Poetry

  • The Lady on the Lid

    And in that same tempest the Austrian Ambassador Fearing he stood on the brink of drowning Flung his snuffbox, on whose lid was painted His mistress naked, into the sea. Unlikely He hoped this would persuade the god Poseidon To rebuke the wind and the wind would cease And there’d be a great calm. No,…

  • Bunny

    Where did the dust come from and how much of it do you have? When and where did you first notice the dust? Why didn’t you act sooner? Why don’t you show me a sample. Why don’t you have a sample? Why don’t you take some responsibility? For yourself, the dust? Personally I’ve never suffered…

  • The Mothering

    She thirsts for her lamb, minutes old, still-born and cooling in a cold dawn, licking him clean with a growl of love till you turn her away, steal the corpse and rip with the hiss of the blade in a single tear throat to tail. The stripped flesh is a breath of steam, delta of…

  • The Brown Hare

               for R. S. Thomas Never more than a shadow, a silvering wind crossing a field, two ears alert in a gap then gone—its empty form warm, like a room someone just left, its heart leaping the earth, the silent immensities. Once, on a cliff walk, we saw it, a clod…

  • Tiger, Tiger

    A Fairytale Once upon a time a girl ran away to join the zoo.She was only herself in the company of animals.Their smell and their wordlessness drew her.Their silence was not a lack, but a better dimension. At the zoo was a tiger, untamed and deadly.She’d killed a keeper and only one man could manage…

  • In Defense of Darkness

    Drum-brush of fabric. The clink of a zip on laminate floor. You step from a skirt to the sound of our breathing. The street outside swells to a canticle of traffic. We’ve time to touch as if reunited— the harshness of the journey written into the depth of a clinch. Chest to chest, your head…

  • Quaaludes

    “Hey, Dude, try these” she whispered, the proffered palm, the pinpoint lights, dark stars. I did. Pines, a gravel strand. Frat boy canoodling with a coed. Some cool waif approached, said fog would afflict the Milwaukee reservoir, fed me the falsified warnings of high, incoming tides. One string of her turquoise bikini come untied. “Au…

  • In Praise of Flight

             Vous connaissez sans doute un voilier nommé “Désir.”                                                                         —Henri Laborit Like ruined churches in another snowthat lengthens everything to nightfall, even faith itself, that…