The Going The Going
The cloth edge of certainty has shredded down to this: God and love are real, but very far away. If I go to Istanbul, will I return? That is not one of the permitted questions. When I go to Istanbul, how will I bear to return? I could slip into the small streets that lead away from the souk, then run east to the high plain and the Caucasus-- It's all alone, the returning, the going. The cloth, a soft holland whose blocks of blue and lemon once cheered me in a skirt, now dries dishes. God and love are very far away, farther even than the mountains in the east.
May 6, 2009 / Books & the Arts / April Bernard
Rockabilly Blues Rockabilly Blues
Rock. Rock. Rockabilly, rock. Really Billy, really, really rock. Shake your silly hillbilly flock. Sing the Pledge of Allegiance. Sing all the dire anthems of the coming apocalypse. Sing the burning bush. Sing the Wall St. blues & bow down before the bedonkadonk of Britney or the Brits at old Bunker Hill. It's all good... It's all Davy Crockett.
Apr 22, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Adrian C. Louis
Red Cloth Red Cloth
Red cloth I lie on the ground otherwise nothing could hold I put my hand on the ground the membrane is gone and nothing does hold your place in the ground is all of it and it is breathing
Apr 22, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Jean Valentine
The Branches The Branches
The branches looked first like tepees, but there was no emptiness. Like piles of leaves waiting for fire: at the foot of the wisewoman trees, at the foot of the broken General, next to the tree of the veteran girl who died this summer slow red cloth
Apr 22, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Jean Valentine
The Hub The Hub
Boston's oak trees Drop tiny bald heads Some wear berets. It's a city of character But no soul.
Apr 8, 2009 / Books & the Arts / William Corbett
Clear November Morning Clear November Morning
O Brooklyn's harp, Manhattan spires All the liars rough with others' lives, Jesus sayers, hard moneyed men Whose hearts are fists of power Dishonor and death will find you out.
Apr 8, 2009 / Books & the Arts / William Corbett
The One Oval Window The One Oval Window
The surface of this street is sweet enough to lick. There is usually a fee for sacrifice, ladies, and mine is a store for rent. Terrace danger cannot be traded for river danger or danger danger. In this light, the clouds.
Mar 26, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Jennifer Kronovet
Longing of the Accords Longing of the Accords
"life's white machine" Geoffrey G. O'Brien and Jeff Clark We're all tenants, of one kind or another: lodgers, proprietors, houseguests. So what matters is what matters for most of us. We shrink in silken alarm in the corridor--someone is coming? But boa-clad ushers receive us. We were told we were on message, were the subject, or topic. In fact it made a little difference but not enough to disturb or quiet us. Concluding, perhaps rightly, we were of the one or other sort, you signed off. It was OK to take everything, though not to want it.
Mar 11, 2009 / Books & the Arts / John Ashbery
That This That This
That this book is a history of a shadow that is a shadow of me mystically one in another Another another to subserve __ Day is a type when visible objects change then put on form but the anti-type That thing not shadowed __ Is light anything like this stray pencil commonplace copy as to one aberrant onward-gliding mystery __ A secular arrietta variation Grass angels perish in this harmonic collision because non-being cannot be "this" __ Not spirit not space finite Not infinite to those fixed-- That this millstone as such Quiet which side on which-- __ That a solitary person bears witness to law in the ark to an altar of snow and every age or century for a day is __ Is one mind put into another in us unknown to ourselves by going about among trees and fields in moonlight or in a garden to ease distance to fetch home spiritual things __
Feb 25, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Susan Howe
Four-Syllable Lines (Monody) Four-Syllable Lines (Monody)
Sweet unrest still Wood harsh dismal Slope of a hill Darkening air She's the target Force-drift and thrown Dismissed rash tear I would, can, did Slip in a hole Now stab butt out Doting body Been thrown below She's the it girl Her epic dust
Feb 18, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Julie Carr