Lisel Mueller: Alive Together
Speaking of marvels, I am alive
together with you, when I might have been
alive with anyone under the sun
Jason Irwin: A Stillness Nearly Mineral | The poetry of Robert Gibb
A stillness which is very nearly mineral
Keeps insisting upon the essential
Loneliness with which this light is filled.
George Drew: Early Morning at the West Side Y
My God! The man with long white hair
waiting for an elevator on the thirteenth floor
is Edgar Winter, blear-eyed from a night
spent raising the roof at the Fillmore East.
Susan Kelly-DeWitt: Angel Behind Bars
It was hard to tell if they were raising or lowering it
into or out of the Parisian light.
Jose Padua: Union Square
their crazy dad, his singular
song, with the only people putting money
in his cup looking as crazy as he did
Rita Sims Quillen: Sugar-n-Spice, Etc.
Once we sneaked out of a slumber party
tiptoed onto an icy bridge
still in our babydoll pajamas and
froze our prissy asses off
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Clouds Heave
His cat mourned better than I, lying
on her side for weeks across his room’s threshold
Molly Fisk: How to Stop
It depends on the way you were broken:
Body from soul? Mind from memory?
Michael Simms: Coming to Terms
There is no lasting happiness
in this world, only
particles of happiness,
fleeting, unpredictable,
transitory as a fragrance
or a falling leaf
Leigh Hunt: Jenny Kiss'd Me
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
William Hathaway: The Quiet of the Sky
Quietly, though. The sort of view
people look at and say awesome
while taking pictures of their faces
with their phones with nature scenes
behind them…
Sandra Mitchell: To have you listen at all, I have to stop talking
In times like these, to get you to listen,
I must show you how
To grasp history with your hands.
Richard Levine: Day Labor
This is New York, drinking coffee in plain
blue paper cups at dawn. In every tongue,
the dream begins with showing up.
