Translated from the Albanian by Ani Gjika Here, everyone smokes.In the eveningeach wiferecognizes her husbandby the faraway glint of his cigaretteat the end of the cobblestone street. When the glint pulses frequentlywives feel the storm coming and rush to warm dinner in the fire.But when it’s scarce and lazylike the pulsing iodine of jellyfish on…
My objective is never to touch it. No such thing as a naughty clock, give it Its head, I say, serve The natural tendency to ebb And flow… When amplitude drops the clock Starts racing— Added to which, in winter Ground water affecting foundations of the tower Alters the angle the timepiece leans. Hair drier works to warm the sensor, Enjoy! Now to anomalies: clock detects The cleaning lady…
Lord, there are creatures in the understory, snails with whorled backs and silver boots, trails beetles weave in grass, black rivers of ants, unbound ladybugs opening their wings, spotted veils and flame, untamed choirs of banjo-colored crickets and stained-glass cicadas. Lord, how shall we count the snakes and frogs and moths? How shall we love…
A chunk of metal cubed and spat out by a car-crushing baling press, a Ford, twenty years old, seemingly red, last driven by a teenaged girl who failed to check the oil, a gift from a doting grandmother with a terror of squashing squirrels recklessly crossing the road, and drove the car only to church;…
The solace of standing. Early morning light coming in through the small square window discovers my neighbour’s wall to me, the marks of mould and hand and fire on individual bricks, for these are old houses. Something I wanted to say about walking in the park has become an insight of such lucidity that it’s…
That his mind was strange was what they had to tell him That he was well aware of it was the essence of his reply At which point the heavens did what afterwards none could remember Leaving suddenly none with the will to pursue the matter Or that strange-minded person much further into the forest
Happy arrives with the moon on its shoulder. Glamorous. You can tell it has crossed the line by the way it moves, eyes glittering like wet roads in headlights, dangerous and out of control, attention all over the place. It loves the language and talks to strangers, asks your name, looks in your face and…
Someone is putting the world back together —Aaron Smith Here’s what’s different: Bruce, who is now Sheilawon’t join a gym because she’s still transitioningand can’t change clothes in either locker room.She’s between two rooms of time. And the country is differentbut the same—everything we talked about. Nothing really changesexcept extent. But there’s a lot more death…
from Çekoslovakyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmısınız or Long Words,a sequence of poems that take their titles from the English translationsof long words in various languages. This poem is drawn from Pinakanakapagpapabagabag-damdamin, a word in Tagalog. is qualified by an inserted parenthesisthere is of course a difference between disturbing and upsettingbut that is registered fairly deeply in the person saying…
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