shahules786/PoetryFoundationData · Datasets at Hugging Face

poem name stringlengths 7 245	content stringlengths 4 88.7k	author stringlengths 2 57	type stringlengths 4 411 ⌀	age null
On the 20th National Anniversary	On the morning of the 20th National Day my uncle came home and told us: “All our troops have got into position, for the Russians may throw an atom-bomb on us today.” After breakfast he returned to the headquarters, but I had to go to school and join the celebration. The fear oppressed my back lik...	Ha Jin	Coming of Age,War & Conflict	null
Hello, Baihua Mountain	The sound of a guitar drifts through the air. Cupped in my hand, a snowflake quivers lightly. Thick patches of fog draw back to reveal A mountain range, rolling like a melody. I have gathered the inheritance of the four seasons. There is no sign of man in the valley. Picked wild flowers continue to grow,...	Bei Dao	Landscapes & Pastorals	null
Declaration	for Yu Luoke Perhaps the final hour is come I have left no testament Only a pen, for my mother I am no hero In an age without heroes I just want to be a man The still horizon Divides the ranks of the living and the dead I can only choose the sky I will not kneel on the ground ...	Bei Dao	Death,Crime & Punishment	null
Black Map	in the end, cold crows piece together the night: a black map I've come home—the way back longer than the wrong road long as a life bring the heart of winter when spring water and horse pills become the words of night when memory barks a rainbow haunts the black market my father's life-spark small...	Bei Dao	Travels & Journeys	null
The Good Provider	The best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact. My mother took my heart out. She banked it on top of her stove. It glowed white. She put it back in my chest. Tita knew that overseas workers often had affairs. He licked me and I pretended it pinged through my body like a swift idea ...	Sarah Gambito	Home Life,Animals	null
Getting Used to It	She brightens at the evidence. Like a strong appliance. You can make it hot. Grown ass people having tantrums. I’m unbought, unheated. Like a perfectly square morsel of lasagna. A wrathful rubics cube. To realize, I wish to ridicule people interested in martial arts. That I’m not ...	Sarah Gambito	Family & Ancestors,Humor & Satire,Race & Ethnicity	null
Rapproachement	The art of war teaches us to rely not on the chance of the enemy not attacking but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. —Sun Tzu My father called me a chink so I’d know how to receive it. So I wouldn’t be surprised. Therefore the good soldier will be ...	Sarah Gambito	Home Life,Race & Ethnicity	null
Immigrant Song	All birds—even those that do not fly —have wings A constant confession Admission of omission This is your punctuated equilibrium And everything in between Slow it down The moment of extinction The death of the last individual of a species (Let’s put it aside for now) Stay with it ...	Sun Yung Shin	Family & Ancestors,Animals	null
Over the Course of Several Decades Following the Korean War, South Korea Became the World’s Largest Supplier of Children to Developed Countries	Some(where a) woman wears the face once given. Possessions scarce we go halves on slant of eye & span of palm with cousin & other ghosts. Where is the man with the face lent mother? Fathers rare; infant found at Shinkyo police station box—official shoes careened around fortune ...	Sun Yung Shin	History & Politics	null
(Riot Police)	This is you—Titanus giganteus, your maw snapping pencils in half and cutting through human flesh. My encyclopedia chokes on your bulk. My camera, timid, afraid to look, as if you’re naked—not one adult male, but millions. Few garments sound as fine as flak jacket, the best of the tagmata the thorax, more pri...	Sun Yung Shin	Cities & Urban Life,History & Politics	null
(Demilitarized Zone)	Like a wedding ring, or the bride’s green ribbon, you shelter me. No business but war. You remind me of a kind of heaven. A cairn of rocks casting shadows in the shape of a man. Thou art the table before me in the sight of my adversaries, thou dost anoint my head: oil and rain, thou art a ghost with ...	Sun Yung Shin	War & Conflict	null
