Written by Himself by Gregory Pardlo I was born in minutes in a roadside kitchen a skillet whispering my name. I was born to rainwater and lye; I was born across the river where I was borrowed with clothespins, a harrow tooth, broadsides sewn in my shoes. I returned, though it please you, through no[…]
Browsing category:
Poetry
Arc by Melissa Bull Plastic strips sluice up and down December beams string against the white parchment the mismatched chairs the buckwheat pancakes while blinds stripe light on white and whiter white. It is too cold for snow. The day’s low sun feeds pale slights through blinds in ribbons stripes the cold apartment the mismatched[…]
Oh, Vancouver by Elee Kraljii Gardiner The city is one big in-law suite, Crowded by natural beauty, and lonely. My friend feels bad about being depressed. A woman I met sends me one line: I’m lonely. Statuesque, articulate, she is the city, yet also the forest bruised by developments. Hear us tapping on the stucco[…]
Expanding the Community Garden by Jeff Steudel Kale raised in cedar boxes between the SkyTrain pillars. The propinquity of corn along boulevards. A dream of zero emissions for the wheat leaning beside highways. And from the rooftops, fields next to airstrips. Golf courses. Freedom Space Station Grow-ops and the back of a Dodge Ram. Bush[…]
Untitled by Aaron McCollough WALNUT SKULL of some brutal fairy run afoul of my dog in the juniper mire what depends in these binds, passion strings, ivy suckers climbing the knock kneed craning bridge to that bright food can freedom even begin to form in the morning, reforming blossoms if we mean to tread with[…]
All the magpies are here, all the wings in the soup, stirring the recognition of flight out of all touching. A milky breast and a missing tooth, a maggot. A winter in the pines, a wind that binds. A real ghost in open wounds and closed sockets. In the middle, fork-tender bones, bubbling spice-water, lemongrass,[…]
Contest by Lucio Mariani You’d ask if I were ever late. That’s a problem for people stuck between the second and last lanes. Me. I’m in lone pursuit. So that whether I’m early or late depends solely on the day’s disaffection. To catch the beat I clapped my hands once or twice, Before splashing my[…]
by Neil de la Flor, Maureen Seaton, and Kristine Snodgrass Three pals etched and bonding, two laughing, one coy. Jaunty, jauntier, and propped up with a stick. The cat in the suit is almost invisible. Is that Pinocchio’s brother? The one next to the wolf wearing a top hat? What did the dude in the[…]
You and I have Learned by Leonard Nimoy You and I have learned The song of love, and we sing it well The song is ageless Passed on Heart to heart By those Who have seen What we see And known What we know And lovers who have Sung before Our love is ours To have[…]
Excerpt from “The Red List: A Poem” by Stephen Cushman Endangerment’s foreplay en route to extinction often but not always. Ask the bald eagle, ridiculous nickname for that elegant hood rhymed with its tail, a matched set distinctive against distant spruce, white as the transit of pre-dawn Jupiter’s super-heated drop soldering sky plates to cement[…]
- 1
- 2