Poetry

The Garden Was Entering The Sea

The garden was entering the sea Cape of deep carnation Your hand was leaving with the tide Smoothing the sea's bridal gown Your hand was opening the sky. Angels with eleven swords Were sailing alongside your name Slashing through the flowery waves Down below the white sails leaned In quick northeasterly squalls. With the white…

This Morning

This morning was something. A little snow lay on the ground. The sun floated in a clear blue sky. The sea was blue, and blue-green, as far as the eye could see. Scarcely a ripple. Calm. I dressed and went for a walk. Determined not to return until I took in what Nature had to…

Paper Poems (From third Series)

trans. Greek Edmund Keeley Invulnerable body all naked so point-blank naked with the nipples still erect invulnerable to interior or exterior gunfire and that blue triumphant cunning and the wide trowel in hand covering the cement the smile of the second Christ. *     *      * Hidden behind the massive statue of Zeus he waits for the…

Ripe

I can't stand it, he said. What other road? Season of the hungry dogs season of forgetfulness and memory season of disguises season of swindlers season of broken doors. I gave a penny to the blind man I climbed down from the stands stooped over unbuttoned my pants season of no raised flags. *     *     * That…

Vigil

They waited all day for the sun to appear. Then, late in the afternoon, like a good prince, it showed itself for a few minutes. Blazing high over the benchland that lies at the foot of the peaks behind their borrowed house. Then the clouds were drawn once more. They were happy enough. But all…

The Ballad of the Bullets

Late summer breathed from earth and stones,      Tall lupins probed the air, The Milky Way was combed-out light,      The sheen off midnight's hair. I watched a long time in the yard      The usual stars, the still And seemly planets, lantern-bright      Above our darkened hill. And then a star that moved, I thought,      And then it…

Skeletons

trans. Czech David Young and author Those who were greening, they shall be turned to snow. Those who were about to fly shall fall asleep in the tar pits      like the wolves of La Brea. Those who called out shall be turned to an exclamation point      at the end of a declaratory sentence      never spoken….

Cuttlefish Bones

trans. Italian Jonathan Galassi Don't ask us for the word to frame our shapeless spirit on all sides, and blaze it in letters of fire, to shine like a lost crocus in a dusty plain. Ah, the man who walks secure, a friend to others and himself, uncaring that high summer prints his shadow on…