I sat in our small kitchen, one warm summer morning
waiting for the call
the rest of the family went out of town for a couple...
I have nothing
to complain about
but I still do.
I’m working on
getting better
about that
but it ain’t easy
when raised
living is grumbling
about how life
is always out
to getcha
Go back to that place
where just below the view
of Holmes Bay, with its seal's back
island, its lobster pots and birds,
there is a windowsill
with aquamarine...
I
am
the one
who has been
abandoned by God
in this bedroom, the window shut.
adds an extra jumper,
adds early to bed,
early to rise so no light lost.
Candlemaker winter
small heat on raw palms.
Careful flame does not wander
burn this shelter...
Ogling
at an image
of a
four foot wide
‘All natural’
megabum
while queuing
in the supermarket
sensational real life
can only be
featured on
the front page
of a magazine
where an
83-year-old woman
can have
incredible sex
with a...
“Excuse me,” he said,
interrupting his guest
to reach into the sky
and tap, gently, twice.
“That star has been
bothering me all night.
Now, you were saying?”
Dear Dan,
I miss you. I see you puffing so much at cigarettes you could push a sailboat with your breath. You'll die of cancer...
currently I am unavailable
to press through the current events
of the day
the wife of Britain’s ex-prime minister
was caught in a dress someone claimed
unbecoming of funeral...
the neighbor
next door
is crying
wailing really
I can’t do anything about it
but say it’s ok
even though she can’t hear me
and it’s not
everything — even love —
seems to have an edge
to which all
gravitate
till it's reached — only to curve
below, under — to wither
never quite alive —...
some pains of the heart
never dissipate
but rather sow themselves
within the landscape of the mind
as perennials
of regret and remorse
There are things
that exist between places
but never in places.
Where you start
and where you arrive
will contain none of these.
She screams at me
over the telephone
telling me
I’ll be responsible
for her death
somehow it’s
become my fault
that she keeps
her crack
in a suitcase
under the stairs
he screams at me
because...
my Papap is sick
and in the hospital
he’s 95
I can call to talk to him
we’ve never known what to say to
each other
it might be time...
writing a
good poem
about sex
is like
cheating on
my wife
without having
an affair
autumn rain...
I try not to be afraid
of eternity
Distant boys
sing from distant hills.
Not rice but raisins are thrown
and the stones that lead
are paved with lemon.
I'm not sauer.
Daffodils are on my head
you carry...
there’s
a pain
in my gut
just below
my chest
where
the whole
world
has blown up
I am all
that’s left
which is
only rubble
even the fridge
is struggling
pumping & gurgling
frantically
Soon I will be going to
a family reunion
without part of my family,
which makes “reunion” more like
Lewis Carroll’s unbirthday party.
A man who looks like my...
in your dusty
faded
photograph
you finally
look like a man
who killed himself
you have now left us
with that
you murdered yourself
and in your own way
us too
I pretend for a moment
that I understand something
anything at all
Then try to explain it to myself
following the infinite thoughts that led me
to this imagined...
i dreamt people thought i was dead
and naked waitresses served them at my wake
when i woke and listened to the news
i believed them
war
famine
pestilence
the fourth...
well penned words
on a page
not unlike
well trained actors
on a stage
one day this poem
woke up homeless
it moved its shadow across the street
but nothing else changed
birds flew overhead
traffic moved along
the past on its way
to the...
I wish
I could write
happy things,
stuff about
daisies,
moonlight,
a first kiss,
or a mid-life lover,
the greeting card stanzas
that warm us
like a puppy
or a big furry cat
laying in our...
according to webMD
for three weeks every month women prefer men
with feminine features as they are more likely to be committed and nurturing
for one week...
He needed nothing for Christmas
but fishing was in his blood
Just to feel the sea breeze
the smell of the water
the pull on the line
The last...
condemned to die
but in the meantime
we can watch free movies
looking
at the mountain
with its
stationary stare
and seemingly
vacant thought
it is
tempting
to assume
absolute ignorance
a mere
feature
within a mute
landscape
but this
could be wisdom
at its purest
this lack
of a need
to
express
what is
There is a shark in the bath water, a frightening
fin making late night calls titled, “Bye-Bye America.”
We listen, but the dialogue is scripted in...
One day when I was fourteen
watching TV in our basement alone
my father
who could do everything it seemed
design buildings
rebuild car engines
make his own bow arrowheads...
