Dec 23
Brief reflection on killing the Christmas carp, by Miroslav Holub (1923-1998) You take a kitchen-mallet and a knife and hit the right spot, so it doesn’t jerk, for jerking means only complications and reduces profit. And the watchers already narrow their eyes, already admire the dexterity, already reach for their purses. And paper is […]
Dec 22
Sleeping Parents, Wakeful Children, by Phillip Dacey (1939-) When our parents were sleeping We brought them gifts It was a whispering time The great bodies lain down Upon the long bed The deep sighs adrift Through the upper rooms It was a whispering time When the gods slept And we made gifts for them With […]
Dec 21
The Unquarried Blue of Those Depths Is All But Blinding, by Ashley Anna McHugh(1985-) There are some things we just don’t talk about— Not even in the morning, when we’re waking, When your calloused fingers tentatively walk The slope of my waist: How love’s a rust-worn boat, Abandoned at the dock—and who could […]
Dec 20
After the Attack, by John Calvin Rezmerski (1942-) When they crawled out of the cellars of the burned houses, and came dirty and dripping out of the sloughs, and saw how many of the dead were their children, and saw how bright the children’s blood was next to the dull adult blood, and when they […]
Dec 19
Postcard From The Heartbreak Hotel, by John Brehm (1955-) Wish you were here instead of me. It has a fantastic view of the unconscious ocean, into which a few of the guests will no doubt fling themselves before their day is through. The rooms are so spacious and so clean you’d think you were […]
Dec 18
poem at thirty, by Sonia Sanchez (1934-) it is midnight no magical bewitching hour for me i know only that i am here waiting remembering that once as a child i walked two miles in my sleep. did i know then where i was going? traveling. i’m always traveling. i want to tell you about […]
Dec 17
Grieve Not, by Walter Clyde Curry (1887-1967) Grieve not that winter masks the yet quick earth, Nor still that summer walks the hills no more; That fickle spring has doffed the plaid she wore To swathe herself in napkins till rebirth. These buddings, flowerings, are nothing worth; This ermine cloud stretched […]
Dec 16
Beirut Tank, by Tom Sleigh (1953-) Staring up into the tank’s belly lit by a bare bulb hanging down off the exhaust, a mechanic’s hands are up inside the dark metallic innards doing something that looks personal, private. This tank is nothing like the ones the Americans deploy. Those have uranium piercing shells that […]
Dec 15
The Girls Next Door, by Thom Gunn (1929-2004) Laughter of sisters, mingling, separating, but so alike you sometimes couldn’t tell which was which, as in a part-song. I could hear them from outdoors over the wall that separated two gardens, where the lilac bush on our side was tattered by the passage of domestic cats, […]
Dec 14
The Mother, by May Herschel-Clarke (1850-1950) If you should die, think only this of me In that still quietness where is space for thought, Where parting, loss and bloodshed shall not be, And men may rest themselves and dream of nought: That in some place a mystic mile away One whom you loved has drained […]