQR Who you are
STU Who are you?
VWX Stones and sticks
YZ You and me
NW
June 2011
5 posts
I Know, I Remember, But How Can I Help You by...
The northern lights. I wouldn’t have noticed them if the deer hadn’t told me a doe her coat of pearls her glowing hoofs proud and inquisitive eager for my appraisal and I went out into the night with electrical steps but with my head held also proud to share the animal’s fear ...
Idleness by Lu Yu trans. Kenneth Rexroth
Once we had a knocker On the gate. Now we seldom Open it. I don’t want people Scuffing up the green moss. The sun grows warm. Spring has really Come at last. Sometimes you Can hear faintly on the gentle Breeze the noise of the street. My wife is reading the classics. She asks me the meaning Of ancient characters. My son begs for a sip of wine. He drinks the whole cup before I can...
Enchanted Rock by Bill Mullen
1 I could sit all day on this esplanade— always come back here when my trips are done. Sit with their nectar, claim it for heart’s calm, make it into phrases all afternoon. Fountain ledges braided by fluted granite, comforting hexagons of civic stone. Harbor like the beginningless and the endless. Heart’s calm like the colossal clouds of June. 2 Suppose there were steps down...
I have a new blog. Follow me. -Audrey
Choices by Nikki Giovanni
if i can’t do what i want to do then my job is to not do what i don’t want to do
it’s not the same thing but it’s the best i can do
if i can’t have what i want then my job is to want what i’ve got and be satisfied that at least there is something more to want
since i can’t go where i need to go then i must go where the signs point though always...
May 2011
2 posts
In The Middle Of Life by Tadeusz Rozewicz
After the end of the world after my death I found myself in the middle of life I created myself constructed life people animals landscapes
this is a table I was saying this is a table on the table are lying bread a knife the knife serves to cut the bread people nourish themselves with bread
one should love man I was learning by night and day what one should love I answered man
this...
To Go to Lvov by Adam Zagajewski
To go to Lvov. Which station for Lvov, if not in a dream, at dawn, when dew gleams on a suitcase, when express trains and bullet trains are being born. To leave in haste for Lvov, night or day, in September or in March. But only if Lvov exists, if it is to be found within the frontiers and not just in my new passport, if lances of trees —of poplar and ash—still breathe aloud like...
April 2011
2 posts
A Poem by Dean Young by Mary Ruefle
Don’t think for one fucking instant that I don’t have a broken heart. The man in briefs in an infinite sea believes there is no subconscious nor is he aware tempora exists. Don’t think I have not eaten in the most beautiful Chinese restaurant in the world. Don’t think I have not written on the walls of my bathtub. Don’t think I have not poisoned a snail. Don’t...
Song of a Man Who Has Come Through by D. H....
Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me! A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time. If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me! If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift! If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed By the fine, fine wind that takes its course through the chaos of the world Like a fine, an exquisite chisel, a...
March 2011
2 posts
Revolutionary Letter #1 by Diane Di Prima
I have just realized that the states are myself I have no other ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life my spirit measure out, in bits, spread over the roulette table, I recoup what I can nothing else to shove under the nose of the maitre de jeu nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with this immediate head, what it comes up...
Lines Written in Early Spring by William...
I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man. Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; And...
February 2011
3 posts
A Book of Music by Jack Spicer
Coming at an end, the lovers Are exhausted like two swimmers. Where Did it end? There is no telling. No love is Like an ocean with the dizzy procession of the waves’ boundaries From which two can emerge exhausted, nor long goodbye Like death. Coming at an end. Rather, I would say, like a length Of coiled rope Which does not disguise in the final twists of its lengths Its endings. But, you...
Listening by Jean Valentine
My whole life I was swimming listening beside the daylight world like a dolphin beside the boat —no, swallowed up, young, like Jonah, sitting like Jonah in the red room behind that curving smile from the other side but kept, not spat out, kept, for love, not for anything I did, or had, I had nothing but out inside- outside smile-skin… my paper and pen… but I was made for this:...
Watch
January 2011
6 posts
Her Palm, Her Apotheosis by Timothy Donnelly
There—past the ghost of the carpet, an inch from the tasseled fringe, an inch from the froth of the wave that plashed expressly west of Asia; here— in her isolate room, in a permanent pot of terra cotta, its imperial fronds outstretched, unfurled in a fanning of afternoon sun, this is absolutely the absolute palm. She sees nothing else, no one else sees the palm that she becomes,...
Drinking Alone With the Moon by Li Bo
A pot of wine among the flowers. I drink alone, no friend with me. I raise my cup to invite the moon. He and my shadow and I make three.