Dean wrote
his heart out
often out
of his mind
hitchhiking
the back roads
riding along
with any muse
who stopped
to pick him up
safety
be damned
he was
not afraid
to bail on
an indulgent
poem
careening
across the page
or...
mounds of paper, pens
that never run out of ink
to write, write
watch squirrels bend
low branches, bend
not break, my back bends
over the desk
kink in my shoulder
the...
Dear Jame,
you're right in the other room but in this sickness you are very far. the angels are tickling me. i have the Phillies...
all I can do
is go outside
with a cigarette
when my wife
is on the phone
talking about hurricanes
and how much
we’re in debt
I sit there nervously
puffing away
I keep...
day of small things,
slowly steadily worked
as we rest the dust motes,
shine as gold.
I look at my watch,
its round deadpan face.
The second hand
helps move the first.
Without it
it’s harder
to tell time
is passing.
fallen leaves cover the ground
bird on a branch looking everywhere
two birds on the beach searching the sands
for something to eat
a woman comes to the...
The last breath
are words that share
a heavy weight
with those few words
that are impossible to comprehend
meaning both everything and nothing
a finality beyond final
It seems there...
I think
I’m going
to want
to kill myself
so I can
call
the suicide hotline
and
have
someone
to talk to
The heart has a stone—
the weight of its master tied to it
going down to the sea depth.
We are given a double dare—
a dagger, daring...
America’s fucked
I want to go to America
I can’t get to America
If I get to America they won’t let me back
I can’t stay here
I’m fucked
At...
ascend
the mountain
gathering
descend
the mountain
scattering
I had to light
a second cigarette
I was too anxious
science says
smoking makes you
more anxious
screw science
I know what
calms me down
I pictured our
rickety old waitress
coming out
saying you...
Words circle an elusive center of meaning
as wolves searching for warmth stalk fires
on the coldest night of the year
and aurora borealis
dances in awe of...
mycribso
closetoyo
urcoffinIb
arelyhadro
omtobreathe
post-menopausal
my feet get cold
really, very cold
so i bought a pair
of fleece woven
house boots
soft rubber memory soles
made in Iceland
my hair doesn't get
greasy anymore
my skin is...
There must be some mistake
I can’t be that old
Check the ledger again
The ledger is correct, sir
It is never wrong
And while you’re here
Here is your...
light came, we saw the green ness of it all. we live in the country.
I asked Dad
what he’d been doing lately.
He said he’d been having
nice phone conversations.
I asked who he’d been talking to.
He said Jason.
“Who’s Jason?” I said.
Dad’s...
I may have been a child once
I cannot recall young legs,
bright cheeks, smooth skin -
mirror reflects truth, aged
tired eyes, silver strands
of hair no longer...
Do you remember when we planted the garden
I tilled the soil and you followed behind
carefully making lines for rows
then lovingly placing each seed
about a...
the river flows and flows
the castle walls have been breached
a dinner table heaves
on the ramparts of our friendships
crows, bearing news
Luck is that way
rain falls over picnic
dropped vase, water
dribbles ankles, floor
slippery, rivulets
run driveway cracks,
car has a new dent
flaked with red paint
crimson tears on gray
I...
Someday someone I love
will find everything I have left
hidden in boxes
filed in cabinets
hung on walls
or even buried in rubble.
It may simply be thrown away
and...
There was a bus driver who had driven
the very same route for fourteen years
and never been able to get through
the last five lights on...
I found a room
through the classifieds,
down the street
in a clapboard house
not far from my job.
I met Dale the landlord
on my lunch hour.
He led me...
I wonder
what the opposite & equal reaction was
to my loving you
I know
it doesn’t mean that you loved me
as much in return
the heavenly motion
of our...
He wasn’t a poet who woke early
and wrote of distant trains drumming
under a late blooming moon.
He was much fresher than that.
But reading his new...
Doctor told me today
that I am cancer free.
Then Albert Pujols hit
home runs 699 & 700
in my honor. My very
special, good news day!
didn’t
see poetry
as anything special.
it was
just a part of him.
a
part of
what he did...
every day.
he’d get up in the morning,
have his coffee...
walk out
with the dog
and
write a...
I wandered around
after Tim shot himself
in the basement,
the place where
we made out and
watched monster movies
after high school dances.
“I like you,” he had said.
