January 2009
15 posts
1 tag
'The Choir' by Luke Kennard
The choir hadn’t left him alone since the first day of summer;
He awoke to find them stationed around his bed.
One day the choir arrived without warning or explanation,
Sang the choir in four-part harmony, handing him toast.
On his first day back at work, the choir stood at his desk,
Singing, The choir are making his professional life impossible.
Two weeks later his partner left him...
1 tag
'Backwards' by Linda Keller
In the backwards universe
our clothes choose us.
They float off closet hangars,
unzip and pull themselves
over our heads.
Colors always match.
Cars are free agents
roaming the streets.
With a honk of a horn
they stop to pick us up.
A click of the windshield wipers
makes them pull over
to let us out.
In the backwards universe
food grows inside our cupboards,
stays fresh and is...
3 tags
'Doing' by Petronius
Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short;
And done, we straight repent us of the sport:
Let us not then rush blindly on unto it,
Like lustful beasts, that only know to do it:
For lust will languish, and that heat decay.
But thus, thus, keeping endless holiday,
Let us together closely lie and kiss,
There is no labour, nor shame in this;
This hath pleased, doth please, and long will please;...
1 tag
“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not...”
– William Faulkner’s Nobel acceptance speech, partially quoted in Barack Obama’s inauguration.
1 tag
'A Christian Country' by 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.
1 tag
'I met a genius' by Charles Bukowski
I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it’s not pretty.
it was the first time I’d
realized
that.
2 tags
'Farewell' by Guillaume Apollinaire
I plucked this sprig of heather
Autumn is long gone, you will recall
No longer will we want to dwell on land
Scent of time sprig of heather
And remember that I wait for you
(the translation is my own)
1 tag
'Reality' by Rabia al Basri
In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?
1 tag
'Prefix' by Diane Thiel
Most of the grounds of the world’s troubles
are matters of grammar.
—Michel de Montaigne
I remember first learning
that you could add ver
to change the meaning
of many German verbs— laufen (to walk), fahren (to drive),
could become verlaufen, verfahren (to lose your way).
Like an incantation,
you could add ver to nouns— verfeinden (make an enemy) vernichten (turn into nothing).
I...
1 tag
'A poem written by a bear' by Tao Lin
let me go eat some salmon
why are there coke cans in the river
what if i wore a bullet proof vest during hunting season
i’m a bear; i walk in the forest and look at the river and the river is cold
i saw campers today and they ran away and i was alone and i destroyed their tent
let me go scratch my paw on a tree
let me go eat a salmon
last night i cried onto my salmon
the salmon was...
1 tag
'Fable' by Louise Gluck
Then I looked down and saw
the world I was entering, that would be my home.
And I turned to my companion, and I said Where are we?
And he replied Nirvana.
And I said again But the light will give us no peace.
1 tag
'Work Song' by Mark Levine
mmryan:
by Mark Levine
My name is Henri. Listen. It’s morning. I pull my head from my scissors, I pull the light bulb from my mouth—Boss comes at me while I’m still blinking. Pastes the pink slip on my collarbone. It’s O.K., I say, I was a lazy worker, and I stole. I wipe my feet on his skullcap on the way out.
I am Henri, mouth full of soda crackers. I live in Toulouse, which is a piece of...
1 tag
'the rape of ophelia' by Richard Brautigan
Her clothes spread wide and mermaid-like awhile
they bore her up: which time she chanted snatches
of old tunes, and sweet Ophelia floated down the river
past black stones until she came to an evil fisherman
who was dressed in clothes that had no childhood,
and beautiful Ophelia floated like an April church
into his shadow, and he, the evil fisherman of our dreams,
waded out into the river...
1 tag
'Lit (or: to the scientist I am not speaking to...
Don’t say you didn’t see this coming, Jason.
Don’t say you didn’t realize this would be my reaction
and that you never intended for me to get all worked up,
because if that were true, then you are dumber
than Lenny from Mice and Men, blinder than Oedipus
and Tierus put together and can feel less
than a Dalton Trumbo character.
You put the Dick in Dickens and the Boo in kowski
and are...
December 2008
21 posts
1 tag
'i carry your heart with me(i carry it in' by e....
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is...
1 tag
'blue moon, oh bleweeww mooooon how i adore you!'...
I care for you, darling, I love you,
the only reason I fucked L. is because you fucked
Z. and then I fucked R. and you fucked N.
and because you fucked N. I had to fuck
Y. But I think of you constantly, I feel you
here in my belly like a baby, love I’d call it,
no matter what happens I’d call it love, and so
you fucked C. and then before I could move
you fucked W., so then I...