Poetry

I don’t like watching the news. Today’s thefts have nothing to do with yesterday’s; there is no brotherhood of victims, no handshake of loss. It is as unexpected as love, and as private, indifferent as California to Iowa’s harvest queen. But the weather, earth’s continuing serial, binds us all with questions asked in every language:…

I walk On human stilts. To my right lower leg a man is locked rigid To my left a woman, lifelessly strapped I have to heave them up, Heft them out but they’re so heavy Seems all my strength Just to take the begin step All my past to broach a future. And so on…

for Leonidas Zenakos Mama Crow makes her nest with feathers and twigs Mama crow counts her eggs and finds some missing Mama Crow preens her neck Mama Crow bleeds her breast -her husband drags out a corpse crowing “Lunchtime, lunch!” At 5 she has her coffee at 7 meat-pie at 8 she builds prisons at…

Two girls knit sweaters for Ricky Nelson. He promises both of them to wear the sweaters on Monday. The whole time they are on camera Ricky does not kiss either of the girls. The blank look in his eyes makes you think that he rips their insides apart with ground glass at night. When Ricky…

For six days I’ve been re-heating soup. The bird in the soup never flew, never complained unless you would call the red flesh of his head a complaint. I ask my son where we come from. He says the wind. When he couldn’t fly he told me little people helped him pour darkness into holes….

The day will come when I will Share once more the quilts And pillows I am storing Away. Once more I will shyly Let you undress me and gently Unlock my sealed jewel. I can never describe the Ten thousand beautiful sensual Ways we will make love.      Huang O      16th century From THE WOMEN POETS…

     Don’t ever hold on to anything!      Let it go! Let it go!      And you’ve got it.            -Claire “Don’t lay your trip on me, ladies. I don’t care if you’ve got a headache, a muscle hurts, your old man has split with another chick, or what your dreams are. . . Drop your shoulder! Stop…

The pleasure in being tired after sex is the feeling of that slow infection someplace else. The explosion passes like the name of a town you leave your body outside of. Emptiness returns to normal under you. Then you burn imaginary rubber, extracting the acrid smell of Indianapolis, the collision of smiles and steel. You…

— JB, H & Mr. B This is the death of water, the sky gone bad; This is the wall of blurred names; This is the drop of wax, the shined shoe; This is the noise, the wardrobe of no address — And this is the shirt, bone shirt, chalk and chalk dust, Its coat,…