“But I...
f I could only fly
he sings,
serving up his marrow
like the hors d'oeuvres no one takes,
graciously enough
to ache in front of strangers,
to miss somebody openly
while...
you are taking
everything from me
overcoming me
with you
I’m like stars
running out of light
succumbing
to the sunrise
I’m on the street
shielding my eyes from you
till there’s nothing left...
Lean out of this convention
of age with your coffee, your
blue humor and your explanation.
I might even back up and laugh.
I got here, too, you...
now we are just passengers
at best something, a shadow, comes within grasp
the music continues to play
on the rails the wagon proceeds
meditation had been such...
flyaway umbrella
upside down
fills
with rainwater
frogs
move in
mosquitos
for dinner
tadpoles ensue
hop away
pool dries up
umbrella skeleton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUN-pcmhd8w
I can't call you Paul. I'm on my sickbed. and when I'm not there I get up and wander the night with my phone...
thankyou and say it is only temporary
balanced or tied with string
though overnight decided to use the glue gun
I listen for context,
willing myself to make out
the space between
that one phrase I caught
and the air
trapped behind it.
I know the words
are all there as...
Daniel J. Flore III
marked himself safe
from himself
was it during an evening walk
in contemplation of the sinking sun
that its illusion whispered sex burn destroy
or during all of winter and spring
did you...
On the day
my father
was buried
it didn’t rain
and
a friend
of my brother’s
used up
all the tears
I couldn’t shed
so I became
an umbrella
for the
downpour
flowing
down his
chubby face
I noticed
how crooked
his teeth
had...
I have a hunch
about this course of angsty little scenarios
some over which I have no control
but could better handle tra-la
Others I relinquished
to my idiot...
I
was
sensitive
but
they
pulled
the
petals
off
one
at
a
time
now
I
am
a
naked
madman
just
standing
there
whether we write a poem
or pull a trigger
we all go on daily
flushing our piss into the earth
like to be quiet, speaking
only
when you asked the question.
not sure why i came.
i think you invited me?
My neighbor Bill wanted me to meet some of his friends.
I was a little apprehensive because I thought they might
be part of a religious...
recycled on a garage floor,
the six months before you almost
had a handle on.
It’s not telling anyone.
Rewashing everything
on the bottom layer
when twice a year without...
how many
times must
the seasons
change before
they get it right?
life in suburbia,
where the dogs sniff the grass
and sniff again
and the men of the households on their riding mowers
shave perfectly straight lines
in the perfectly...
there is a dusty old box
in the back of my mind crumpled and damaged
from all the things piled on top of it
sitting alone in...
Stop the push.
Go and look.
Outside
flapper girls flaunt their street gold.
They know nothing of decay
of hanging on, see J. this tree
it's a jazz festival.
And once...
yet when
she said my friend looked pretty
&
that I smelled nice
I sagged a little.
later that day
i found a message
request
from a soldier in the usa
holding a...
There is no proof that William Carlos Williams time traveled
back to 399 BC to ease Socrates’ painful death from hemlock
but when amateur archaeologists found...
Her 1st thought on arrival was she wouldn’t be staying.
Now on the 4th day of her 3rd month she is comfortable
putting her tongue on...
while out on a longer walk,
met him and he explained to me,
about walking there and back again
I removed my towel
and wiped away the fog
to check the progress of lines
on my newly shaven face,
but things turned metaphysical
and I asked why I...
She is thick-bodied and heavy-boned
a fleshy peach-of-a-gal
whose tugboat frame nudges
and pushes until things move
in a positive direction.
So no big surprise she is tied
to a...
Halloween was a non-event
maybe it was because I closed the blinds
and turned off the porch light
I didn’t have any candy
being afraid of the demon...
duck egg blue
the ironmongers in town
at three seventy-nine
we can walk there and back or there
and bus back you see
Sometimes the cat
is just an avocado branch
scratching against the side wall
in an early evening breeze.
we camped out in a friend’s backyard
surrounded by nothing but cornfields
and neighboring yards that stretched for miles
a bonfire lit the pitch-black sky the night...
Escaping their dictionary prison
the words fall
scattered on the floor
Finding old friends
in the lines of a poem
their new prism
They are cats lying in the sun
Waiting...
You're the poison
I'd rather not
Seek an antidote for
Every pill
That kills the cells
In my veins pains
But I'd rather risk myself
And have you
Than be sick and...
small village, mayhap a hamlet, named,
one forgets the rules with all that has happened.
nice to be out, to see the neighbors’ houses,
to see what...
