Leslie Anne Mcilroy: Two Poems
Driving through Pennsylvania is lovely
except for the God, Bait & Guns of it all,
except for the money and bullets behind it,
the fishing line, triggers and damnation.
Barbara Hamby: Ode on My Mother’s Handwriting
Her a’s are like small rolls warm from the oven, yeasty,
fragrant, one identical to the other, molded
by a master baker, serious about her craft, but comical, too,
smudge of flour on her sharp nose
Four Poems by Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨 translated into Chinese by Ma Yongbo 马永波
we are the weeping spring rain
Bertolt Brecht: In Praise of Doubt
What one thought to be certain,
wavered. But wherever
the wavering wavered,
even the wavering did not waver enough.
Pablo Otavalo: You Wake Up
and one day you are a vermin. And
your brother a vermin
and your son is a vermin.
Sandy Solomon: Reading
The pasts, the past perfects: each sentence
a forest pool shining with borrowed,
broken light
Charles Harper Webb: Pants
Tempest Storm understood that what excites when eased off
slowly, creates horse-laughs, falling down.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Every Poem
the window lets the light change
so every time you re-enter the poem,
it feels different—familiar, but new
Robert Cording: Power Lines
Their shaggy crowns and bright blue
And white plumage jolt the dull background
Of road-dusty greens. Sometimes I pull over
To watch their unhesitating headfirst dive
Warsan Shire: Conversations About Home
When I meet others like me I recognise the longing, the missing, the memory of ash on their faces. No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.
James Crews: Meditation Class
I wiped the fog from the glass and saw
a statue of the Buddha on a shelf, laughing
at himself, laughing at me standing there
in a puddle, under a pine tree that kept
dripping on my head
Fleur Adcock: Happy Ending
After they had not made love
she pulled the sheet up over her eyes
until he was buttoning his shirt:
not shyness for their bodies – those
they had willingly displayed – but a frail
endeavor to apologise.
Laurence Musgrove: America Windows
A dreamer awakens, holds up
her pen like Liberty, writes
in moonlight page after page,
sails on a ship, bird in a tree,
songs to a yellow sun shining.
Christine Rhein: Uncharted Waters
Heavy and high buckles the sea.
We complain / we blame.
This is no time for poetry.
