Poem
MENTAL DISTURBANCES
See more.Track Loss.
Human, twist the atom
dancers so errant young
waves, those vagrant grams of loose,
cleave to the crux.
Impede. That's your part.
I tend to forget now I picked her
out of the lot, carrying food
like a gypsy.
Barefoot with the vegetables.
Balancing full wine glasses,
round bowls of soup,
rolling
eggs for the journey
to the one in the teepee
by the grove.
(Walking like a whisper,
burnt hair curling to the sun).
I plucked her and she knew less
and less of either world in my keep
choking out leave
into damp cloaks.
In roses, summer squash
peeled and split seed-raw.
Track loss.
Impede.
by Abby Lang
Poem
from
VERDADERAMENTE
I.
Verdaderamente soy todo oídos para ti
cuando tu pecho en blanco torna lluvia mis manos,
te duelen los hombros hasta el grito
y te corren gladiolas enfermizas por las piernas.
Verdaderamente.
Con la certeza de lo que sentirán en el invierno
una nube con festones de azúcar,
en el otono dos mujeres sin párpados
o en el alba las rodillas desesperadas de una virgen.
Ennoblecida verdad la del olvido,
purísima verdad aquella de la ternura muerta.
Verdaderament muertos, encerrados en mármol,
cristalizados en miserables corolas sin angustia
y con asomos de fastidio,
crucificados míos,
petrificados en el filo de las espadas,
en esa hora agradable de los barqueros blasfemando en los ríos
y el duelo espejeante de los remos.
En esta hora y en otras,
tan bien soy todo oídos para ti,
que tu sombra amanece en pleno día del mundo
y mi amor impaciente se atreve sin error por tu vida.
by Efraín Huerta, 1944
TRULY
After Efraín Huerta
Baby, I’m truly all ears for you—
when I see your chest gone white and my hands
turn to water, when you can’t take the pain
in your shoulders any longer,
when the blood on your legs crusts up
like a shriveled daisy chain.
Truly.
You can trust it, like how a storm cloud knows
its snow will be sweet to someone.
How women unable to shut their eyes
allow the autumn to bless them with rest.
How a virgin, desperate at dawn, wakes
and embraces the next night’s possibility.
I know you think oblivion is some sort of lofty truth,
and tenderness that’s died is somehow pure.
But darling, they’re too dead—sealed up in marble,
ringed by frozen blooms
staked in their vases, doomed, stock-still
at the edge of a sword in that happy hour
when boaters blaspheme, grief
shimmering off their oars.
In that hour—in every hour, love—
you should know I’m really listening.
So closely I can see your shadow
awaken in plain day.
So closely my impatient heart
fits itself to yours, just so.
by Sarah Heady
Take-Away Poem
Take this poem outside for a walk- it fits easily into any short-term memory:
WHY LIGHT
The man
at the pulpit
insists His light
because he knows
light doesn’t
escape. It
reflects or shakes.
by Patrick Lucy
Octopus Magazine
I know it’s been out for awhile now but I just wanted to say how much I’ve been enjoying issue #10 of Octopus Magazine. Issue 10 has poems from Dorothea Lasky, Linh Dinh, CD Wright, Will Oldham… many, many more.
It’s online, free and excellent. Almost too generous.
- Patrick
Poem
AFTER THE DIVORCE
He took a knife to his ring finger
cut it like a carrot prepared for dinner, and
mailed it to his ex-wife
with the ring firmly in place,
like a bow on a present for Christmas morning.
And this begs us to ask:
are we like Magritte’s Lovers
touching without knowing while
hooded and blind to the truth,
that we aren’t who we say we are?
When we remove the mask,
we can either learn to love for the first time or
severe all attachments to
start anew.
Blind.
by Brian Cuzzolina
Journals
New Philadelphia Poets Journal, Vol. 0: Showing Flume used for Plastering Invert on Curves
Details: 26 page, black and white, hand-bound, hand-numbered edition of 300
Cost: Free
