Vox Populi
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Kathryn Levy: Magicians
We are walking through windows,
we are playing with air. We are
heating it up, but learning
to cool it all down. We are practicing wisdom
on a ten inch screen in a bolted room,
and sending a message to God
and his heavens: we can no longer believe.
We are herding millions of other magicians
into the schoolrooms to learn to be better.
And giving them tests, and carefully
making our judgments. We are passing by
the graveyard gardens, where every year more
stones appear. But we’re inscribing the morals:
A meaningful life, a life of adventure.
We are eating our ice creams, examining our bellies,
and wearing contraptions to hide all that flesh.
We are disappearing—but oh very slowly—until one day
we are hurtling through windows: Please
hold my hand, it is all I have left.
We are moments. Then we’re not.—Was that
blood on those pages? Never mind—we
are scattered.
Kathryn Levy is author of the poetry collections Losing the Moon and Reports. She was founding director of The Poetry Exchange and the New York City Ballet Poetry Project. She lives in Sag Harbor, NY.
Copyright 2018 Kathryn Levy
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Kathryn Levy
Vox Populi 
I love this poem!
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Thank you!
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It was great to meet you even briefly at the Robert Pinsky NYPL event last night. My husband and I sat behind you and we chatted about Frank O’Hara and walked out together.
All best to you, Lisa.
Federfeitel.lisa@gmail.com
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Wonderful poem!
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Thank you!
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This reminds me of the despair I often feel as I prepare students to take their places in an economy and a society that seem to be in meltdown.
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Kathryn knows she really knows, as Marvin Gaye said, “what’s going on”.
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And no one quite puts things the way Susan Hankla does!
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Simple and meaningful. Words floated on continous currents and waves of thoghtful meanings.
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