The moon does not know how to drink; My shadow mimes my capering; But I’ll make merry with them both - And soon enough it will be Spring. I sing - the moon moves to and fro. I dance - my shadow leaps and sways. Still sober, we exchange our joys. Drunk -...
Why I'm Not a Paintbrush (or L.A. Sonnet) by...
Why in attitude you stood in a doorway Not willing to concede not willing to do anything but spar or stab your index finger with a sewing needle in order to extract something there all along The way monographed gifts epitomize a place I’d rather not be The way entering a certain leaden house The way a child mistakes car for driver He stands clutching a plastic steak to his chest Fencing with...
Last Poem by Tamiki Hara
Engraved in stone long ago, Lost in the shifting sand, In the midst of a crumbling world, The vision of one flower. AM
The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; ...
The Language by Robert Creeley
Locate I love you some- where in teeth and eyes, bite it but take care not to hurt, you want so much so little. Words say everything. I love you again, then what is emptiness for. To fill, fill. I heard words and words full of holes aching. Speech is a mouth. AM
December 2010
5 posts
Amazement by Czeslaw Milosz
O what daybreak in the windows! Cannons salute. The basket boat of Moses floats down the green Nile. Standing immobile in the air, we fly over flowers: Lovely carnations and tulips placed on long low tables. Heard too are hunting horns exclaiming hallali. Innumerable and boundless substances of the Earth: Scent of thyme, hue of fir, white frost, dances of cranes. And everything simultaneous. And...
Morning by Allen Ginsberg
Ugh ! the planet screams Doves in rusty cornice- castles peer down on auto crossroads, a junkey in white jacket wavers in yellow light on way to a negro in bed Black smoke flowing on roofs, terrific city coughing - garbage can lids music over truck whine on E. 5th St. Ugh ! I’m awake again - dreary day ahead what to do? -...
Sabbaths 1998 by Wendell Berry
I Whatever happens, those who have learned to love one another have made their way to the lasting world and will not leave, whatever happens. II This is the time you’d like to stay. Not a leaf stirs. There is no sound. The fireflies lift light from the ground. You’ve shed the vanities of when And how and why, for now. And then The phone rings. You are called away. III Early in the...
Luciferin by Dean Young
“They won’t attack us here in the Indian graveyard.” I love that moment. And I love the moment when I crawl in your warm you-smelling bed-dent after you’ve risen. And sunflowers, once a whole field and I almost crashed, the next year all pumpkins! Crop rotation, I love you. Dividing words between syl- lables! Dachsunds! What am I but the inter- section of these loves? I...
Audrey Undoes Herself via Anne Carson →
November 2010
3 posts
untitled by Zbigniew Herbert
What will happen when hands fall away from poems
when in the other mountains I drink dry water
this should not matter but it does
what will poems become when the breath departs and the grace of speaking is rejected
will I leave the table and descend into the valley where there resounds new laughter by a dark forest translated from the Polish by Alissa Valles From Inscription published in...
The Calm Has Brough the Storm by Latiff Mohidin
for Uda
the calm has brought the storm the storm has brought you here you have chosen to not live still all that you hold feels old all you’ve forsaken feels near when doors are shut you want to leave when space is opened you want to sit you sit to stand the parcel you opened you bind again all you request you refuse all you snare you set free having conformed you renounce having won you...
If It All Went Up in Smoke by George Oppen
that smoke would remain the forever savage country poem’s light borrowed light of the landscape and one’s footprints praise from distance in the close crowd all that is strange the sources the wells the poem begins neither in word nor meaning but the small selves haunting us in the stones and is less always than that help me I am of that people the grass blades touch and touch in their...
October 2010
3 posts
from The Cold Mountain Poems tr. Gary Snyder
6. Men ask the way to Cold Mountain Cold Mountain: there’s no through trail. In summer, ice doesn’t melt The rising sun blurs in swirling fog. How did I make it? My heart’s not the same as yours. If your heart was like mine You’d get it and be right here. AM
The Intention of Things by David Ferry
The death that lives in the intention of things To have a meaning of some sort or other,
That means to come to something in the end, It is the death that lives not finding the meaning
Of this or that object as it moves among them Uncertainly, moving among the shadows,
The things that are like shadows, shadows of things, The things the shadows of shadows, all in the effort
To put off the death...
Recuerdo by Edna St. Vincent Millay
We were very tired, we were very merry We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable— But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table, We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon; And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon. We were very tired, we were very merry— We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry; And...
September 2010
3 posts
descants on happiness by Merle Bachman
happiness, brief disturbance fluttered paper tangent to a gathered warmth; the new sounds of birds, a.m. and p.m.; like water remembering to surface, pool inside the cracks a vacant light touches equally a tin roof, distended maple, car window, blonde hair this is how it begins in strips peeled away * striving to be happy “it’s all I want,” he said ...