The hammock is hung
between aspen and oak
which means one day logic
will flutter its pretty fingers
and fall on its head. Our rescue
dog sleeps nose to...
I’m floating on an inner tube
in the middle of Lake Erie
miles away from the shore
where no man should be floating on an inner tube
but...
Ancient Rome became like that alligator
with its mouth open wide, swinging
east and west at a pack of lions
surrounding it near waters.
How long can you...
deciding to get started
I left the destination
arriving
when it all looked familiar
but, this time, recognizing
everything I missed
a dear friend
recently died
unexpectedly
voluntarily
taking with him
some of our pain
and most of
the answers
leaving us with
all the grief
the
night
is
wide
open
legs
a
woman
on
the
bed
with
tarantula
calves
a
wine
bottle
on
the
dresser
with
your
conscience
Oh, the silliness continues, the messages keep coming, and the receiver keeps reading them, and reading stories written long ago
A shop in a neighborhood,...
I wrote and wrote prolifically —
But what’s a girl to do
While sitting in her room all day
When visitors are few.
Because I felt compelled to...
my mom looks at me
like "what do I do?'
I am only 11 years old
my mom-
fun as a bag of Doritos
I give her advice
it exhausts...
"Today 1% of the world is a barely livable hot zone.
By 2070 that portion could go up to 19%.
Billions of people call these lands home....
Old tree is barking at the moon
Squirrel is telling a tail of balance
Fence is fighting off the neighbors
Streetlights are glowering at the dark
Fire is...
I loved you, you know.
Never mind that I was nine
years old and couldn't get
on by myself. Never mind
the velvet hat that flew
off, the long...
At the funeral I do not want to be the one in the coffin.
I will surround myself with flowers,
go to a meadow
& lie down...
if you take the 101 west,
out past canoga park
round the bend
past the sign
Pepperdine
you can literally smell
the $$$
the desperation
of sick people
not the people who are...
Mom asked
if I could bring her
a few things.
I said maybe.
“I just want
some Hostess fruit pies,” she said.
“Apple.
And berry.”
I heard the crackle
of her cigarette
in the...
It’s quite comforting to know that I wake up on 100% of the days that I’m alive
and odds of fighting for yet another day
are...
Monochrome greens recede
like the shorter day
into a longer night
for a pageant of pigments
on a runway sashay
down a fall fashion stage.
The finale
a strip tease cabaret
dropping...
slide down rosewood
creaks behind the song
solo mandolin
the slot allows you to see the next roll for free
sometimes that next roll is a winner
but you gotta sit there like a crackhead
so...
sorting over the bones
that had meaning when
flesh was on them
flesh is long gone now
meaning remains
the back road was
littered, rather blustery.
today
clouds blow in, leaves
crake and groan.
i say again, a darker hue
she is sitting 5 feet away in her wheelchair,
back to me as always
she says often,
“Oh well, it’s not like I’m going anywhere.”
she tells someone,...
rice falls
like confetti
from my fork
lands
on the table
the plate
the floor.
I wander
through rooms
going nowhere
wait for the meds
to kick in.
I’m shaking
confused
repeat the same words
as a prayer
this is...
Praise Sammy Tepper with the fiery red hair—scapegoat for bullies who taunt and tease to hear him squeal. Praise Etsio Goloni, Gas-station Joe, for...
You think you are in control of your reality
But whatever you have done
Is remembered differently
By those who saw it
It’s not what you did
It’s what...
Open Arts Press, LLC is pleased to announce the publication of Daniel F. Flore’s “Homeless Poems,” a self-printable trifold broadside containing a collection of...
damn not again
this improved wax
from killer bees
was not supposed
to liquify as easily
but i can see now
i’d flown
closer to the sun
once again
happy-go-luckiless
my feathery fall
more dramatic
gone...
Human me-ing
lets ego drive.
Human be-ing
lets what-happens drive
with ego
in the passenger seat
gaping out the window.
What’s happening to you, my dearest? Tell me
why your streets are lately full of blood. Yesterday afternoon
rain washed it away from a sidewalk and...
we did not grow up with buttercups and daisies,
delphinium cascading the landscape
of some palatial estate
we had pachysandra
and a burned out tree on the side of...
It’s not so much
that I have changed
as how much I
am rearranged.
I would not have chosen
to fall in love.
She told me her heart
was mine whether...
letters of words
expressed—
pixels of a thought's
photograph
Summer slowly succumbs
to its fate of allotted days;
its strong bond with the sun
waning ever so politely
with some days of warmth
still gifted, as though
they were...
