Trade Deficit Trade Deficit
Do you have any friends, the darkness asks, and for a moment you're surprised: you expected salt, maybe, or terror. China has some wisdom to offer on this point: Learn how to make a lot of things that are basically useless and also a few things that matter, then flood the markets. The trick is that once the markets are flooded, you must create new markets. Darkness does this all the time, knocking at your door: Do you have any mercy, it asks, any weapons, any sugar, any stone.
Sep 9, 2009 / Books & the Arts / G.C. Waldrep
“We must count…” “We must count…”
We must count in Babylon. Surely in Babylon we must count, count the days and the dead, the chambers of the palace, its stones, its steps, its flaring lamps, must count the clouds, the petals of the flowers, the hours, we must count the hours as they pass so slowly for the young, so swiftly for the withered masters of this place, ardent assassins of speech hidden away. Surely in Babylon we must count the gardens tended, the towers raised by slaves in this city soon to be dust, count the days and the dead. Must we count the dust?
Aug 26, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Michael Palmer
Doppler Elegy Doppler Elegy
A flowering no one attends The enterprise known variously as waking, April, or Bats are disappearing like color into function. I wanted to open In a new window the eyes of a friend by force if necessary. Amber light is a useless phrase but will have to do what painting did Dense smoke from the burning wells for our parents. Ben there is a man at the door who says I've made small changes he found your notebook throughout in red. The recurring dream contrived in places Of waning significance it resembles the hand after a difficult passage opening, a key word in the early Blue of rippled glass atonal circles. They phased us out across the backward capitals like paper money Or is that two words
Jul 29, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Ben Lerner
Ghost Poem Ghost Poem
The story begins Waiting for the trick When after life Death ends The night goes on The sick sea As much as possible Comes to me In the form of But not alive In the words from But not dead We wed or end Swallowed by Sick with And again
Jul 15, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Laura Moriarty
Ground Control Ground Control
Hollowed-out bones are more buoyant, like the stray dog wagging its tail while following us back to the car. You asked if we could keep it; I said that whatever gets buried eventually climbs out of its hole, and just because something can float doesn't mean it can swim. So I'll hold this snackpack close to my chest as we head toward open water, especially now that meals have been discontinued on most long-distance flights, but people still want to fly.
Jun 23, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Alan Gilbert
On a Monday On a Monday
On a Monday eternity finally begins and the day that follows is scarcely named, and the other is the dark, the done. On that day are extinguished all whispers and the face we loved dissolves in mist-- hope becomes hopeless: no one is coming. Eternity knows nothing of our habits, indifferent to red and the softest blue, it prefers gray, smoke, ashes. You scratch a name and a date on a piece of marble and it rubs them out with a careless shoulder, not even a pinch of bitterness left behind. Yet see, I cling to Mondays and I give the next your name; in total darkness I write with the tip of my cigarette: here have I lived. (Translated from the Spanish by Mark Weiss)
Jun 10, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Eliseo Diego
Women’s Poetry Women’s Poetry
I, too, dislike it. However, I was trying to not think when out of the gaping wound of the car-detailing garage (smells like metallic sex) came a Nissan GT-R fitted with an oversized spoiler. Backing out sounded like clearing the throat of god. A gold snake zizzed around the license plate. Sunburst hubcaps, fancy undercarriage installation casting a pool of violet light on the pocked pavement of gum blots. Was it this that filled me with desire?
Jun 3, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Daisy Fried
i am enCentering the amen New i am enCentering the amen New
for Peter Gizzi crush tamarind and the brown thirst of Quivira the hollow sound of the silence of travail the tipp iron toe of aventura coronado . x -plore for the first time like in imagen childhood the time of the world of the mesa. but this one is "real" the opponents are vivid & feather'd & red not one of these is yr father here the world that we thought of as round after all becomes arid & flat in its trail full of deep stony echoes & the steep sound of phonemes as if God is a well where there is no language of water. no meaning of silver of mineral flood that we know in our langurous rivers . but here is only the archer wind . is this why we are hearin feathers? . the future sits across from us squat & vivid on a burn -ing horse. not a cross. w/its arrows there are no orchards here. no wine no other kind of time for these sorrows
May 27, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Kamau Brathwaite
Quarto Quarto
1. Call me Sebastian, arrows sticking all over The map of my battlefields. Marathon. Wounded Knee. Vicksburg. Jericho. Battle of the Overpass. Victories turned inside out But no surrender Cemeteries of remorse The beaten champion sobbing Ghosts move in to shield his tears 2. No one writes lyric on a battlefield On a map stuck with arrows But I think I can do it if I just lurk In my tent pretending to Refeather my arrows I'll be right there! I yell When they come with their crossbows and white phosphorus To recruit me Crouching over my drafts lest they find me out and shoot me 3. Press your cheek against my medals, listen through them to my heart Doctor, can you see me if I'm naked? Spent longer in this place than in the war No one comes but rarely and I don't know what for Went to that desert as many did before Farewell and believing and hope not to die Hope not to die and what was the life Did we think was awaiting after Lay down your stethoscope back off on your skills Doctor can you see me when I'm naked? 4. I'll tell you about the mermaid Sheds swimmable tail Gets legs for dancing Sings like the sea with a choked throat Knives straight up her spine Lancing every step There is a price There is a price For every gift And all advice
May 20, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Adrienne Rich
Poem Poem
at 82 I find everything erotic-- that's the stomping ground of all intelligence-- the intellect picks it up from the ground and gives language as a kind of music to dance around
May 20, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Robin Blaser