the years are not circular

lightning. the july night was sober
as a thunder bell, surrounded.
echoing trees of this clime
taller than i'd imagined. where was
my fear? such a storm, such a body
close near the water on the brightest
moon the eve before. but not
sober then, no, my eyes glazed like a trip
as you walked into the river.
the light, the forest, the halo,
the beach, the caves, the arc
of this story throws me over
and over into my bed unable to just
rest. sleeping in bags, sleeping with feet
of distance between limbs, sleeping
with desires all wrapped into this smallest
square of space. of space. what of
space? there were no mountains but knees
could be hills, sweat could be streams

and lightning? what could that be?

6.13.16

subway in march, 5:45 pm

by maggie nelson, from shiner

i take the long way home, knowing
i am free to choose happiness

or wander off into the tunnel
on the platform two teenagers french kiss, her lips

are enormous and soft and he seems at home with them
i feel crumpled like the pastel houses lining the canal

i am transporting an adorable succulent
the size of an infant's fist, holding it close as if

it were the one thing i had to keep alive
and thinking how much easier it would be

it all i had to love were this small plant
and then i wouldn't be so hard on you

and we could like the world before distrusting it
stop performing ourselves and let the pith of us

hang out. all these permutations of esteem and ridicule
when all i want is to stay focused on everyday life

what other kind of life is there?
all the world knows it, it's a miracle

the blue womb of evening
the nimble sparrow, the smug duck in the pond

the eruption of flowering quince
o shackle us to the rock of it

we will try to love each other
though there's wind on our heads

and we cannot read minds
the train jumps above ground

and stripes the car in gold light
it's the light of early spring

living it up

 by max ritvo, from four reincarnations

the bed is on fire, and are you laughing?

you leave the bed

and leave me without thought.

the springs want to embrace each other

but they're afraid if they break

their spiral, they will never

be able to hold anyone.

i wish you would let me know

how difficult it is to love me.

then i would know you love me

beneath all that difficulty.

you are tending not only to me, you tell me, 

but to your other child -- the air,

and air puts his feet in my slippers,

and air scrubs his teeth on my brush,

and we must learn to share a bed,

we must learn to share a body.

the money is running out.

we will have to split one needle

this winter -- one end for me,

one end for air.

dot dot dot

 by ari banias, from anybody

touch me lightly as we walk around the polluted lake.

touch your arm to mine.

see the sunset behind the courthouse, and how they are one

 institution touching another. to my elbow touch your own

as the pelicans dip their otherworldly faces

in union into the night water. starched dress shirts

without bodies in them, without heads. 

walk with me up the residential hill and down the other side.

as we sit across from each other at the unexceptional thai restaurant

touch your leg to my leg. the table wobbles and because i am with you

i forget it. at the streetcorner,

smell the eucalyptus reminiscent of cat piss.

glance with me into the cardboard box at the discarded khakis

and rollerboard suitcase, and touch my shoulder. this is the key

broken off inside my car door in desperation by a stranger.

climb in through the trunk with me and touch your head to my head

at the cheek, at the temple, at the eye, at the lips.

let's go to the mucky shore and watch

the gondolier in the striped shirt, a cliche and real,

stroking the water seriously.

take my body away from me

lightly by touching me, take away

my head. steer me with gentleness

from the sizeable heap of oranges molding at the curb

which i would otherwise describe further.

song of the anti-sisyphus

  by chen chen from when i grow up i want to be a list of further possibilities

i want to start a snowball fight with you, late at night

in the supermarket parking lot. i want you

to do your worst. i want to put the groceries in the car first

because it's going to get nasty. because i was reading today

in the science section of the paper that passionate love

lasts only a year, maybe two, if you're lucky.

because i want to be extra, extra lucky. because the article 

apologized specifically to poets -- sorry, you hopeless

saps -- as though we automatically believe in love more

than anyone else (more than kindergarten teachers, long-haired

carpenters) & have been pushing this non-truth

on everyone. because who knows what will happen,

but i want to, baby, want to believe it's always possible

to love bigger & madder, even after two, three, four years,

four decades. i want a love as dirty as a snowball fight

in the sludge, under grimy yellow lights. i want this winter

inside my lungs. inside my brain & dream. i want to eat

the unplowed street & the fog that's been erasing 

evergreens. i want to eat the fog only to discover 

it's some giant's lost silver blanket. i want to 

find the giant & return to him his treasure.

