February 2012
28 posts
science fiction story | chris killen
i will meet you again in the future. it will be 100 years from now. we will be evolved. we will be larger. we will be gentle with each other. when i try to touch your hand, my hand will feel like water. your hand will feel like a fish. we will be evolved in different directions. we will be so gentle and evolved we won’t even be able to lift our glasses to our mouths. we will just sit in a bar,...
January 2012
22 posts
a love poem to a map | jamison crabtree
maps are never skin. i know that you’re only a guide but i prefer to pretend otherwise. lean over, let me slide my hand under the couplings of letters and numbers that cinch your stockings together. let me spread you open, let me undo the tangle of rivers, interstates, and country roads until they spill out soft as hair across my lap. the rustle of sheets hangs in the air as i trace out each...
sometimes it happens | brian patten
and sometimes it happens that you are friends and then you are not friends, and friendship has passed. and whole days are lost and among them a fountain empties itself. and sometimes it happens that you are loved and then you are not loved, and love is past. and whole days are lost and among them a fountain empties itself into the grass. and sometimes you want to speak to her and then you do not...
traveler | heather sommer
grammatolatry:
your first time out of the country of your own skin, i didn’t bring a map.
you always hated that i’d been lucky enough to pick my way through streets
i couldn’t pronounce to find cathedrals, graveyards. if you were a city, you said,
i’d only like to know your suburbs.
if you were a city, i said, I’d like to know your poor neighborhoods, your inner parts.
read your graffiti....
a christian country | langston hughes
god slumbers in a back alley with a gin bottle in his hand. come on, god, get up and fight like a man.
4 tags
revelry | kings of leon
just know it was you all along
who had ahold of my heart
but the demon & me were
the best of friends from the start
morning song | dorianne laux
this morning begins almost purely, coffee enveloped in cream, those clouds that bloom up like madness in a cup, and i take the first swallow before the color changes, taste the bitterness and the faint sweet behind it, steam rubbing my nose, an animal nuzzle, and the sharp, nearly painful heat at the back of my tongue, the liquid unraveling down the raw tunnel of my throat. and i feel my body...
how to tell a story | shira erlichman
there is a way of telling stories. a red pen. a teacher to move it. instead you have hands, and a Light inside you, and Bones. instead you have ideas, which ricochet, and an anger that won’t sit still, and dogs from outside which come to die in the quiet spots inside of you. and, deliberately, you have noise. you have rape, and cities, the noise of the dumb, and of the very rape of the earth, an...
return key | cory mesler
grammatolatry:
I miss you because memory is a kind editor. The past is a long scroll and in it is the story of us, told with gentle metaphor, and words that bring you back and back, even as you lie there, lying.
crying | galway kinnell
crying only a little bit is no use. you must cry until your pillow is soaked! then you can get up and laugh. then you can jump in the shower and splash-splash-splash! then you can throw open your window and, “ha ha! ha ha!” and if people say, “hey, what’s going on up there?” “ha ha!” sing back, “happiness was hiding in the last tear! i wept...
flood | eliza griswold
i woke to a voice within the room. perhaps. the room itself: “you’re wasting this life expecting disappointment.” i packed my bag in the night and peered in its leather belly to count the essentials. nothing is essential. to the east, the flood has begun. men call to each other on the water for the comfort of voices. love surprises us. it ends.
today, like every other day | jalaluddin rumi
today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. take down a musical instrument. let the beauty we love be what we do. there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
everything | srikanth reddy
she was watching the solar eclipse through a piece of broken bottle when he left home. he found a blue kite in the forest on the day she lay down with a sailor. when his name changed, she stitched a cloud to a quilt made of rags. they did not meet, so they could never be parted. so she finished her prayer, & he folded his map of the sea
a contribution to statistics | wislawa szymborska
out of a hundred people those who always know better -fifty-two doubting every step -nearly all the rest, glad to lend a hand if it doesn’t take too long -as high as forty-nine, always good because they can’t be otherwise -four, well maybe five, able to admire without envy -eighteen, suffering illusions induced by fleeting youth -sixty, give or take a few, not to be taken lightly...
under ideal conditions | al zolynas
say in the flattest part of North Dakota on a starless moonless night no breath of wind a man could light a candle then walk away every now and then he could turn and see the candle burning seventeen miles later provided conditions remained ideal he could still see the flame somewhere between the seventeenth and eighteenth mile he would lose the light if he were walking backwards he would know the...
you write many poems about death | charles...
yes, and here’s another one and later it might even end up in one of my books. and the book will be sitting on a shelf waiting for you long after I am gone. think of that: in a sense I will be speaking again just for you. and remember this: the page you are looking at now, I once typed the words with care with you in mind under a yellow light with the radio on. If you think about death...
date a girl who reads | rosemarie urquico
date a girl who reads. date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. she has problems with closet space because she has too many books. date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
find a girl who reads. you’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. she’s the one lovingly looking over...
you should date an illiterate girl | charles...
date a girl who doesn’t read. find her in the weary squalor of a midwestern bar. find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. wherever you find her, find her smiling. make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. engage her with unsentimental trivialities. use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. take her outside when the night...
even this late | mark strand
even this late it happens: the coming of love, the coming of light. you wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves, stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows, sending up warm bouquets of air. even this late the bones of the body shine and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.
beauty and the beast: an anniversary | jane yolen
it is winter now, and the roses are blooming again, their petals bright against the snow. my father died last april; my sisters no longer write, except at the turning of the year, content with their fine houses and their grandchildren. beast and i putter in the gardens and walk slowly on the forest paths. he is graying around the muzzle and i have silver combs to match my hair. i have no regrets....
eve argues against perfection | diane lockward
and the woman said, the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. - genesis 3:13 beguiled, my ass. i said no such thing. you say i lost the gift of paradise. i couldn’t lose what i never had. you say the serpent tempted me to eat. you omit that he entered the garden on two legs and walked like a man. and here’s what your story always ignores: i had pure gold, rare...
this deepening takes place again | emily kendal...
what if everything were revealed: where i was last night. you, etc. the rain is coming down like salad. my sister’s hair reminds me of my sister so much i can’t stop looking. who am i to have arms? on the plane one short dream: a baby so small it wasn’t even human, just a bouquet of light with wise cellular eyes. if losing me is the worst thing to happen, your life is still a...
