Robert Frost: The Need of Being Versed in Country Things
Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,
Like a pistil after the petals go.
Doug Anderson: Green Fire
When the captain got old
and sick, he had the same
nightmare every night
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: So, how are you?
So, how are you? friends ask, all kindness & concern,
heads cocked, eyes locked in mine.
&, just like that, I’m his again:
his wife, his widow
José Alcantara: The National Association of Information Destruction
I bet you think I made that up,that this is some dystopian anti-elegy,
and that I am another Cassandra, bemoaning
a distant, inevitable future, but I saw it,
not ten minutes ago…
Karen Friedland: Tattered Curtains
they’re taking down
all the big trees in his back yard,
and next the shrubs, and now the small house itself
Henry Beston: A Year of life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod
The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach. I have heard them all, and of the three elemental voices, that of ocean is the most awesome, beautiful and varied.
John Clare: The Thunder Mutters
The thunder mutters louder & more loud
With quicker motion hay folks ply the rake
Gerry LaFemina: All These Lamps and Yet —
I used to believe in enlightenment, in an age of it coming. I believed, too, in love with a capital L, believed in the upper case abstractions, believed I could list the capitols of Europe where I believed I’d visit. At least I got that last one right.
Joan E. Bauer: The Sisterhood of Buddleias
Sarah plants a butterfly bush
for the purple, nectar-rich splendor in a pot.
Hannah wants some pink extravagance
to beckon hummingbirds.
Video: September 1, 1939, By W.H. Auden. Read by Doug Anderson
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Jose Padua: Ten Sonnets for Electric Motherfuckers
What thou lovest well remains electric like the ocean’s
breaking waves; what you break turns dialectic like
a brick thrown through the window of an oligarch’s
flagship store.
Audio: Gil Scott-Heron | Home Is Where the Hatred Is
Home is where the needle marks
Try to heal my broken heart
Gary Margolis: Ending the War
one morning
in August, she can walk
away from her fury
of pines, and catch
her breath
Emily Dickinson: She dealt her pretty words like Blades
She dealt her pretty words like Blades–
How glittering they shone—
And every One unbared a Nerve
Or wantoned with a Bone—
