The writer of our day has become especially repulsive recently by walking in public without his pants hind-end first and mournfully displaying to the world the place that hurts, and this place hurts him because he does not know where he can sit down peacefully. —Maxim Gorky Down the hill past the bakery you air…
In the name of July the heat banks and turns like a lift of swallows. In the name of the lion-bearing month, it swaggers; we can do no work in the face of it; we are overcome in its welter. We the city-makers, the furnace-stokers, the curious, the experimenters; we the utmost strainers, puncturing…
I’m standing amidst the ruins of the Plaza de la Sirena with my parrot, Dr. José Venegas, who I suspect of being tapped into some collective archetypal memory bank with a bizillion other parrots— the way thimble jellyfish are with other thimble jellyfish. He knows colors and can count to ten, nine, eight . ….
No nation of alienates, we. We do our dopamine dance in the kitchen, in phone booth and office, aided by pharmacology, hindsight, and when all fails, Zen. We no longer stop twice at stop signs, frantically patting our hips for our wallets. We frog-march from gray to shrill purple, breathing in shellfish, bee balm, fresh…
In moments between preoccupations, in those pauses punctuated by the sound of malm being ground up by bricklayers, or by the scolding magpies, or by Paula praying quietly with her garnet beads— the click and suspirations—he swabs his brow and thinks about what sets apart one interval from another: how a specific point must be…
Thank you, beautiful,” I said as my six-year-old daughter, Maude, came skipping over from the swings to hand me a warm, wilted bouquet of dandelions. Dandelions, the only flowers no one cares if you pick. Maude smiled at me, then turned and ran screaming back to the playground. “Stop,” she called as she ran, her…
Lloyd Schwartz, Cairo Traffic, poems: Schwartz extends his exploration of the intersections of character and language, of the places where common speech mysteriously transforms itself into poetry, into a series of extraordinary and compelling narratives-funny and frightening, seductive and moving. Includes several translations of contemporary Brazilian poems. (Chicago)
On the black stage, near the lectern, is a delicate table, and on it, within the spotlight, are a column of cups, a clear pitcher of water, and a vase of flowers, a graceful, domestic bouquet. This will be a long evening of reading and speaking, and the flowers are not ornament. The vase of…
I. The City How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations! She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave. -Jeremiah, Lamentations 1:1 Manila suffered during the war. How many times have I heard this? There are…
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