Return of the Native	Because of time being an arrow, I had to imagine everything. I had to fold the song with my mind because of the time being. Wash the rice here, in the present. Because of the arrow I pent up the fourth wall as though I were diapering my own newborn. I put time to the breast, though I feared i...	Sun Yung Shin	Time & Brevity	null
Seventh Sphere (Saturn: The Contemplatives)	No more hangings, no more gas chambers. No one allowed to remain in the center of the labyrinth, guarding their dna from the world, from the future. No more contemplation, no more waste. Everyone leaning toward paradise. Shields down and the word enemy will pass from memory. You are my kind.	Sun Yung Shin	History & Politics	null
His Mother's Hair	The last time he cut his mother’s hair the rude morning sun left no corner of her kitchen private, the light surgically clean where it fell on his scissors. Her hair fell in a blonde circle on the lake blue tile—smell of coffee and cinnamon; her laughing shook her head, Hold still...	April Ossmann	Sorrow & Grieving	null
Dust to Dust	Nevermind that keeping ashes on the mantel feels ghoulish, and comically impractical: not just another thing, a miniature memento urn, to dust, but dust to dust— I dread the conversational Hara-kiri, not, that’s what’s leftof my brother, but, he died of suicide: the chasm o...	April Ossmann	Death,Sorrow & Grieving	null
O, Chicago, O'Hare	One among the shifting mass of humanity intent on countless destinations, one hungry stomach and dry mouth among many, one brain dazed by the speed and altitude of flights unnatural to any animal, by herding, followed by waiting succeeded by rushing, waiting, herding— ...	April Ossmann	Travels & Journeys	null
A Wish	I wanted to give you something for your pain. But not the drug du jour or the kind word this side of cliché. Something you wouldn’t find on a talk show, in a department store or dark alleyway. I wanted to give you something for your pain but I couldn’t imagine what. Frankincense, myrrh—even gold ...	Thomas Centolella	Death,The Body	null
View #45	after Hokusai and Hiroshige I dreamt half my life was spent in wonder, and never suspected. So immersed in the moment I forgot I was ever there. Red-tailed hawk turning resistance into ecstasy. The patrolmen joking with the drunk whose butt seemed glued to the sidewalk. ...	Thomas Centolella	Life Choices,The Mind	null
The Orders	One spring night, at the end of my street God was lying in wait. A friend and I were sitting in his new sedan like a couple of cops on surveillance, shooting the breeze to pass the time, chatting up the daydreams, the raw deals, all the wouda-coulda-shoulda’s, the latest “Can you believe that?” A...	Thomas Centolella	The Body,Crime & Punishment	null
“In the Evening We Shall Be Examined on Love”	—St. John of the Cross And it won’t be multiple choice, though some of us would prefer it that way. Neither will it be essay, which tempts us to run on when we should be sticking to the point, if not together. In the evening there shall be implications our fear will change to complicati...	Thomas Centolella	Love	null
Lines of Force	The pleasure of walking a long time on the mountain without seeing a human being, much less speaking to one. And the pleasure of speaking when one is suddenly there. The upgrade from wary to tolerant to convivial, so unlike two brisk bodies on a busy street for whom a sudden magnetic attraction is a ...	Thomas Centolella	Travels & Journeys,Landscapes & Pastorals	null
Anti-Elegy	for TNH There are those who will never return to us as we knew them. Who if they return at all visit our sleep, or daydreams, or turn up in the features of total strangers. Or greet us face to face in the middle of some rush hour street, but from a great distance—and not in the full flu...	Thomas Centolella	Sorrow & Grieving	null
Small Acts	Whitman thought he could live with animals, they were so placid and self-contained, not one of them dissatisfied. I have lived with animals. They kept me up all night. Not only tom cats on the prowl, and neurotic rats behind my baseboards, scratching out a slim existence. There were cattle next door in the...	Thomas Centolella	Animals,Trees & Flowers	null
