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  • Notes on Poetics and Ethics

    trans. Greek Martin McKinsey 1. It is one of the talents of great stylists to make obsolete words cease from appearing obsolete through the way in which they introduce them in their writing. Obsolete words which under the pens of others would seem stilted or out of place, occur most naturally under theirs. This is…

  • The Habit of Affection

    People ought to like poetry the way a child likes snow, and they would if the poets wrote it. Wallace Stevens Affection for poems is a personal thing, transcending time, fashion, and even friendship. We return less often to what we admire or approve of than to what we love, and there are surprisingly few…

  • Bad Company

    The widow drove into the cemetery, parked near the mausoleum, and got out with her flowers. The next day was Memorial Day, and the cemetery would be thronged with people. Entire families would arrive to bring flowers to the graves of their loved ones. Tiny American flags would decorate the graves of the veterans. But…

  • Paper Poems (From third Series)

    trans. Greek Edmund Keeley Invulnerable body all naked so point-blank naked with the nipples still erect invulnerable to interior or exterior gunfire and that blue triumphant cunning and the wide trowel in hand covering the cement the smile of the second Christ. *     *      * Hidden behind the massive statue of Zeus he waits for the…

  • Asia

    It's good to live near the water. Ships pass so close to land a man could reach out and break a branch from one of the willow trees that grow here. Horses run wild down by the water, along the beach. If the men on board wanted, they could fashion a lariat and throw it…

  • The Silver Coin

    The cows once believed that if you stand in a pond shaped like a circle during the full moon you'll die. That was everyone's first summer and it finally got so hot the animals decided to hire another cow to go in the water. Just to be sure. This was a cow nobody cared much…

  • Snowfall

    This could be any city, the poor parts, poverty both camouflaged and signaled by unplowed snow. The morning paper still lies on the doorstep, touched only by the cold gloves of a boy who moves in his own world from house to house, past a silhouette pulling a sweater on, to a woman who answers…

  • Home

    My heart and my bones wince. It's so damn sad-looking and ugly, The Bronx— Driving past those small hills Blighted for miles with brick Desert-similar apartment buildings: The landscape I come from. It's so damn ugly in its torment Of knifings and fires, I forget I was happy there, sometimes, In its damp and dingy…

  • Passion

    I signed the letter, Mary then noticed my mistake and added: As you can see, I am going crazy, I think I am a virgin. Love, Mary. There was nothing to feel guilty about, it wasn't a bad letter. I spoke some of my children, a little of my husband. While serious, it said nothing…