Poetry

Recommendation: Mark M. Martin is a recent graduate of the M.F.A. program at Florida International University. I am a big fan of his work—so much so that I solicited him for an anthology that my husband and I edited that includes such poets as Andrew Hudgins, Colette Inez, and Stephen Dunn. His poem has already…

Sad song, thousand-mile voice, the crows throwing their existential shadows about. About what? Sad song little while. Little wheel. So the red petticoat flashes. The singer claps. O love of my life, our flesh is pulled away no matter. Foot slam. How we try. Foot slam. To hold each other in our mouths. So now…

I had in hand my stamped yellow ticket and passed on information—that I should walk to the farthest end of the auto salvage yard for what I said I needed, a door. Loosely, I had in mind a modern underworld, the twisted, broken bodies organized by make and name for convenience. “Do you know what…

Good luck to the one who finds the dream of a blue cave strewn with big dumb shellfish. Good luck to the one who finds the propellers, the one tentacle inscribed with prophetic runes. Good luck to the one who finds the decoder ring for which gestures mean love, run, don’t even— Say the man…

a small stream moves beneath the leaves     on the grounds of    the university       where an arrowhead or two lies underneath the tables of    foundations and off to the side, the tennis players are like bees collecting on a keeper’s mask     which is how the players look       through the windscreens’ mesh then…

Small birds, damaged by shellfire, slant against the light. “The descent of wisdom . . . ,” the dictator begins, and pauses, recalling his mother’s wine-reddened face. A residue of depression become ill will, a sensation of engorgement, and an undeveloped moment in which the    spirit stalls, falls back, and drops to its knees…

We were going toward nothing all along. Honing the acoustics, heralding the instant shifts, horizontal to vertical, particle to plexus, morning to late, lunch to later yet, instant to over. Done to overdone. And all against a pet store cacophony, the roof withstanding its heavy snow load. So, winter. And still, ambition to otherwise and…

The owl said, My son, Oak Table, your stand is strong. I have four talons on each leg, and you four talons on each leg. Our cold heavy hold holds mostly air. We are able. The table did not speak. We both make our home in the oak. My eyes glow with the glow of…

He sailed to wherever the sirens were, surviving by lashing himself to the mast. An image of stalwart resistance, or weakness. And the singers mere angels. And heaven only desire, simply the illegal. Sailed into the not-quite world. Or returned home to slay the suitors who had been feasting there for years. What about afterwards?…