Elizabeth Romero: Day’s End
Let’s say I’m someone
empty as a pitcher,
discordant as traffic, human as an alley cat,
stiff-legged and torn-eared.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: On My Walk to the Hospital, Death
Death in the fog, all silver
& grisaille as it wreathes
& muffles children in the park.
Yana Djin: And when I looked up at the sky
And when I looked up at the sky —
hazy and blind.
With the crescent purple and yellow like an eye
after a fight.
Sally Bliumis-Dunn: Sea Turtles Mating
To be amazed at her luck
or pity her trials
Connie Post: Iron Will
I still see her, standing there
fastening a floral apron
tripping on the cord of her own life
Chris Moran: After Reading Akhmatova
What can I name my grief, again, today?
A nickel frozen in the sidewalk?
A tumbling paper bag?
Lindsey Royce: Packing His Things
Now, I long for one of those shirts,
his scent of sweat and paint,
to cover the dent on his side of the bed
Eva-Maria Simms: Muzot in Winter
A scholar and translator makes a pilgrimage to the Swiss castle where Rainer Maria Rilke finished the Duino Elegies and received the gift of all 55 Sonnets to Orpheus.
Edna St. Vincent Millay: Humoresque
“What queer books she must have read!”
Video: Tom Lehrer | The Vatican Rag & Send the Marines
What do we do? We send the Marines!
For might makes right,
And till they’ve seen the light,
They’ve got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
‘Till somebody we like can be elected.
Amiri Baraka: The Liar
What I thought was love
in me, I find a thousand instances
of fear.
John Samuel Tieman: Self-portrait with folks in St. Louis
still I recall the rains in the islands
the cold in Mexico and how
I imagined my mother standing
on the porch looking south
Terry Blackhawk: Orchis Opens the Book
feel the earth whinny and stomp
David Huddle: Parable of the 4 a.m. Demons
My mind yearns for sleep so innocently it refuses
the perverse truth…