Our little brown dog,
in his final years,
whimpers for help
to get onto the couch.
My wife picks him up
with a mother’s compassion,
rubs his tired bones
and flea...
This started as my college project in the late 2021. It was a difficult time for me to learn a whole new technics. This...
Stroke began process;
prostate cancer
finished the job.
Now I recline
home hospital bed,
scattering truffled wisdom—
buried but pungent
for those with the nose.
Dig; uncover bon mot;
share with others.
Learn by...
asked me who will be afraid of our ghosts
ghosts of humans
when we are gone
Strange Things at Very Low Temperatures by Zed-Point
I've said goodbye a thousand times before
we are right in the middle of your sadness
I've said goodbye a thousand times before
we are right in...
She had scoliosis which left her with one hip at 2:15
and one hip at 2:35,
one a summit, one a foothill.
No one talked about her...
Five years after
she walked out,
leaving me behind
with a drunk dad
and no way to reach her,
Mom called,
not to see
how I was doing,
but to see
if I’d...
I have a bird in
my heart too.
I realized it in 2004
when your poem
came across my desk
in the form of an assignment.
I’ve often wondered
how you...
her voice low on the phone,
she tells me
about trying to die.
I squeeze the phone
try to block out
what I hear
she’s sobbing
I let her cry
tell her...
The children flew
and snow-hush fell
upon stone
and of a morning
the soft tattoo
of feet on felt
froze
pitter-patter meaning.
He bends and raises
replicas,
remembrance
of past faces
shovels, brushes,
signatures
December’s
masterpieces.
The dead leaves on wet grass
have no memory of the wind
that blew them there
or anything else they endured
As the broken cow skull
looking down with...
Black tea cools,
bitter cup;
sun sets
soon;
little lemon wedge
drowned at the bottom,
sunken yellow crescent,
solemn, sour moon.
With eyes closed I see snapshots.
Flipped in chronological order
I see myself changing. It’s all
black and white but I wish
it was color, imagine
blue sky and...
you know those people who come around,
give you free drinks,
well one lady's dreadlocks latched onto me,
spiraled around my leg like a snake,
pulled me outta...
Their smiles
are bleached
from the photo
baked brown.
They escaped
from the homelands
that wanted
them gone,
erased, dead,
forgotten.
A soundless escape,
taking only
the disruption
that clung
to their skin.
Their absence
displaced the air,
replaced it with
ocean...
back in the early
days of the plague
I drank Coronas
in protest of the virus
my wife and I
were told we
would have a
quarantine baby
I wore a George
Washington...
he ate pork skins
with hot sauce
on the sagging brown sofa,
drinking beer from a can,
watching NASCAR
in faded blue shorts
and a wife-beater T,
yelling
to cheer on
the young...
My father once threw
a bottle of ketchup
at my mom’s head,
then a fork
that stuck
in tainted wallpaper
until the hot dog
he hurtled next
knocked it off.
I thought all...
i believe in little gods
who gather at doors and windows
looking in
waiting for a gap in
each entrance, a portal
festooned with trinkets and
amulets offering safe
passage or...
white collared loons
question existence
claim enough faith
to tip toe on water.
fog clings to the shore
smothers reeds
remnants of fire
smoldering tinder.
a wooden boat
drifts in a circle
I mumble...
Shattered bottle
on sidewalk;
city birds
ingest diamonds.
this one ended up sounding softer. i think it was the keyboard player i was working with. his chords were kind of rich sounding,...
in the interest of full disclosure
striving for transparent honest
searching for beauty and its
friend with privileges truth
disclosing the process a
dangling sentence fitted with
dangling phrases glued...
I was thinking about Bukowski the other day
while taking a shit. I used a week old Merlot
as mouthwash while waiting.
I stood up with my...
This is the process of my painting. I start my work like this. This is how I gradually move forward.
—RamyaSadasivam
https://ramyasadasivam.com/realistic-face-drawing/
“Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne...” —James Russel Lowell
We are all mourners now, our clothes
funeral shrouds we tear off our...
do we describe what we see or maybe
tell the tale inside
round the corner on the wall
are the bullet holes
Trees listen to the quaking of all other trees
I know this because my tree told me its secret
it knew I was listening too
It hears...
Sara’s real father,
while drunk on wine
& ebony thighs,
jumped ship
in the Mediterranean
during the winter of ’54
& started a second family
with an olive toned
Greek girl in...