i want the journey to be long. & strange, like a map 

drawn in snow by our shadows shivering. i want to shiver

against you, into you. i want the sound

of your teeth. i want the sound of the wind. i want to be

like the kids with their plastic sleds, gliding down, 

all the way down the hill, then trudging

their sleds & snowsuited bodies all the way

back to the top. i want to be how they do this, for hours,

till sunset, till some sensible someone has

to come drag them away from the snow, the slope,

the 3. . .            2. . .            1!

of joy. i want to be the anti-sisyphus, in love

with repetition, in love, in love. foolish repetition,

wise repetition. i want more hours, i want insomnia, i want

to replace the clock tick with tambourines. i want to growl,

moan, whisper, grunt, hum, & howl your name.

i want again & again your little dance, little booty shake

in big snow boots, as i sing your name.

for i will do/undo what was done/undone to me

 by chen chen from when i grow up i want to be a list of further possibilities

i pledge allegiance to the already fallen snow

& to the snow now falling. to the old snow & the new.

to foot & paw & tire prints in the snow both young & aging,

the deep & shallow marks left on cold streets, our long

misbegotten manuscripts. i pledge allegiance to the weather

report that promises more snow, plus freezing rain.

though i would minus the pluvial & plus the multitude

of messages pressed muddy into the perfectly

mutable snow, i have faith in the report that goes on to read:

by the end of the week, there will be an increased storm-related

illegibility of the asphalt & concrete & brick. for i pledge

betrayal to the fantasy of ever reading anything

completely. for i will do/undo what was done/undone to me:

to be brought into a patterned world of weathers

& reports. & thus i pledge allegiance to the always 

partial, the always translated, the always never

of knowing who's walking around, what's being left behind,

the signs, the cries, the breadcrumbs & the blood. the toe-

nails & armpit hair of our trying & failing to speak

our specks of here to the everywhere. dirty snow of my weary 

city, i ask you to tell me a story about your life

& you tell me you've left for another country,

but forgot your suitcase. at the airport they told you

not to worry, all your things have already been sent 

to your new place by your ninth-grade french teacher,

the only nice one. & the weather where your true love is

is governed by principles or persons you can't name,

imagine. it is that good, or bad.

kafka's axe & michael's vest

 by chen chen, from when i grow up i want to be a list of further possibilities

still winter. snowing, still. can it even be called action, this patience

in the form of gravity overdressed in gray?

days like this, the right silence can be an action, an axe,

right through the frozen sea, as kafka calls for. a necessary smashing,

opening. though silence can also be a shattering, closing.

 

think of peace & how the buddhists say it is found through silence.

think of silence & how audre lorde says it will not protect you.

 

think of silence as a violence, when silence means being made

a frozen sea. think of speaking as a violence, when speaking is a house

that dresses your life in the tidiest wallpaper. it makes your grief

 

sit down, this house. it makes you chairs when you need

justice. it keeps your rage room temperature. i've been thinking

 

about how the world is actually unbearable.

about all those moments of silence we're supposed to take.

each year, more moments, less life, & perhaps

 

the most monastic of monks are right to take vows 

of silence that last a decade.

 

though someone else (probably french) says our speaking

was never ours; our thoughts & selves housed 

by history, rooms we did not choose, but must live in.

 

think of paul celan, living

in the bone-rooms of german. living, singing.

 

what does it mean, to sing in the language of those

who have killed your mother,

would kill her again? does meaning shatter, leaving

 

behind the barest moan? this english, i bear it, a master's

axe, yet so is every tongue -- red with singing & killing. 

 

are we even built for peace? i think of breath & my teacher,

michael, one of the least masterly, most peaceful people i know,

& kafka's number one fan. i think of the puffy blue vest michael wears

 

when his breaths turn white. even when i'm doing my best

to think axes & walls, brave monks & unbearable houses,

 

the thought of michael in his bit-too-big deep blue vest

leaks in. & i don't think i will ever stop trying to sneak

into casual conversations the word "ululation." if only all language

 

could be ululation in blue vests. if silence could always be

as quiet as michael, sitting with his coffee & his book, rereading.

moonbeam

 by louise gluck, from the seven ages

 

the mist rose with a little sound. like a thud. 

which was the heart beating. and the sun rose, briefly diluted.

and after what seemed years, it sank again

and twilight washed over the shore and deepened there. 

and from out of nowhere lovers came, 

people who still had bodies and hearts. who still had 

arms, legs, mouths, although by day they might be

housewives and businessmen.

the same night also produced people like ourselves.

you are like me, whether or not you admit it.

unsatisfied, meticulous. and your hunger is not for experience

but for understanding, as though it could be had in the abstract.

then it's daylight again and the world goes back to normal.

the lovers smooth their hair; the moon resumes its hollow existence.

and the beach belongs again to mysterious birds

soon to appear on postage stamps.

but what of our memories, the memories of those who depend on images?

do they count for nothing?

the mist rose, taking back proof of love.

without which we have only the mirror, you and i.