Mood Ring	Inside me lived a small donkey. I didn’t believe in magic, but the donkey was a sucker for the stuff. Psychics, illusionists, arthritics who’d predict the rainfall. That was the year I had trouble walking. I over-thought it and couldn’t get the rhythm right. The donkey re-taught me. “This foot. Yes, th...	Jaswinder Bolina	The Body,Animals	null
Operating Dictates for a Particle Accelerator	pulse light starts there starts getting smaller All that you can’t remember, Claire says. , With two glass eyes I’m wobbling down a walkway inflecting aloha no thumbtacks, attached no pins, To ...	Jaswinder Bolina	null	null
Employing My Scythe	I’m standing in field 17 of the long series, employing my scythe. Sometimes a conceptual dog bounds past me, though it’s never my conceptual dog. Occasionally future laureates gather for colloquium, though they’re rarely my future laureates. Thus, evening proceeds precisely the way the handbook describes...	Jaswinder Bolina	Jobs & Working,Travels & Journeys	null
Elephant Armageddon	NYTimes headline for September 4th 2012: Elephants Dying in Epic Frenzy As Ivory Fuels Wars and Profits They return to the site whence they came with eyes tearful, with psalms trumpeting the air. They stand ever so watchful; guarding the graves of their ghosts and their kind. ...	Gerard Malanga	Living,Death,Sorrow & Grieving,Activities,Travels & Journeys,Nature,Animals,Religion,The Spiritual,Social Commentaries,War & Conflict	null
Real Complex Key Shifts	Toward summer or its dependence On demarcations in the sandy vial Some tree spelling astronaut onto a Planet’s arm, it stopped making sense. I am not an apothecary or a wave Or a dog by the 15th hole, I am not A light sparking a whole country’s demise. I will never be a towel holding someone’s Sunscr...	Amanda Nadelberg	Living,The Mind,Religion,Faith & Doubt	null
Mom Betty Addresses the Nature of Proportion	After “She was the song of my dark hour,” a photograph by Paul Tañedo I woke up and I was old— It’s hard to judge if this new country was worth its costs— Fil and Eileen educated themselves— They blessed me with their happiness— Roy and Glen lost themselv...	Eileen R. Tabios	Living,Growing Old,Parenthood,Sorrow & Grieving,Love,Heartache & Loss,Relationships,Family & Ancestors	null
Memorial Day	All that's left is the shroud the back wings. Roaches scurrying in the kitchen. There’s no greater threat than this time at hand. Drunken cackles from the street. Still damp from 4 AM rain. I missed the instr...	Sunnylyn Thibodeaux	Relationships,Home Life,Nature,Animals	null
All Kinds of Fires Inside Our Heads	The number of bodies i have is equal to the number of gurney transfers that are televised. If we’re all “just human” then who is responsible? A fire station drying out from addiction. outside the drizzling of firepower, lowballing suns it’s like a sauna in here. the strain of a ch...	Nikki Wallschlaeger	Living,Death,Health & Illness,Life Choices,Social Commentaries,Race & Ethnicity	null
Keough Hall	November 9, 2016 University of Notre Dame minutes felt like hours "deplorables knocking at your door" he shouted the day after—“build the wall— we're building a wall around your room!" minutes felt like hours "cowards!" you managed,...	Francisco Aragón	Activities,School & Learning,Social Commentaries,History & Politics,Race & Ethnicity	null
Perihan	it doesn’t matter when I cross. two seconds and they’re gone. the ferry facing Ulus. the trees that spanked of green. the narrow bags of temples. beyond that – just – these Peri scenes when the human body sweats the skin produce an oil when Peri bodies sweat ...	Sara Deniz Akant	Relationships,Family & Ancestors,Arts & Sciences,Language & Linguistics,Mythology & Folklore,Fairy-tales & Legends	null
Book Review: The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford	Spoiler alert: in this all-but-forgotten masterwork, Jean Stafford—who was once widely regarded as the leading novelist of her generation, and who wrote this perverse, short, lyrical novel, her second, during the flailing failings of her marriage to my hero Robert Lowell—kills Molly, he...	Craig Morgan Teicher	Coming of Age,Death,Reading & Books	null
