Tag: Poetry

Adam Day: Five Poems from Midnight’s Talking Lion and the Wedding Fire

Chile example 1973—Zurita arrested and held in ship’s cargo hold; process-experience under witnessing. He tried to disappear his eyes with acid, but failed. “Instead he created a document: chapter twentieth century having disfigured its face. Might not be quite right. Then, a photo of its bandaged cheek with the text below, EGO SUM, and: ‘My…
“Dol-lim Ja Imprints”: A Poem by Georgia San Li

Characters for the Next Generations One generation of heirloom tomatoes divides their eggs, bubbling with blisters, bloody broken stems in the end. How many precious pigeon-red rubies will man flood with fires and vengeance of war in the end? Who were the three African women in tangerine silks and golden slippers, rerouted at Charles De…
Two Bad Survivalist Pantoums by Dan Collins

~ in which A.I. subroutines struggle with consciousness by investigating human thought through pantoums. A perfect OX Still, I refuse to accept that a perfect ox is the golden meanforged of utility and symmetry, but a stubborn pony cannot providea comfortable ride to the sublime. No matter how it goes, you musttrust what remains of…
New Side A Poem: Nathanael Jones’ “In the Absence of Language II”

In the Absence of Language II How will we say goodbye? You watch film after film and never notice that the music stops one moment and starts the next. I don’t think about it, you say. You turn your head away. A motor car peels through the corner of a cobblestone square; it is a…
Bad Survivalist: Five Poems by Barbara Tomash

Of Ancestors their bodies they knew primarily as instruments of noncompliance almost immortal lost among causes their hearts blacked-out hollows their lungs they pricked trillions of times they could ill afford breath the wrench of speech is that how one dies by sound by echo I repeat you endlessly in a mazy motion above ground…
Bad Survivalist: “Love Poem (with Subtle Anti-Whaling Message)” by Glen Armstrong

I am writing to you with ambergrisand cream, in a style too clumsy to be a hat or even a sunburn.The world has its preferences and I have mine: you are valued.After dinner, I wonder about silence and whales,secrets and beauty that festers then ferments.I am writing to you with a synthetic ambroxide and soy…
Side A Poem: “Wrong Turn” by Paula Gil-Ordoñez Gomez

Wrong Turn There’s a dead catsprawled on the side of the road. No official burial ceremonybut woodchips and straw spread by snakes with a soul.The sky will be cobalt soon now it’s peach.Is there a blueprint for melancholy? I wish I turned the cat to the palm trees.No one should have to face their killer…
Three Flavor Town USA Poems by Kathleen Hellen

every animal is broken differently cook it slow, the butcher says, like jazz or countrywestern—doesn’t matter something you can dance to—something you can masterlike chief cook and bottle-washer, recognize that parrot is a noun, that parrot is a table mannerthat you always start with definition, recognize the cuts as hangers flap meat Denver steaks coulotte,…
“Strings Astray:” A Poem for Haunted Passages by Lindsay Donovan

You pitter on your bike across the boulevard, past the litter, the small dog jackets,and tour bus flyers. You bought your bike for LA cheap, it brakes properly and night signalsbut its not doing too hot. Too hot out in Venice, you pull up to the driveway, quiet, as you tryto choke down filmy, office…