Released on 09 April 2022. 12 track album. Credits: Co-producer - @Roger Fizzerton. All guitar, bass, keyboards, lyrics and vocals .. myself. I hope you enjoy —Jenn Zed
I have plans...
https://soundcloud.com/skaadee/doctor-rife-16
In class I sat
with a Loreley with goldenes hair.
At five she told K.:
"Our sandbox is full of witches' teeth."
K. talks about that till this...
one had stringy long hair
he drove with bare feet
and once came over to see
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
he laid on the bed as we...
tip toe tread
bone crunch chime
eggshell dread
all the time
Listen I don't care if you're unreliable and obsessed
the bad has to go somewhere I've dodgy perspective and since I
virtue rescued again this week...
I don’t want to be numb.
Crying, screaming, pleading-
for-their-barely-begun-lives
little kids bleeding out,
shot to death
in supposed safe places
where they go to learn
how to behave
in a fictitious...
Last time you arrived
at the airport
I came drunk to pick you up
fringed jacket
ripped jeans biker boots
some beat
this time please take a cab
I don't drive at...
https://soundcloud.com/tater/just-let-me-bleed
Had to bite my tongue, swallow my pride
Tryin’ to keep you, satisfied
There ain’t no need, to sugar coat
That bitter little pill, you shovin’ down...
* Be an asshole (they're interesting).
* Spill a drink on the page.
* Eat shit for breakfast. Write about it by dinner.
* Waste some words...
he said
no fisting friday
gotta keep that pussy
in top shape—
long weekend ahead
baby
girl
middle of the night
again at dawn
his toes seek my shin
under the covers
making sure i...
He helps me to pronounce Anne Hedge and calls me kid—that old
Casablanca dream.
He has a lot of women who love him: his sisters, his...
All night while the rain fell
you turned the words over in silence
The wet grass did not know
your brother was asleep across the room
You smelled...
his poems
from his phone,
standing there,
hunched over the microphone,
needy,
expectant...
the crowd,
such as it was,
not even listening,
bent over
their own papers and phones,
hoping
against hope
for their own 3 minutes
of...
Pencil, Japanese drawing ink, watercolour paint, coloured acrylic ink, acrylic paint, Hydrus Watercolour Ink, graphic ink pen, on Strathmore 500 Series Illustration Board for...
Hoi An Ancient Town is an exceptionally well-preserved example of a South-East Asian trading port dating from the 15th to the 19th century. The...
Our son gifted us Roku
& his Netflix password.
Now Connie & I binge
every night from 7 until 2 a.m.,
watching murder mysteries
that disturb our dreams.
Two scenes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMrTAVl5aXI
How much of my colon
did you cut out, doc?
The distance
between his two index fingers
the last trout I caught
in a northern Arizona lake.
This morning I walked past
your tree and told you after
36 years they are paving the road
in front of your house. In the place
you now...
Oil on canvas
24 x 18 inches
fuck these
text messages
i wanna hear
i wanna hear
the daffodil
in your voice
i wanna hear it
when you cry
you can’t cry
with your
thumbs
ding
these
texts
come in
ding dong dang
the silent
conversation
I can’t hear
a...
said he would need an hour and a half
so I counted time by the 3 minute
easy-listening songs
they play in an attempt
to ease me
between the...
I buy my own groceries,
fix my own meals, wash
my dirty dishes: what more
could a woman want?
She might want a stiff erection,
that's what: something I...
44
and I don’t
want anymore
I will
breathe in
the saltwater air
and know I
don’t have to go anywhere
I’ll have another piece of cake
lay down
and let my birth to...
Everybody writes about you,
even me. I told you about
my hedges: they're
perfect.
How does a privileged white boy
who doesn't even drink
relate to you
as a person?
I don't....
Because the season is over
and surmise settles into
his autumn confinement,
I ask him what he imagines
could improve these last days.
He asks me for
a Phillies ball...
The first years of their exile,
tell the children about unheated train stations,
the bravery of mothers breathing warmth
on tiny fingers.
Later will be time to describe...
Who could forget the butchers
of Leningrad
as the mighty Wehrmacht
blockaded the city
laying siege for 872 days and nights
No way to know
whether the German OKW imagined
Stalin’s decree,...
I'm standing in a barren garden with Tolstoy, with Chekhov,
and they are frozen in place, like stricken roses of January,
like whipped horses, scarred into...
