Barbara Crooker: Sustenance
It’s hard to remember we swim in an ocean
of great love, so easy to fall into bickering
like little birds at the feeder
Wayne Karlin: The Lotus Eaters
And so he returned to Ithaca:
walked naked from the sea
and saw his shadow
fall on the white marble
Doug Anderson: Distance
She said my poems had emotion in them
as if they might have syphilis.
Valerie Bacharach: Night, Descending
Night explodes in fractures of shining glass.
Sidewalks hold storefront fragments,
deadly crystals glitter,
almost beautiful with still-red blood.
David Ades: Nothing and Everything
Man, what an induction you gave me,
rolling that joint of fresh Sumatran grass
on the little deck of a longhouse
overlooking Lake Toba
Larissa Shmailo: Abortion Hallucination
In the corner of the basement where my father used to lie I
watch, interested, as the snake
grows larger and more menacing
Barbara Hamby: Thus Spake the Mockingbird
The mockingbird says, hallelujah, coreopsis, I make the day
bright, I wake the night-blooming jasmine. I am
the duodecimo of desperate love
Jose Padua: Ten Sonnets for Electric Motherfuckers — The Second Decad
Karen, call the cops, he’s waiting by the curb
reading Colson Whitehead’s least popular book, I can smell him from
here, he’s wearing Pakistani musk, furrowing his frou frou eyebrows…
Audio: Jack Kerouac reads his poem “Old Angel Midnight”
“Old Angel Midnight” is only the beginning of a lifelong work in multilingual sound, representing the haddalada-babra of babbling world tongues coming in thru my window at midnight no matter where I live or what I’m doing
Charlotte Mew: Rooms
I remember rooms that have had their part
In the steady slowing down of the heart.
David Rivard: Maria’s Yellow Coat
a sun that floats the way
Maria’s knitted newsboy cap did once,
just above the horizon
Molly Fisk: In Other News
I can easily find
the edges now between anger, rage,
and disappointment by what’s running
underneath and stop before I lash out.
Mike Schneider: Gerald Stern (1925-2022)
In a flashy white-straw hat, leaning on his bright red metal cane, step-by-step silently making his way to a seat at the podium, Stern commanded the audience without a word.
Tony Gloeggler: Social Story
how happy and lucky
it made us feel to know
we had someone we loved
who loved us back