Small Shame Blues	I live with the small shame of not knowing the multiple names for blue to describe the nightsky over New Mexico to describe the light in my lover’s eyes. It is a small shame that grows. I live with the small shame which resides in the absences of my speech as I pause to search for the word in S...	Dan Vera	Family & Ancestors,Language & Linguistics	null
Norse Saga	Let us praise the immigrant who leaves the tropics and arrives in Chicago in the dead of winter. Let us praise the immigrant who has never worn coats who must bundle up against an unimaginable cold. For they will write letters home that speak of it like Norse sagas with claims that if a f...	Dan Vera	Winter,Cities & Urban Life	null
Handsome Caudillos	Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal en...	Dan Vera	History & Politics,War & Conflict	null
José Dominguez, the First Latino in Outer Space	In that very first episode the transmission is received on the starship Enterprise that Space Commander Dominguez urgently needs his supplies. Kirk tells Uhura to assure him that the peppers are “prime Mexican reds but he won’t die if he goes a few more days without ’em.”Calm down Mexican.You can wait a fe...	Dan Vera	Popular Culture,Race & Ethnicity	null
lucky number 7 (or indications that I’d be a lesbian)	when i was 7, i hoped rocks would whisper the secret to being hard. fascinated by Keisha’s skin so soft, i seduced her into humping even though she was five years my senior and my babysitter—click of the light covers snatched away like a magic trick reveal i could hear Keisha wail one floor up through th...	T'ai Freedom Ford	Coming of Age,Gay, Lesbian, Queer	null
how to get over ["be born: black..."]	be born: black as ants on a chicken bone black as Nina Simone and Mahalia’s moan black as rock pile smile and resilience black as resistance and rhythm and Sonny’s blues black as no shoes and dirt floors black as whore and Hottentot foxtrot Lindy Hop and Watusi pussy and pyramids black ...	T'ai Freedom Ford	Popular Culture,Race & Ethnicity	null
how to get over ["when the poem flirts..."]	for those of us who can’t quite quit her when the poem flirts similes hugging her thighs like a tight skirt: consider the possibilities. if the poem follows you home, whiskey pickling her tongue: make her coffee, black. if the poem arrives dressed ...	T'ai Freedom Ford	Desire,Poetry & Poets	null
still life—color study	July 13, 2013 Saturday afternoon: in the driveway between buildings they blow up balloons—yellow, red, blue—for a 3-year-old’s party. The intermittent pops startle me like random gunfire—remind me of birthdays brown boys will no longer celebrate. The DJ, having set up...	T'ai Freedom Ford	Birth & Birthdays,Crime & Punishment,Race & Ethnicity	null
Battleground	It showed the War was as my father said: boredom flanked by terror, a matter of keeping low and not freezing. “You wore your helmet square,” he said, not “at some stupid angle, like that draft-dodger Wayne,” who died so photogenically in The Sands of Iwa Jima. Those nights I heard shouts from the...	William Trowbridge	Home Life,War & Conflict	null
Please, Not That Again	How burdensome they seemed, wartime oldies that could drive our parents teary: “I’ll Be Seeing You,” with its hint of being swept off in a global riptide; or the shaky follow-up of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” followed by a shakier “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree (with Anyone Else But Me),...	William Trowbridge	Coming of Age,Music	null
Loud Looks	You better rap, my brother says—he can b-box his ass off. Got DJ scratches and spins, will drop it on the two and four, the three and four. Whatever you need. Me posing my bars: My flowsare second to none, come here,son. See how it’s done. Wanted to be a rapper? Check. Thought I was goi...	Douglas Manuel	Coming of Age,Music,Popular Culture	null
Washing Palms	When the junkies my father sold crack to got too close to me, he told them to back up six dicks’ lengths. This is the man who when I was seven caught me under the bed crying and said: Save those tears. You’ll need them later. The man who told me he smoked crack because he liked it, the man sitti...	Douglas Manuel	Family & Ancestors,Home Life	null
