Mike James: Notes Towards An Informal Elegy
a nurse at her desk said, as i walked past,
your friend is very profane
yes, i said, he cusses creatively
in two languages
John Lawson: Flowers
A special tragedy, to survive
Almost till spring, when the nearing sun
Might quell dark fear, still
Convulsive shivering.
Ma Yongbo: Three poems for Helen Pletts in English & Chinese
No one can walk here,
save shy deer, save wind and rain,
save those invisible wings
that can gently lift the whole garden
up to the constellations.
Rachel Trousdale & Charles W. Brice: Two Elegies for Renée Nicole Good
I think of long dead Germans caught in the Bardo.
Are they wagging their fingers at us?
Now you know what it felt like, they say
Valerie Bacharach: Barbara, I’m Sipping Coffee
My hands have morphed into my mother’s; arthritic knuckles, thin skin, and yesterday I
discovered her Mah Jong set dumped in a guest closet
Sean Sexton: Shirts
And now I come to wear your clothes, shirts
that no longer fit, you barely wore in the end
arranged in piles to divide and sort, of
three sizes—which was the measure of you?
Byron Hoot: On That Day
In a few days, it will be the anniversary
of my father’s death and I will have
to see if grief visits or stays away.
James Wright: Sappho
Fire does not rest on iron, it drifts like a blue blossom
And catches on my breath;
Coiling, spinning, the blue foam of the gas fire
Writhes like a naked girl
Dick Westheimer: Skeleton Key
when his bones—
burned and ground to dust—
reassemble, they visit here
and tell me to
clean my room
Dawn Potter: Don’t Tell Me You Don’t Know What Love Is
I think back to those nights in Buck Lane, the melodramas of sex and desire, the intense affections but also the cruelties … the ruthlessness of self-absorption.
Michael Simms: Serene Gorilla in a Cloud of Butterflies
Her name is Malui and she is walking through a cloud of butterflies she’s disturbed.
Majid Naficy: My Silent Buried Treasures
Speak to me, you roots of plum trees!
The barefoot children of summer
And the wandering lambs of fall
Could not witness.
Stephen Dobyns: Prague
The day I learned my wife was dying
I told myself if anyone said, Well, she had
a good life, I’d punch him in the nose.
How much life represents a good life?
Michael Simms: Two Poems Inspired by Sean Sexton
Some people should be allowed to live forever
on the basis of our world’s great need. — Sean Sexton
