Poetry

  • Agnès Varda: Here and There 2

    Landscape of small saints                    with champagne. Landscapewith island out window                    with window as large as the houseand its shadow Landscape of doors                    and their doorwaysLandscape of the hallway                    that runs between themjoining one outside to the other. Landscape of child                    in doorway smiling and that of the faceswatching the child, thinking                    every face is a landscape. Her first show was in…

  • Agnès Varda: Here and There 1

    Landscape of umbrellas                    flying over Brussels, itself the shadow;somewhere glass sparkles                    in the background, pear treesin the background, flower Landscape through two glasses of water                         the Rhine bordered by treesslightly therefore flowing green                         the boats thus moving through two layers—water glass and river—                         the bells strung betweenthat follow in slight distance                         sketched on a surface that flees. Boats at anchor in…

  • Hermetic

    You said both hermit and hermetic in the same sentence and I saidthat if you are receptive then you don’t need to be an artist. I have hada hermetic life in poetry and in the sanctity of a sacred love, in onesense but not in another. You said the word demarcation and I wasreassured wholly…

  • The Gnat and the Lion, January 2017

    Some gnats live on the land and some on the water.Many eat plants and some are carnivores.They are everywhere people are; they liveon subantarctic islands, in deserts, caves.When they fly they’re usually so numerousthey look like weather. The weather at dusk.Some are pests and some control pests.Some don’t bite and die quickly.Some love mushrooms. Others,…

  • Ten Pre-Revolutionary Pillows, Watercolor 1910, Mariamna Davydoff, Russia

    Awfully mortal, aren’t they?Their inner lives twist, wad, and shred.Their outer lives are sometimes called shams. I change oily, stained cases, eventually.Even if you’re tiresome, they’ll prop you,Crease your sleeping skin,Press comfort in. I swam in a case, in a sulphur spring,Surrounded by white cows.I carried laundry down the stairs in oneAfter surgery on a…

  • Banjo

    Translation by Maria Vassileva You could tell right away that I wasn’t a girl— even though the strings lie, as does the neck,awkwardly jutting out of the dress, here and therethe soft taut skin, almost calf, almost silk,or the gentle hairs right there onthe most profitable place in the whole damnplantation. To you I wasthe…

  • What Remains

    Translation by Maria Vassileva if we take spring and subtract early spring, the slush,the crocuses, the exalted and light infections of the nasopharynx,the lamb, all skin and bones—Rossetti and Blake are yet to comb the celestial wool,then Lent, budding green, then the greatdesert of April,from the first day to the last,then the rush of blood,…

  • Pantoum by Frank O’Hara

    It’s all over. But the smoldering hatredtried to jump out a window,full of indecision and cognac. And bikiniseveryone will want to go to bed with. Youtried to jump out a windowbecause you have a penis. So do I.Everyone will want to go to bed with you.You may as well put your pants onbecause you have…

  • The Book of Mermen

    We went to see The Book of Mormon (the musical).I was working on my own musical, The Book of Mermen“Merman? As in Ethel Merman?” No, I said, The Bookof Mermen, those quizzical mythical beasts halffish half man. Though I could see where Ethel Mermanwould make sense as a musical—an excruciating musicalcovering the later years, the…