The Emperor, by Matthew Rohrer (1970-)
She sends me a text she's coming home the train emerges from underground I light the fire under the pot, I pour her a glass of wine I fold a napkin under a little fork the wind blows the rain into the windows the emperor himself is not this happy
Lucky, by Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012)
Ocean Beach, by Randall Mann (1972-)
seems cruel this August,
the skeletal chill,
even the gulls a little
ambivalent. There are
warnings everywhere,
what passes for warning:
kelp like dead sea
creatures, ropy tails and flies;
the dog stalking the crow.
There’s no getting around it,
either, the water, its epic
associations, etc.
the foggy pull of the tide
toward the belated,
the false, the near tears. Beauty lies,
lies in unbeauty.
Some Part of the Lyric, by Gregory Orr
Some part of the lyric wants to exclude the world with all its chaos and grief and so conceives shapes (a tear, a globe of dew) whose cool symmetries create a mood of security. Which is something all need and so, the lyric's urge to exclude what hurts us isn't simply a crude defense, but an embracing of a few essential shapes: a tear, a globe of dew. But to what end? Are there clues in these forms to deeper mysteries that no good poem should exclude? What can a stripped art reveal? Is a nude more naked than the eye can see? Can a tear freed of salt be a globe of dew? And most of all—is it something we can use? Yes, but only as long as its beauty, like that of a tear or a globe of dew, reflects the world it meant to exclude.
Ornithology, by Lynda Hull (1954-1994)
Gone to seed, ailanthus, the poverty
tree. Take a phrase, then
fracture it, the pods' gaudy nectarine shades
ripening to parrots taking flight, all crest
and tail feathers.
A musical idea.
Macaws
scarlet and violet,
tangerine as a song
the hue of sunset where my street becomes water
and down shore this phantom city skyline's
mere hazy silhouette. The alto's
liquid geometry weaves a way of thinking,
a way of breaking
synchronistic
through time
so the girl
on the comer
has the bones of my face,
the old photos, beneath the Kansas City hat,
black fedora lifting hair off my neck
cooling the sweat of a night-long tidal
pull from bar to bar the night we went
to find Bird's grave. Eric's chartreuse
perfume. That
poured-on dress
I lived days
and nights inside,
made love
and slept in, a mesh and slur of zipper
down the back. Women smoked the boulevards
with gardenias afterhours, asphalt shower-
slick, ozone charging air with sixteenth
notes, that endless convertible ride to find
the grave
whose sleep and melody
wept neglect
enough to torch us
for a while
through snare-sweep of broom on pavement,
the rumpled musk of lover's sheets, charred
cornices topping crosstown gutted buildings.
Torches us still-cat screech, matte blue steel
of pistol stroked across the victim's cheek
where fleet shoes
jazz this dark
and peeling
block, that one.
Vine Street, Olive.
We had the music, but not the pyrotechnics—
rhinestone straps lashing my shoes, heels sinking
through earth and Eric in casual drag,
mocha cheekbones rouged, that flawless
plummy mouth. A style for moving,
heel tap and
lighter flick,
lion moan
of buses pulling away
through the static
brilliant fizz of taffeta on nyloned thighs.
Light mist, etherous, rinsed our faces
and what happens when
you touch a finger to the cold stone
that jazz and death played
down to?
Phrases.
Take it all
and break forever—
a man
with gleaming sax, an open sill in summertime,
and the fire-escape's iron zigzag tumbles
crazy notes to a girl cooling her knees,
wearing one of those dresses no one wears
anymore, darts and spaghetti straps, glitzy
fabrics foaming
an iron bedstead.
The horn's
alarm, then fluid brass chromatics.
Extravagant
ailanthus, the courtyard's poverty tree is spike
and wing, slate-blue
mourning dove,
sudden cardinal flame.
If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn.
Exquisite Candidate, by Denise Duhamel (1961-)
I can promise you this: food in the White House will change! No more granola, only fried eggs flipped the way we like them. And ham ham ham! Americans need ham! Nothing airy like debate for me! Pigs will become the new symbol of glee, displacing smiley faces and "Have A Nice Day." Car bumpers are my billboards, billboards my movie screens. Nothing I can say can be used against me. My life flashes in front of my face daily. Here's a snapshot of me as a baby. Then marrying. My kids drink all their milk which helps the dairy industry. A vote for me is not only a pat on the back for America! A vote for me, my fellow Americans, is a vote for everyone like me! If I were the type who made promises I'd probably begin by saying: America, relax! Buy big cars and tease your hair as high as the Empire State Building. Inch by inch, we're buying the world's sorrow. Yeah, the world's sorrow, that's it! The other side will have a lot to say about pork but don't believe it! Their graphs are sloppy coloring books. We're just fine—look at the way everyone wants to speak English and live here! Whatever you think of borders, I am the only candidate to canoe over Niagara Falls and live to photograph the Canadian side. I'm the only Julliard graduate— I will exhale beauty all across this great land of pork rinds and gas stations and scientists working for cures, of satellite dishes over Sparky's Bar & Grill, the ease of breakfast in the mornings, quiet peace of sleep at night.
The Poem I Couldn’t Write, by David Allan Evans (1940-)
Last night I gave up again,
tossed the damned sheets
in the wastebasket,
turned out the lights
and went upstairs.
Brushing my teeth before
the bathroom mirror,
there it was,
the poem I couldn’t write.
When I frowned, it frowned.
When I smiled, it smiled.
It had all my thoughts,
all my feelings,
all my wrinkles—
exactly my age, and three
silver fillings in its jaw.
When I switched off the light
it was gone.
When I switched it back on,
there it was,
speaking without words
to a wordless man.
Harriet Street, by Carol Frost (1948-)
Windy Day, by David Maria Turoldo (1916-1992)
I have no pity
for this naked heart of mine;
just as one windy day
a tree was beating the glass
with insane arms
the sea was one huge sob;
And there on the shore
foam-covered stones
were scarcely breathing,
and there was wreckage
of boats and branches
and a shoe tossed among pebbles;
and the tatter of a dress;
and I from my cell window
watched laughing.
(Trans. by Margo and Anthony Viscusi)
Silver Roses, by Rachel Wetzsteon (1967-2009)