Tony Gloeggler: Fade Away
In 1964, my father and uncle
loaded the U HAUL and we left
Bed Stuy with all the other white
people and moved to Long Island.
Helen Hunt Jackson: Poppies on the Wheat
Along Ancona’s hills the shimmering heat,
A tropic tide of air with ebb and flow
Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow
Like flashing seas of green
Jianqing Zheng: Moonlight
Always after dinner, Yao, who memorized almost all of Beethoven’s musical pieces, played Moonlight in the living room.
Joan E. Bauer: The Visionary, the Provocateur
Mike Davis grew up Catholic, bullied by rednecks
in Fontana, a place he later called, with affection,
that ‘junkyard of dreams.’
Scott Silsbe: Two Poems
That was the summer of the unrelenting wildflower smoke.
Hiba Abu Nada: I Grant You Refuge
I grant you refuge in knowing
that the dust will clear,
and they who fell in love and died together
will one day laugh.
Video: The Blossom, by William Blake
Performed by Wienananda, a group of Sahaja yogis in Vienna.
Margo Berdeshevsky: After the Auguries…
Where are medicines for vengeances, where
are cures in what palm of whose open hand.
karla k. morton: Chow Chow
It could be a religion, this relish—
what’s left over,
fall’s last stand
before the death-breath of frost.
Reginald Shepherd: Hesitation Theory
I drift into the sound of wind,
how small my life must be
to fit into his palm like that, holly
leaf, bluejay feather, milkweed fluff
Pablo Otavalo: Étude
On the outstretched arm of a pinwheel galaxy
and doomed to be free. Into the bonfire
the vanities, as into a cave
the light.
Susan Kelly-DeWitt: Estate Sale
The day grew hot; the yard
held the heat until the late shade
gathered it. Deep in shadow
the ghosts convened
Dane Cervine: This Burning
I drove silently in the night
into the heaving hills of Los Angeles afire, so close now,
not knowing if there would be a way through
Barbara Crooker: Who Do You Carry?
On city streets, the homeless unfurl
their sleeping bags like hungry tongues.
