Amy Lowell: A London Thoroughfare. 2 A.M.
Opposite my window,
The moon cuts,
Clear and round,
Through the plum-coloured night.
Michael Simms: Tree of Life
God, like a lazy cop,
Never seems to be around
When you need Him
Susan Kelly-DeWitt: Autumnal Equinox
It seemed like
everyone I knew had something
precious to give away
Carl Jung: The Rainmaker
There was a drought in a village in China. They sent for a rainmaker who was known to live in the farthest corner of the country, far away.
Rachel Hadas: Humble Herb is Rival to Prozac
The little notebook, its pages an eye-ease greenish tint, with my staggering penciled captions labeling every blessed thing, each flower picked and pressed and taped down to the page, contains more than specimens of wildflowers from a Vermont meadow. It encloses the first summer I remember.
Abby Zimet: Slipping Free of the Shame To Say His Name, Now More Than Ever
If he’d been allowed to live his “one wild and precious life,” Sunday July 25 would have been the 80th birthday of Emmett Till, who at 14 was kidnapped, whipped, … Continue reading
Robert Bernard Hass: Oedipus in Thebes
When he left the palace, the streets were nearly empty
Save for the women wailing at the altar, rending air
With sobs and litanies, the smoke from their incense pots
Thick and fragrant, perfuming the shrouded dead.
Federico García Lorca: New York (Office and Denunciation)
I know there are mountains and eyeglasses
And wisdom. But I didn’t come to see the sky.
I’m here to see the clouded blood,
the blood that sweeps machines over waterfalls
and the soul toward the cobra’s tongue.
Michael Simms: Only You
I woke this morning remembering the room we had in Paris which looked out on the Seine.
Kaveh Bassiri: Writing Persian
During the hostage crisis, when I was Albanian,
my history teacher conceded, “You’ve to be born into English
to be its rightful citizen.” I wanted to be an American poet,
but was a Persian settler.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Darn Lucky
It happens, you know—the day opens itself
like a tulip in a warm room, and you meet someone
who amazes you with their willingness
to be a thousand percent alive
Joe Kadi: Musings about a Gender Transition
My dear friends, I am here to tell you that men do indeed talk in bathrooms and in changerooms.
Michael Simms: American Ash (text and video)
Old warriors rarely
say anything about
people they killed or
horrors they saw
