Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
Original poetry, translations and videopoems by the authors of this blog. (See Poets and poetry for criticism, etc.)
She brought me a cardboard square
from the farmer’s market—
fruit box with a wire handle.
I had wanted it for some other
purpose: desk caddy, mail sorter,
if only for the ghosts of pear
or peach or apple. Mellow skins,
stippled rinds of citrus
—ripe summer smells
teetering on the edge of fall.
In response to small stone (143).
Dark & intricately coiled as the brain of a chihuahua, hard knuckle, by what mechanism does it come to inhabit such yielding sweetness & such a velvet skin? Like a rough manuscript that some editor turns into a book with gilt-edged pages, its labyrinth is threaded with a scarlet bookmark. And how is it a pit? If you split it, no tree will grow. If you plant it, the tree won’t grow true & only hornets will burrow into that feral yellow, each of their pits ending where the pit begins. Yet even an unblemished peach, placed alone on a table, betrays something of its hidden, still life.
*
Written in response to a challenge to use three words in a poem: chihuahua, mechanism and manuscript.
An epic cast of characters, girlfriend—
tearful child, black witch, miserly wife;
slavish husband, jealous neighbors. Star-
crossed sweethearts, jilted old maid.
She darns socks; she howls at the moon.
Be careful: even Prince Charming has
a sordid underwing. More twists to the tale:
a virgin betrothed to a snake. He comes
to her bed under cover of night and demands
all lights be doused. At dawn, the sound
of a key turning in the ignition; wheels
screeching up the mountain road. Dust,
desultory chickens pecking at the stones.
How does it end? In tears, of course.
Or at a crossroads, the dark sky raked
with stars for backdrop. And only
the briefest intermission.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Sin cere: Where did I read about this mark
potters stamped on the bottoms of earthenware, of drying
crockery? Without peer, meaning not a copy,
original; baked terra cotta, crackled brown, bread-like
surface of imperfections. Around the courtyard, in the day’s
last glaze of heat, curling vines gather. Fronds of fern
spiral back toward themselves at their tips. I tuck the ends
of my worries like that sometimes: like hair behind my ears.
What I would give for such a sign, to tell me
of the genuine, or promise what will not change again—
But for now, only something in the name of the lilac
to suggest its scent; something in the aspect of the moon.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
A college roommate once confessed
he fantasized about growing a vagina
on his shoulder: It would be
so handy, right there
whenever he needed to whisper
in its big wet ear.
John loved redheads & disliked feminists.
One woman informed me
he had “bedroom eyes.”
Where would the uterus go? I asked.
He laughed. It wouldn’t need one—
it would have me.
What about the pillow talk?
It would sing me to sleep, he said,
with its pulse of surf.
*
See Rachel’s photographic response, “Salty.”
Sometimes I envy
the blue jays yelling
in the trees, unafraid
they might reveal too much:
those hidden barbs of history
that always seem to travel back,
no matter on the slowest wind.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Is it or isn’t it?
The sugar pill isn’t saying.
The line that bisects it
was intentionally left blank.
It’s a go sign, perhaps,
or a one-bead rosary.
Its zero gives birth
to all other numbers.
Since opposites attract within
bounds of reason & good breeding,
it must be in love
with a salt tablet.
It can be anything
the salt wants,
including another condiment
that cures vagueness.
Who do you say
that it is—
a prophet or the platter
for his savory head?
Like a double agent,
it forgets who it’s working for.
It’s either about to smile
or about to weep.
“When the bee comes to your house, let her have beer.
You may want to visit the bee’s house someday.” ~ Congolese
Or it may be that the honey in the cells
has foamed to froth, has risen above
walls that could no longer contain
that sweet— So the hand that tried
to stay the overflow withdrew, gold-
sheathed. May such abundance visit
your heart today: not rue, not pity.
In response to Via Negativa: A beer thinker's guide to life.
That place where all unease collects, distills
its gritty sediments, like clumps of leaves
at the bottom of a cup— Inscrutable, they sit
unsifted, waterlogged, composting once
green hopes— Divine is often the verb
used to describe what shapes they’ll spell;
when heat has blanched and water cooled,
what futures might yet unspool—
In response to Marly Youmans: The gulf of night---.