Heading Down	We shouldn’t raise mixed babiesin the South, Kay says as I drive up the crest of another hill on our way into Kentucky. The South, where humidity leaves a sweat mustache, where a truck with a Confederate flag painted on the back windshield skitters in front of us. In its bed, avoiding our eyes, ...	Douglas Manuel	Men & Women,Race & Ethnicity	null
Testify	I swear on the melody of trumpet vines, ants feasting through animal crackers, Burt’s Bees, Tyler Perry movies, my daddy’s .38 slug, footie-socks inside high-top Jordans, disidentification, drag queens, blond dreadlocks, headstones salt-and-peppering the grass, vanilla wafers in banana pudding, Zeus-swan...	Douglas Manuel	Race & Ethnicity	null
His and Hers	She cannot imagine it otherwise. She wakes in the morning and twists her ring, loves how every night in their bed he lies breathing warm in the dark and never shies away. He lets her talk, he lets her sing. She cannot imagine it otherwise. One night she’s surprised how gently he tries to move h...	Diane Gilliam Fisher	Heartache & Loss,Realistic & Complicated,Men & Women	null
First Divorce	There was a bucket, there was a wall, there was a woman and a man. The woman carried the bucket and the man was the wall. There was no place else to go. It was a long, long time for there was much to carry and there was much to wall. There was a path ran straight from the well to the ho...	Diane Gilliam Fisher	Break-ups & Vexed Love,Men & Women	null
Deed	Let it finally be Friday, let me drive downtown before five, park in the one space left open in front and feed the meter the exact change it needs. Let me go into the office, sit and nod, unfold my check on the table and sign. Let the line not be dotted, let it be solid. Let it be my name. Let it be fi...	Diane Gilliam Fisher	Home Life	null
The Hope I Know	doesn’t come with feathers. It lives in flip-flops and, in cold weather, a hooded sweatshirt, like a heavyweight in training, or a monk who has taken a half-hearted vow of perseverance. It only has half a heart, the hope I know. The other half it flings to every stalking hurt. It wears a poker face, qu...	Thomas Centolella	The Mind	null
Namaste	The god in me does not honor the god in you. The god in you murdered me once, and once was more than enough. So the god in me, adept at keeping my nature warm and inspired to love the benign, now prefers the chilly air of indifference, something picked up like a virus from the most vicious of mor...	Thomas Centolella	God & the Divine,War & Conflict	null
Why I'm in Awe of the Spiral	When, in the science museum, I arrive at the overview of our galaxy, with its tiny arrow pointing to You are here (which really ought to be We are here), and see that the two to four hundred billion stars of our local cluster are drifting or chasing or dreaming after each other in circles within milky circ...	Thomas Centolella	Stars, Planets, Heavens,Sciences	null
(“the unwritten volume”)	Elle’s writing her book of wisdom. She writes until she cannot hold her pen. The labyrinth miraculously is uncovered. An American woman’s progressing on her knees. She read something but not Elle’s book. No one will read Elle’s book. I walk the circular path, first the left side, then the right...	Cynthia Hogue	null	null
(“to label something something”)	There was an ancient well-site beneath the labyrinth I did not reach, the part underground, labeled (what else?) The Crypt. But labels always hide something about what they seem to define. They set the thing apart without disclosing why. Alive costs a pretty penny to see The Crypt now.	Cynthia Hogue	null	null
(“to walk the labyrinth is amazing”)	Everything looped, spiraled, circular (thought) But the labyrinth’s not a maze but a singular way to strike “the profoundest chord”across aspire Those who enter the labyrinth can leave (pilgrims sometime don’t) (Elle did not) Inside the largest circle (the labyrinth itself) splits into equal ...	Cynthia Hogue	null	null