~nobel prize winner~

💙 

the seven ages by louise gluck

 

in my first dream the world appeared

the salt, the bitter, the forbidden, the sweet

in my second i descended

 

i was human, i couldn't just see a thing

beast that i am

 

i had to touch, to contain it

 

i hid in the groves,

i worked in the fields until the fields were bare --

 

time

that will never come again --

the dry wheat bound, caskets

of figs and olives

 

i even loved a few times in my disgusting human way

 

and like everyone i called that accomplishment

erotic freedom,

absurd as it seems

 

the wheat gathered and stored, the last

fruit dried: time

 

that is hoarded, that is never used,

does it also end?

 

in my first dream the world appeared

the sweet, the forbidden

but there was no garden, only

raw elements

 

i was human: 

i had to beg to descend

 

the salt, the bitter, the demanding, the preemptive

 

and like everyone, i took, i was taken

i dreamed

 

i was betrayed:

 

earth was given to me in a dream

in a dream i possessed it

weekend in the underworld

  by franz wright, from walking to martha's vineyard

 

once i held your face

in my hands, i saw through

space

poor spirit

drifting off now

like smoke in pouring rain

wait---

are you there?

everywhere. i'm 

everywhere

old story

  by franz wright, from walking to martha's vineyard

first the telephone went,

then

the electricity.

 

it was cold,

and they both went to sleep

as though dressed for a journey.

 

like addictions condoned

from above evening 

fell, lost

 

leaves waiting 

to come back as leaves---

the long snowy divorce. . . 

 

that narrow bed, a cross

between an altar

and an operating table. voice

 

saying, while i was alive

i loved you.

and i love you now.

on earth

 by franz wright, from walking to martha's vineyard

 

 resurrection of the little apple tree outside

my window, leaf-

light of late

in the april

called her eyes, forget

forget---

but how 

how does one go

about dying?

who on earth

is going to teach me---

the world 

is filled with people

who have never died

leisure-loving man suffers untimely death

 by max ritvo, from the final voicemails

 

you ask why the dinner table has been so quiet.

i've felt, for a month, like the table:

 

holding strange things in my head

when there are voices present.

 

and when the voices die,

a cool cloth and some sparkling spray.

 

i'm on painkillers around the clock,

and i fear it's always been

 

just the pain talking to you.

 

the last vision was of the pain leaving ---

it looked just like me as it came out

 

of my mouth, but it was holding a spatula.

it was me if i had learned to cook.

 

the pain drifted to the kitchen.

he hitched himself to the oven, was a centaur

 

completed by bread, great black loaves

bursting from the oven,

 

and then the vision vanished.

i followed, and stood where he had stood.

 

the knives rustled in the block,

the pans clacked overhead.

 

i'm sterile from chemo,

and thought of that.

 

sure, i wish my imagination well,

wherever it is. but now

 

i have sleep to fill. every night

i dream i have a bucket

 

and move clear water from a hole

to a clear ocean. a robot's voice barks,

 

this is sleep. this is sleep.

i'd drink the water, but i'm worried the next 

 

night i'd regret it.

i might need every last drop. nobody will tell me.

 

 

bridging

by marge piercy from to be of use

being together is knowing
even if what we know
is that we cannot really be together
caught in the teeth of the machinery
of the wrong moments of our lives.

a clear umbilicus
goes out invisibly between,
thread we spin fluid and finer than hair
but strong enough to hang a bridge on.

that bridge will be there
a blacklight rainbow arching out of your skull
whenever you need
whenever you can open your eyes and want
to walk upon it.

nobody can live on a bridge
or plant potatoes
but it is fine for comings and goings,
meetings, partings and long views
and a real connection to someplace else
where you may
in the crazy weathers of struggle
now and again want to be.

