Answer Answer
a moment of stillness, demanding an answer. When does a moment end? * Starbucks prayer, "Make morning good again." * Leaf shadows on pavement: word meaning to slide carelessly, repeatedly, to absentmindedly caress. * For I so loved the world that I set up my only son to be arrested.
Dec 17, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Rae Armantrout
Poem Including History Poem Including History
A curb the color of nausea. Parking lot gravel splintered with glass, dog shit, receipts. Storage sheds--a row of lamp-lit doors deepening as dusk thickens. Now, night, they're all that's left and traffic's excuse for music moving through the room.
Dec 10, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Joseph Massey
Unconditional Love Song Unconditional Love Song
Later she would remember it started to pour the storm blew everything out before the coffee finished its brew and she could finish reading a report on some boys holed up in a derelict house after stoning a swan to death she wrapped her head in a towel and sat down by the open window even though the sound of the river was not there the memory of the sound was even though her husband did not appear in the door talking to her about the day ahead the day ahead was there
Nov 25, 2008 / Books & the Arts / C.D. Wright
Poorly Grounded Notions Poorly Grounded Notions
And an inability to comprehend the flow of time. We need only think of statements by everybody. I cannot call my- self myself. Up to this point, the dreamer is dreaming, but now his dream begins. Unities of recollection, separate from one another. Thus in this present world, there are different injuries. I never hear them. They come uninvited. Silver tissue. Garlands between them. Any activity may produce music. Aware of their existence as an awareness of losing their sense of ex- istence: vague, general, nameless, like a nothing or the absolute. I am dead. I am not alive, a music of exceeding shrillness. May be pleasantly illustrated in the following way. Light on his head. Felicitous, contains some fabrication. I am forced to shout out, trace failure to the stage when plans are construed. I see a table before me. I am reminded of another table. I place table beside table. Separate worlds. In what sense are we talking?
Nov 19, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Keith Waldrop
The Sea-Fight Tomorrow The Sea-Fight Tomorrow
Afraid to take a chance. They pass haphazardly in all directions. Diving into his car. Or yours. Are there no strangers in town? Entering, leaving, crossing. I cross to the window and wave. Everybody looks alike. Pyramids. It must be somebody who has a house in the country. He said he would. Characteristic kinesthetic and tactile deficits on opposite sides of the body. Something clicked somewhere. It's got to be airtight on the other end. The butterfly-shaped central gray. Who is this man? It was a restful ride. The transition gradual, without sharp demarcation. The house was full of pictures. The night man was gone. Important changes from level to level. I pretend to listen.
Nov 19, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Keith Waldrop
Night Soil Night Soil
A random walk, its ordinary motion blurring chronology. Behind, a seascape. As if on a ship's deck. Fear of defeat is an old habit. All this fuss, with my hat pushed back. Honeyed phantastic. En- raptured soul. Another blow. From the end of the corridor, at the kitchen window. These frosts are cruel. I am not up to them. Out on the balcony, basking. History is trash. Elaborate battles make peace and then, after spectacular defeat, I may go and I may not. I'm in a bad mood, forever. We bring no resemblance. Torment and dreams. Grotesque and in- clement. Always the same amazing luck. Rest before the fireplace, forget fine spacing. To control noise by attacking the odds. Grope for the knob. Shutting out light and air. Cold stone floor. Sinking. Devouring pit. Dissolve, now, the dungeon. Streaks of light stream from your shadow. Redisposed. Clouds are not simply carried. We observe words and winds. The door slams behind us. Not so much forced by the sun as simply coasting under our own inertia. The knives of reality. Repeat the names. Doves, when they fight. Scorn is best and yes, we may go and we may not.
Nov 19, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Keith Waldrop
Texas Texas
A star is just a smudge on magnified glass. I have never been more disappointed. Nietzsche takes a saunter along the border because it is warm enough to step out at night. Malevolent blobs dance at his feet. This is when we pause to speak in sleep. Our eyes follow the lights while we ponder which is worse: Nothing or something you don't recognize.
Nov 12, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Fanny Howe
Manifesto Manifesto
after Breton When I dream, I vote. Exercise my rights as citizen of the dream state to terra-form the future. Work to abolish the most abject poverty of all-- that of knowing only one world. Activists, lovers-- don't just entwine your bodies, but also dreams. When you sleep together, go all the way!
Oct 29, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Elaine Equi
This Town Is Going Out of Business This Town Is Going Out of Business
[This town is going out of business that I call my brain] [the public space of my head got suburbed] [the heaven-heaped core of capital-] [ized stars is empty now as sleep is full] [of new words for new feelings like infrastructure-] [nostalgia or love-outside-the- citadel] [the past tense is tragedy while the present tense is comedy] [as all the empires and epochs have ended] [but for this one and then only out here] [in the late districts of the imagination] [in the old light of our pretty periphery]
Oct 15, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Joshua Clover
Prison Poem: “You stripped away the sea… #11” Prison Poem: “You stripped away the sea… #11”
After stripping me of the seas, a scattering & running start, And giving me instead a foothold of violent earth, What'd it get you? A brilliant retribution: You couldn't seize these lips still stirring. (Translated from the Russian by John High)
Oct 8, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Osip Mandelstam