Baruch November: Self-Portrait with the Baal Shem Tov
Let me fall if I must fall.
The one I will become
will catch me,
said the Baal Shem Tov.
Michael Simms: Waterfall
In Chatham Woods near our house
a spring bursts
from a hillside and falls
into a rocky pool
Hart Crane: Chaplinesque
For we can still love the world, who find
A famished kitten on the step, and know
Recesses for it from the fury of the street,
Or warm torn elbow coverts.
Lynne Thompson: In this version, a teardrop
Tell them, tear, you are finished and
they should chuckle like old men who
stand between stanzas and a widow’s
Social Security check.
David Kirby: Mandela
When Nelson Mandela was released from prison,
no one had seen him in public since 1962,
so his followers were shocked to see
a stooped old man with white hair
Chard deNiord: Songbirds Fly North at Night
I’m flying like a sparrow in my sleep
with only a pen to guide me
Sally Bliumis-Dunn: Ouija
my palm beneath your palm
along the arc of your pregnant belly
as though my hand were the planchette
on a Ouija board
Charles W. Brice: Twerski
Or did Twerski and the patient
dance, as Hassids do—dance until exhausted by
ecstasy, until the intransigent one, worn out
by serenity, surrendered to sobriety?
Larry Levis: François Villon on the Condition of Pity in Our Time
We’re broken buttons, we’re blown dust.
There’s not one tear left in all of us.
I know, for I am François Villon, murderer
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Some Nights Missing You
like the letter that doesn’t come,
the one I would carefully slit open
and slowly unfold
Fred Johnston: Ark
She leaned in, my mother, and felt the sleeve
First, then the shoulders, but she left it on its hanger in its own dark
Closed the door as if it were a sacred ark of rules the light might wither
Something I knew she would look at and leave
Betsy Sholl: The Word ‘Swan’ on a Slip of Paper Fell from my Pocket
The wind that morning was deliciously wild—
one second the water rippled like black pleats,
the next it was all gust-driven glitter
blowing the ticket right out of my hand
for the swans to trample like a shed feather
Michael Daley: The Kid
When the junkies stole everything in Albuquerque,
we turned north
thinking maybe Taos would unfold its risky secrets.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Fire Season Again
The fire now climbs the mountain’s back.
A red-gray haze swirls around the setting sun,
& the skies rain acrid ashes — tiny moth wings
flickering over everything.