A Hymn to the Evening	Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main The pealing thunder shook the heav'nly plain; Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr's wing, Exhales the incense of the blooming spring. Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes, And through the air their mingled music floats. Through all the heav'ns what be...	Phillis Wheatley	null	null
Flowers	This morning I was walking upstairs from the kitchen, carrying your beautiful flowers, the flowers you brought me last night, calla lilies and something else, I am not sure what to call them, white flowers, of course you had no way of knowing it has been years since I bought white flowers—but...	Cynthia Zarin	Home Life,Trees & Flowers	null
Summer	for Max Ritvo I Three weeks until summer and then—what? Midsummer’s gravity makes our heads spin each hour a gilt thread spool, winding through the second hand, gossamer fin de semaine,fin de siècle, fin slicing the water of the too-cold-to-breathe bay, molten silver, then recedin...	Cynthia Zarin	Sorrow & Grieving	null
Japanese Poems	Between the bent boughs of the splayed sumac the silver owl rests his head. The perimeter left by your absence is long to walk in one day. The angel in her credenza of extreme beauty dogs swim the river I look for my heart by the lamp where the light is skitter in the wet black leav...	Cynthia Zarin	Sorrow & Grieving,Trees & Flowers	null
The Lucky Ones	Our labor realized in the crowns of marigolds, blue eyes of the hydrangeas, smell of lavender and late bloom of the hosta’s erect purple flower with its marvel of thick green leaves. In our twilight every year we trimmed back and the garden grew more lustrous and untamable as if the eternal woods and a...	Jill Bialosky	Gardening,Animals	null
The Mothers	We loved them. We got up early to toast their bagels. Wrapped them in foil. We filled their water bottles and canteens. We washed and bleached their uniforms, the mud and dirt and blood washed clean of brutality. We marveled at their bodies, thighs thick as the trunk of a spindle pine, shou...	Jill Bialosky	Parenthood,Sports & Outdoor Activities	null
Jane Austen	“A fine Sunday in Bath empties every house of its inhabitants, and all the world appears on such an occasion to walk about and tell their acquaintance what a charming day it is.” —northanger abbey I awoke from the tunnel to the fields of yellow rape, seventeenth-century buildings, and cobbled...	Jill Bialosky	Travels & Journeys,Reading & Books	null
Anne Frank Huis	Even now, after twice her lifetime of grief and anger in the very place, whoever comes to climb these narrow stairs, discovers how the bookcase slides aside, then walks through shadow into sunlit room, can never help but break her secrecy again. Just listening is a kind of guilt: the Westerkirk repea...	Andrew Motion	War & Conflict	null
Passing On	By noon your breathing had changed from normal to shallow and panicky. That’s when the nurse saidNearly there now, in the gentle voice of a parent comforting a child used to failure, slipping her arms beneath your shoulders to hoist you up the pillows, then pressing a startling gauze pad under your jaw. ...	Andrew Motion	Death	null
A Moment of Reflection	28 June 1914 Although an assassin has tried and failed to blow him to pieces earlier this morning, Archduke Ferdinand has let it be known he will very soon complete his journey as planned along the quay in Sarajevo. For a moment, however, he has paused to recover his composure a...	Andrew Motion	Sports & Outdoor Activities,History & Politics	null
Losses	General Petraeus, when the death-count of American troops in Iraq was close to 3,800, said ‘The truth is you never do get used to losses. There is a kind of bad news vessel with holes, and sometimes it drains, then it fills up, then it empties again’— leaving, in this particular case, the residue of a lo...	Andrew Motion	Poetry & Poets,War & Conflict	null
Laying the Fire	I am downstairs early looking for something to do when I find my father on his knees at the fireplace in the sitting-room sweeping ash from around and beneath the grate with the soft brown hand-brush he keeps especially for this. Has he been here all night waiting to catch me out? So far ...	Andrew Motion	Indoor Activities,Home Life	null
