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Poetry

Showing 217-240 of 681 pieces

Poetry

March

What I recall from night is tangled in the uneasy rising of a new day. No need to fiddle in my sleep

Poetry

Sometimes, in the mirror

I say it again and again and again until my fingers turn red against the sink. Because I can’t remember my body the last time it was mine.

Poetry

We’re Born as Frost

What a miracle, We’re taught The barbed wire fences, Are to be finally taken off Mottos of life, history of people Worthy Stories, worthy Men Women, are to be taken care of We’re taught The summer precedes autumn Autumn precedes winters

Poetry

Glimpses of You

In my dream, you ride your bike up the road and I wave goodbye. It’s okay. Everything is okay. I can let go now. But in my dream—now my nightmare—you never come back.

Poetry

Street Cleaning

Each sweep of his diligence hails you though & now you’d bet he’s underpaid & the sun’s enlightened all things & you’re the street, slowly redeemed of debris.

Poetry

My Mother’s Kitchen

Mom’s yelling about my sister’s cigarettes, boyfriends and beer again. My mom Smokes Kools and always has a can of Blatz nearby.

Poetry

Caesar’s Ghosts

No wonder, you who know history, read portents, now sleep uneasily, blades wrapped in raw leather tucked beneath your pillows. Morning lines at the whetstone, coffee and small chatter, conspiratorial whispers, a dime’s blot of oil, grinding steel on stone—

Poetry

The Misunderstood

“Say sorry Mita, ju leetle sinverguenza, pendeja for estupidez! Her sharp words slice through the pineapples on the tropical wallpaper of her tiny dark kitchen scattering drops of sweet juice on my cheek and on one eyelash that dangles in front of my pupil too afraid to fall off

Poetry

35 More Dawns of Winter Someone Said

But this is poem and not hopeful consonance so I write ephemeral which is fleeting and ethereal which is artificial construct of the human brain

Poetry

Cambodia Lessons

there is life happening across this world, around it, inside it at the instant tea touches your lips in the morning; you: not alone in your husk, it is happening, right now, you, me, separated by our skins

Poetry

One Night Stand

He takes me to a bed where there is no rest I rattle with him His moans overpower the sirens of the street and shakes his body in a variety of motions

Poetry

Isle of Caves

Wall after wall, cave after cave, many armed, many legged, many headed desire dances its heart out. Liberated by the im- measurable devotion of anonymous hands.

Poetry

in memory of things that break

the love you feel when a baby is first born the night he left for college (the morning he returned but only because he forgot his hat)

Poetry

Unconfession in My Psychoanalyst’s Office

I tremble in a flower’s vocabulary— retract my hands like from a hot sky or suddenness dreams which pass through my body are no different from hands

Poetry

Driving the Skyway Bridge

You don’t see her,  hair like wings ephemeral catching fire from Florida sun, wire fences no match for birds taking flight unnaturally.

Poetry

All the Howling

The night locked and cellular, the landscape grows increasingly perplexed at the Color aspects of American democracy,

Poetry

Rich People

There are plenty of seats on the summit. You can see the dark clouds amassing from miles away. I had a big wedding. I’ve stood beneath a waterfall.

Poetry

Stepping into the Dark

I imagined her soul, slipping into muted sleep, slowing its swirl, dimming its spectrum of colors – until like a photo, darkening to monochrome, she would become the very depth and quiet of her own shadow. Fire slowly dims, coal blackens, into night.

Poetry

Ode to Beets

Prisoners could enroll in college courses and some even taught. The people of Alabama often formed remarkable friendships with the prisoners and gave them many gifts, as well as invitations to their homes for a meal. After the war, many Germans brought their families to vacation in the South and to introduce them to their southern friends. These friendships lasted for decades.

Poetry

Waiting

The thing about a lake is the crazy men who fish there, in the copper- hearted flow where cold springs and greasy seaweed gather. Shimmer.  Buckle.  Fish bodies writhe beneath, more life always where one can’t reach. More life always where watching is not allowed.

Poetry

2 poems by Jane Marston

They were not deer, such as the men had known in Virginia or Vermont, but antelope whose haunches flashed when the heave of portage brought the men too near. The men believed they were something they needed to kill, not just for food or for the pleasure of pursuit, but from a need to supplement,

Poetry

Sooner Now

And so, it seems it only takes one summer without rain, a drift of weeks, the world gone mean, to make a start then, offer age assent. To give surprised consent, or to at least – time bossy, brooking no dissent – begin to know there is a change now on its way. Not today. Not right away.

Poetry

Loss of Little Things

I dream each night our house is burning,               and I watch and watch. It consumes, I am consumed, by the pit in my gut, burning rubble. Spiders watch from the corners,               with their wide shining eyes, but do not spin a line to save me-