Poetry
Happy Birthday, Spider Plant
Spider plant is the wrong name for my immortal perennial. In all her newness, she remains the same tuberous roots that I touched with tiny fingers, eyes illiterate, but full of love.
Section
Poetry
Showing 193-216 of 671 pieces
Poetry
Of Blue Skin and Invisible Suns
They’ll be tests, machines that spin famished tubes with eyes like steam engines hanging in space, and no matter how deeply infrared you are, no matter how many mean dogs you put out front
Poetry
The First Civil War in Gombe 1974-1978
the only observer of this war, a woman, she would recall, for years the haunting images of drinking blood from the enemies’ wounds a bestial attack on the body, long dead, of one of the defenders
Poetry
Grief
a starless, smothering blanket of beastly odour. Pinned down, your mind sifts and sifts through the shock swiftly, recalling the ranger’s warning: it always goes for your face, cover it with your hands, curve your body into a C, and be still;
Poetry
The Same Sun
on the backs of those who bow on the believer and the unbeliever on the protestant and the catholic on the anglican and the jew on the muslim and the hindu
Poetry
Cicada Song
My aunt’s house does not exist anymore the little white house with a secret door leading into the garden flooded with soft camellias the yard adorned with a magnolia tree
Poetry
2 Poems by Poornima Laxmeshwar
Ajji oiled and combed my hair for hours. She said that combing is kindness as though the small-teethed comb could catch and carry my worries, and not just lice. Call me prejudiced but the C words do not stick like sweat on my skin – choice, consent, calcium. I suffer from deficiencies of my own making. That’s how marriages work, you say.
Poetry
90007
you the thump-thump bass as I drowned in the bellow of our ballad, worn leather mouthing words from neon lights. Skyline clumped beneath the white crescents of your nails; sprinkled into smog like glitter, these two lungs exhaling ten intertwined fingers and
Poetry
Four Poems by Alison Morse
Alison Morse weaves a heartbreaking narrative of garment factory workers’ life through the scope of Human sufferings, paved with lack of accountability by owners and substandard working conditions.
Poetry
Somewhere by my grandparents house; strawberries from the heart
Better still, there are Oranges in Europe and Grapes in South Melbourne and A man from the Northern suburbs with a belt that Wears studs and a tattoo I know better than to Question, who Offers me a coffee with half a spoon of sugar.
Poetry
I Had a Hard Time Identifying Myself Drowned
I thought I was Orpheus’s head floating down the Hebrus still singing, but I was not singing—
Poetry
To Be Dirty
A teacher once asked if I lived on the dirty side of the Philippines, I had to think what she meant—if she meant a part easier to ignore homeless kids on the streetsides with cardboard blankets curled up like street dogs; if dirty meant poor meant eating rice with soy sauce ‘cause mama couldn’t afford meat;
Poetry
Listening to Louis Armstrong
Flowers I can’t name stretch over the lip of a windowsill to stare into the swooning sun. I will not sing, but I am tempted.
Poetry
A Pocket full of Posies
the spider climbs the spout the wheels on the bus go round Jack gets the magic beans and I say ding dong we are all scrambling out of the frying pan where dozens of eggs were broken to make incredible inedible omelets
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
3 poems by Xueyan
You empty my cup By filling Hers
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