To the Memory of Lee “Scratch” Perry20 March 1936 – 29 August 2021 Source of echomadman of propheciesbuffering nonsensein absence of anythingsolid as cloudflungfrom the wombpale pallid asteroidbelt of nanny goat conjuror of the ill-spokenad-libbing in shadowa race in a curveas an old woman’s palmbillows the blue lightinstance of an ant’slegs twitch beneaththe headless Nobodytrickster…
Translated by Boris Dralyuk Why sit like a guestbut not wipe your feet?Every town’s built on bones,not just St. Pete. One should build homes on stone,not on a bog.True enough, but for nowthe work is a slog. My life’s on the scales—the losses won’t cease.Let me dwell in the woods—a big clumsy beast. I’d crawl…
My life,you were a door I was givento walk through. Dawdlingin lintel and loosestrife as much as permitted. Your own glass knob,I spoke you: a sentence, however often rewritten,ending always with the same slightly rusty-hinged preposition.Sometimes, for mercy, hidden.
Was it my parents’ sour grapes that have setmy teeth on edge? Or is this bitternessin my mouth from seeds I’ve sown myself? The woman I leftweeping in an East Village restaurant.Or maybe the one I had to wrestle back from a seaside cliff, an empty fifthof Maker’s in her fist. I want to sayI’m…
Translated by Grace Mahoney in a country where everyone’s name is fear:it’s good that you don’t see a thingand don’t hear a thing. Say to anyone not a thing.Slip nothing in your bra. Keep nothingin your pocket. In both ears, nothing. In two eyes, nothing. Blind feet. No looking back. Nolooking back. If you look back,…
It pushes its way through, a luminous thing. Cactus, radiantwith small blunt thorns, sharply glisteningcolumn. But also, in a room without walls, a load-bearing wall, a mastwithout sail on a hovering boat. Straight as a nail, shadowless. It’s my mother’s picture, she took it in the woods. The columnwas found among smelly ant-hills and ever so…
Translated from the Spanish by Jenny Minniti-Shippey The child searches for his voice.(The king of the crickets had it.)In a drop of water,the child searched for his voice. I don’t want it in order to speak;I’ll make with it a ringthat will carry my silenceon his tiny finger. In a drop of water,the child searched…
Arms out, our crowd of hands a cage,we take them, hairy and clean.Their fur-rags shake.We look down on their backs and heads.Their faces point up. They can’t seewhat they look like.Made of heat and sun-stripe, yip and squawk,matted in patterns and wrong-way curls—we’ve been told they have no souls.Touch them however you feel.As if they…
From a series documenting several years (1980–2021) ofmulti-day cycling tours. Slaterville Springs, NY – Ithaca – Syracuse – Seaway Trail – Ogdensburg – Saint-Zotique, QC – Montreal. Home on Amtrak. October 1980; 334 miles. Via Gitane. Pushed up from the south on the Seaway Trail—New York State Route 3—along Lake Ontario, crossing newly built bridges…
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