Some bells ring of their own accord.Some need the boy who pulls the ropeand is lifted off his feet on the upswing.The pigeons scatter from the tower’sshaken air. Their paratrooper feathersstorm the shaft of light.By what miracle does he recall, years later,such ascension, the last timehe loved a church, was lifted,literally, by song? These wild…
“Fran’s friend has cancer,” Sheila says. “Who?” “Fran’s friend. Has cancer.” “I don’t know who you’re talking about.” “I’m telling you. Fran’s friend.” Max looks up from his menu. “I’m hearing the words, Sheila. I’m asking who the hell is Fran?” “You don’t know who Fran is?” “I don’t know who Fran is.” “You don’t…
Years ago, I went to a family reunion in rural Sweden, where the houses are red, yellow, or white, and the mailboxes bear the family’s last name. My grandfather was born Birger Johansson, but because the farmers on either side of his family’s farm were also named “Johansson,” Birger’s family decided to change their surname….
Tanks run over the castleof my childhood in December.On our black-and-white TVI see the riot policeshields and truncheons.Vinegar is the only thingyou can buy in the stores.Telephones turn into toys.Because of a curfew,my father’s bedtime storiesgrow longer than ivy andwilder than calendula. Restless in bed, on the ceilingI conjure green magical birdsthat take us to…
The following piece has been adapted from the author’s biography of Lola Ridge, Anything That Burns You: A Portrait of Lola Ridge, Radical Poet (2016). Lola Ridge slipped under the ropes and started straight for the cordon of mounted police and the prison doors. A young mounted guard, a boy, rode down upon her. As…
When the pilot calls it rough air, I think of a cat’s tongue,as if the air itself were textured, as if we could feel its sandpaperlicking our skin. I swallow my ears open, and the silencewhich is not silence at all fills them. In the absence of faith I resort to magical thinking. I pray…
Something’s falling in increments of banging and slight popping, klunks,and then littlechittering rolls,the roof I mean is being hit by objectsnuts, fruitsof the season: this miserable natural worldhurls these things…and then there’re the wolf howlsor coyotesas they callthem here and the barks and snuffles of so-called bearsand yesterday I saw a small tub-bottomed bishopcrossing the…
sometimes I’m issued a new headand the old one dropsoff and then I see the new one isn’t newit’s a usedhead, sometimes a bit moldyor flushedwith rage, this headfilled with notes on what is wrong with the worldor carrying a listof expendables or groceriesa head that remembers sunset castinga golden shineinto the wheator the painting…
A tense obligato, the light comes up out of a shallow grave.It was only resting. Sulphur butterflies, taking a holidayin the garden, one in shades of yellow and orange, the otherthe same plus chestnut spots, drift abovewhite-faced mallows, giving a sense of softness, richnessto the situation, paralleling the stinks and murderpoking up everywhere, each an…
No products in the cart.