Category: Poetry

Poetry for Flavor Town USA: “Exercise for Beginners” by Marc Janssen

Do people breathe differentlyWhen they are running in their dreams?I had a dog that would run in his sleep,His feet would quiver as he chased chipmunks up trees made of canine fantasy.Eyes movingScanning the inside of his lids. I wish there was a dreaming dietWhere I could run marathons while unconscious,And in the morning, wake…
New Haunted Passages Poem by Rachel Mallalieu: “If My Son Had Stayed Dead”

If my son had stayed dead,I would not have written the poemwhere my husband wailed my nameand I ran outside, to find him holding our baby whose skin was as blueas his eyes, as blue as the sky, as blue asthe shirt he wore that day. The poemwhere I grabbed my son and laid him…
Two Poems by Guillaume Apollinaire, Newly Translated by Jefferey Samoray

Translator’s note: the originals of both poems were first published in the Apollinaire collection Le Guetteur mélancolique (The Melancholic Watchman). To the best of my knowledge, my translations represent their first appearance in English. Tristesse de l’Automne Vous êtes le soldat de toutes les bontésA vous voir la douleur tremble fuit et s’étonneVoyez votre départ…
The Future Has Poetry: “How I Tell You I Love You When All Hope Is Lost” by Jeneva Stone

Displaced air arrives by force as the metro rushes the station. Your hand pressed to the small of my back and dim lights up my spine brighten north. Greens tied with a pink ribbon. Narrative hallway with endless doors without a knob or dial. Breath visible and there! grace notes ensue. greens tied with a…
Side A Poem: “Middle Pain” by Naomi Bess Leimsider

Middle Pain Up against the faceless ghost clock again. Time is of the essence. Waiting for the one-sided middle pinch, that sets it all in motion. Cycle in. Cycle out. So, so smooth the way it sheds and grows. How it all goes. The inner mechanism slows and shifts. Only able to harness stillness, can’t…
Dan Alter: Three Poems for Haunted Passages

[When didn’t I know] When didn’t I know about the ashes, the attack dogs. We breathed itin & out like gray moths beating on smudged glass. Numberscheaply inked in the butcher’s arm who sliced kosher beeffor my father. The war ended, grass grew back over pits outside Kiev. Marcu walked toward Harry with his arms…
New Side A Poetry: “The Bird’s Heart Stilled by the Roar of the Inferno” by Nwodo Divine

The Bird’s Heart Stilled by the Roar of the Inferno*For Ikenna, whose father was killed in a Boko Haram terrorist attack. He used to call me his little eagle. He’d hoist me high on his shoulders. From that perch, I could see the line where the burnt sky met the thirsty land. He said an…
Five Unfinished Poems for Edward Hopper: Haunted Passages by Matthew Thorburn

—Gas, oil on canvas, 1940 1. This gas man seemslike a banker in his darktie, brown vest, brilliantwhite shirtsleeves,his jacket maybe slung over a chair in the smallwhite station. He tidiesthe rack of oil cans.Turns them label-side out.Bald, unsmiling, alone, not lonely, he lookslike you. And the redenamel pumps waitin silence, heads turnedto look for…
Side A Poem: “Wandering” by Peter Leight

Wandering (Sailing) It’s a small boata child among boatsit only takes a second to walkfrom the front of the boatto the back and backagain under slender stringsof smoke rising over the boatover the water spreadingash on the waterholding onto the ropesto keep them from flappingor lifting sheets of smokethat soften without accumulatingor dissolving while the…