Category: Poetry

“Ode to Howard”: Four Poetic Cloudforms by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Translated by James M. Kopf)

When the godhead, Camarupa, noble and high,flickers through the air, heavy and spry,gathers the folds of the veil, only them to toss,to enjoy the change of shapes, their loss,now gaze upon them, firm, and, as a dream away,astonished, do not trust the eyes, for they betray. Now the slight move of a power its own,develops…
Sections 63-67 from erroreum: Original Poetry by Jonathan Hobratsch

⥈ ⥈ word that ends all words aglee with me what you do not do will destroy you break me like a glass behind every poem is a poem like imagining Picasso painting his own exposed entrails ⥈ ⥈ join us join us or or die be the failure and avail it another timeI have…
New Poem by Dustin Brookshire: “For the Hetero Professor Whose Student Writes a Gay Poem, Some Workshop Advice”

So, I used cum in a poem. Yes, you know: spunk, jizz, leche, or as the medical professional might say, semen. I used cum in the poem I submitted to your workshop, a poem about how my mother demanded I stop writing gay poetry. In this poem about a poem I doubled down on the…
Two Original Poems: Sarah Fawn Montgomery

This Autistic Puts on Her Mask Because the world wantsa woman smiling louder than her voice, scripts rehearsedbecause the only answer to How are you? is Finewhich is a lie like making eye contact with the centerof someone’s forehead, manufacturing smalltalk and big gestures about the world and weather,whether or not you actually care, autistic…
New Prose Poem: “I read that butterflies are losing their color, becoming more muted to blend into their deforested habitats” by Vikki C.

And now they’re sending a search party out looking for wonder. It worries me—are they using the correct searchlight? Will I be missed again? These concerns keep happening—like the continuous tense of fall—bloody maples dredging an exhausted world, where the line between hidden and lost is sodden. Like my mother complaining she could never find…
New Poem: “Girls I’ve Known” by Elaine Equi

S. who even in kindergarten wore a perpetually startled look. K. who of all The Beatles loved Ringo best and claimed the boy she babysat was his illegitimate child. R. who looked like an Indian princess. You knew she’d be pregnant by junior year. B. my boss who was shorter than me, who forced me…
Three Original Poems from If Only in Combat I Find Love by Jack Nancy

So the Carnival Does Not Crash Bikini Jesus of the red hangercome down, you mangeryou’re not meant to be up thereyou poet, come down, you are a boxfor living things, cows, farm animals Picking up lines from the half head goneripping off sweaters from the should be deadnot knowing how to clean themwatering the plastic…
New Poem by Jiwon Choi: “Reading About Prince’s Movie While Conjuring the Sunday Times Crossword and Rote Learning ‘Postcolonial Love Poem’ by Natalie Diaz”

Quest Love calls Ezra Edelman’s nine hour sequence of the Beautiful One looking quiet punching out muses speaking in koans while embracing lace “a cultural service” for Black men We’re in junior high and our parents are too busy to notice we’ve cut school to see a movie at the Olympia movie theater on the…
New Poem by Steven Alvarez: “gelatin silver”

argument w. words less obscure than these bodies in apartments just like these— w. fears like anybody wd have in times as charming—& soft skin & walls doing lousy keeping down wind w. words written w. light into verses i. black & white Y behind X Y’s face contoured & pressing to back of X’s…