The Protest, by Grace Cavalieri (1932-) I was supposed to make a five minute speech so I took a tranquilizer but the speech was cancelled. I was to give another speech but this too was cancelled. As you can imagine, I stayed tranquilized my whole life without speaking, When the fire and […]
With Changing Key, by Paul Celan (1920-1970) With changing key you open the house in which the snow of the unsaid is drifting. And with the blood that may run from your eye, or your mouth, or your ear, your key will be changing. Changing the key is changing the word that may drift […]
On the Home Front — 1942, by Edwin Denby (1903-1983) Because Jim insulted Harry eight years previous By taking vengeance for a regular business loss Forwardlooking Joe hints that Leslie’s devious Because who stands to lose by it, why you yourself boss. Figures can’t lie so it’s your duty to keep control You’ve got ot […]
Winter Dawn, by Kenneth Slessor (1901-1971) At five I wake, rise, rub on the smoking pane A port to see—water breathing in the air, Boughs broken. The sun comes up in a golden stain, Floats like a glassy sea-fruit. There is mist everywhere, White and humid, and the Harbour is like plated stone, Dull flakes […]
The Room in Which My First Child Slept, by Eavan Boland (1944-) After a while I thought of it this way: It was a town underneath a mountain crowned by snow and every year a river rushed through, enveloping the dusk in a noise everyone knew signaled spring— a small town, known for a kind […]
Because our waiters are hopless romantics, by Amy Beeder (1964-) the plates are broken after just one meal: plates that mimic lily pads or horseshoe crabs, swifts’ wings, golden koi, whirlpools, blowholes in rictus: all smashed against the table’s edge— . . . also our chef eschews pepper & salt for violets & vespers & squid […]
Morning Arrives, by Franz Wright (1953-) Morning arrives unannounced by limousine: the tall emaciated chairman of sleeplessness in person steps out on the sidewalk and donning black glasses, ascends the stairs to your building guided by a German shepherd. After a couple faint knocks at the door, he slowly opens the book of […]
Milk Snake, by Thomas Dillon Redshaw (1944-) Wild mushrooms know their names. We call them toadstools while they crouch in the invisible daylight under the birches that lean over a yellow field you cross into the sun ahead of me. A stone wall sways behind us. You picked the rush pannier, I the book […]
Belly Dancer, by Diane Wakoski (1937-) Can these movements which move themselves be the substance of my attraction? Where does this thin green silk come from that covers my body? Surely any woman wearing such fabrics would move her body just to feel them touching every part of her. Yet most of the women […]
Rembrandt’s Late Self-Portraits, by Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001) You are confronted with yourself. Each year The pouches fill, the skin is uglier. You give it all unflinchingly. You stare Into yourself, beyond. Your brush’s care Runs with self-knowledge. Here Is a humility at one with craft. There is no arrogance. Pride is apart From this […]