ONE DAY

by grace paley from fidelity

one day

one of us

will be lost

to the other

this has been

talked about but

lightly    turning

away    shyness  this

business of con-

fronting the

preference for

survival

my mother said    the

children are grown   we

are both so sick    let us

die together    my father

replied     no no   you

will be well   he lied

of course i

want you in the world

whether i’m in it or

not    your spirit

i probably mean

there is always

something to say    in

the end    speaking

without breath    one

of us will be lost

to the other

l&c rendezvous

1
what is nearest to me

shadows straining to make
out angles, fixed lines
which hold me cold
and are not what i desire but witness
nonetheless

day to day parades with some measure
of beiges, browns, drumbeat and slight
gestures, pockets of red

windows steam

silence punctuated unlike glass or metal
humid with laughter and sometimes the fear

of being found

2
with winter so close i know
now the ice cream is less
sweet and what compels me to burn
myself remains the same

what compels me to remain

the sweetness

3
if i could just
cup my hands i could just press my chest i could just count your breaths i could just
(sigh)

stay

4
day in i remember the ways you left suddenly
early like stale bread and the door

until i asked another difficult question that again
felt like a small heavy rope

will you stay with
this moment
in the morning
of our lives


11/13/17

return to madison

by virginia hamilton adair from ants on the melon

it is the autumn of 1936,
my bus from the east coast rumbling
into this place that william ellery called
"the shining city of my manhood's grief."
i wear a ring with seven small diamonds
and a couple more, a little larger.
i am in love with at least two men, also
the trumpet of louis armstrong, poetry,
scholarship, ritual, ice-skating
at 10 below zero, drinking manhattans,
dancing, wisconsin lakes and woods,
being in love with almost everything.
a crisis looms ahead: a june marriage;
but 10 months are too endless to be real.
the other man listens for the phone.
we will be walking in vilas park
before sundown, and that huge feeling
vaster than the continent will rise
within us, unbidden, unforeseen, and i--
unlike the men i love-- never ask
to know what will happen next.
that shining return to a city bounded
by lakes i relive five decades later,
looking up from a stegner novel just begun,
staring into the dusk of a different time zone.
"i knew that the university was at one end
of state street and the state capitol at the other,"
and the exaltation of learning, the sorrow and joy
of that year of marvels pierce me:
one all-night blizzard, and the dawn footprints
leaving from my door, filling with fresh snow.

my life

by billy collins from picnic, lightning

sometimes i see it as a straight line
drawn with a pencil and a ruler
transecting the circle of the world

or as a finger piercing
a smoke ring, casual, inquisitive,

but then the sun will come out
or the phone will ring
and i will cease to wonder

if it is one thing,
a large ball of air and memory,
or many things,
a string of small farming towns,
a dark road winding through them.

let us say it is a field
i have been hoeing every day,
hoeing and singing,
then going to sleep in one of its furrows,

or now that it is more than half over,
a partially open door,
rain dripping from the eaves.

like yours, it could be anything,
a nest with one egg,
a hallway that leads to a thousand rooms-
whatever happens to float into view
when i close my eyes

or look out a window
for more than a few minutes,
so that some days i think
it must be everything and nothing at once.

but this morning, sitting up in bed,
wearing my black sweater and my glasses,
the curtains drawn and the windows up,

i am a lake, my poem is an empty boat,
and my life is the breeze that blows
through the whole scene

stirring everything it touches-
the surface of the water, the limp sail,
even the heavy, leafy trees along the shore.

losing heart

by maggie nelson, from shiner

it feels good
like being
inside a car
in a car

wash, the froth
swopping
the roof, the
windows, a regular

murder of dirt.
but what if
it's the self
at stake, not

crimson with sin
just weary of
its own
contours, the run-on

sentence of its
thought. on
the inside looking
out, a window

streaked with black
effluvia, always
threatening to
become a hunk of

something that
won't budge. when
i was a younger man
it was all about

mozart. then later,
beethoven. then
later still -- mozart!
after that, beethoven!

ah, but mozart. ah,
but beethoven.
you don't really

have to believe in
yourself, only
in your circulation.

the bus through jonesboro, arkansas

by matthew henriksen

Inanimate intimacy in the plural
Couples under their dark covers

The distance between one body and another
An echo chamber against every stone

The distance between lovers in a rock-lashing wave
The solitude of two together under the waters of night

Or the flattened space between two people on a bus
Talking above the low beams of a few lost trucks

Seeking their destruction or their portion elsewhere
A road imagined as a slick for words in a discrete stream

Flawless enamel the tongue slides along
Or skates off into a future illumined within a highway sign

At the lip of revelation comes denouement or slow torturous sleep
Because traveling does not follow music

Only music brings the body down from the sky
The solid body in its partial form