In My Little Room	In my little room, the emperor removes his robe and we chat about the mechanics of winning an election. “I came, I saw, I conquered,” he says. When the moon comes out above the dilapidated warehouse, he asks me the profundity of going to the moon and back again to the same ghetto room. If it pl...	Koon Woon	Money & Economics	null
Let the Chinese Mafia Sleep Tonight	Let them sleep and dream the dream of lobsters; I am likewise at peace in my little cottage trying to become Mr. Five Willows. I figure a crabapple is useful to no one but itself, but my safety depends on having no place where death can enter and not acting on every rustling of the smallest branch. ...	Koon Woon	null	null
Goldfish	The goldfish in my bowl turns into a carp each night. Swimming in circles in the day, regal, admired by emperors, but each night, while I sleep, it turns into silver, a dagger cold and sharp, couched at one spot, enough to frighten cats. The rest of the furniture squats in the cold and dark, ...	Koon Woon	Pets	null
How to Cook Rice	Measure two handfuls for a prosperous man. Place in pot and wash by rubbing palms together as if you can’t quite get yourself to pray, or by squeezing it in one fist. Wash several times to get rid of the cloudy water; when you are too high in Heaven, looking down at the clouds, you can’t see what’s preci...	Koon Woon	Eating & Drinking,Class	null
Kamakura	I don’t recall when I first understood why you stiffen at the roar of low flying jets— Did you tell me, Mother, or did I just know? When you refused to show me the caves like eyes in the hills behind Bah-chan’s house— Did I only dream it, how when the sirens began the trains stopped dead in their...	Mari L'Esperance	War & Conflict	null
Returning to Earth	When Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s defeat over national radio, his divinity was broken, fell away and settled in fine gold dust at his feet. His people understood the gravity of the occasion—a god does not speak over the airwaves with a human voice, ordinary and flecked with static. A god do...	Mari L'Esperance	Disappointment & Failure,History & Politics,War & Conflict	null
Finding My Mother	Near dusk I find her in a newly mown field, lying still and face down in the coarse stubble. Her arms are splayed out on either side of her body, palms open and turned upward like two lilies, the slender fingers gently curling, as if holding onto something. Her legs are drawn up underneath her, as ...	Mari L'Esperance	The Mind,Friends & Enemies	null
The Book of Ash	Near the end of my searching I came to a door. Entering, I found the story of her life, laid out like a cake on an ebony table, as if waiting there for the lost bride—pages flat and placid, blank as a lake asleep in winter. Hoping ...	Mari L'Esperance	null	null
Stepping Crow	Stepping crow. Moon at half mast. Dawn horse, horse, blanket and mule. The fool knows something you don’t. Stepping crow. Both feet in the boat. Books stacked up, and nowhere to store ’em. Decorum is spontaneous order. Stepping crow. Gone north of the Border. Magic in motion and magic at rest. ...	Anthony Madrid	null	null
Maxims 1	The ampalaya, no matter how bitter, Is sweet to those who like it. The hardest person to awaken Is a lover feigning sleep. The basketball held underwater Wants violently to come up. Easily split asunder is that Which never was united. The water is cold at first, for it Takes time to heat th...	Anthony Madrid	Philosophy	null
Maxims 2	Has it coming, the pest. Gets irritated, the stuck up. Gets approval, the dimpled. Gets cold, the talk. The sidewalk separates from the curb. Frogs peek out there. There are passages there, channels. Gardens, orderly, get respect; no one hurts them. Only animals, insects, beings without comprehension...	Anthony Madrid	Philosophy	null
Through the Looking Glass	Mirror, mirror on the wall show me in succession all my faces, that I may view and choose which I would like as true. Teach me skill to disguise what’s not pleasing to the eyes, with faith, that life obeys the rules, in man or God or football pools. Always keep me well content to decorate a...	Veronica Forrest-Thomson	null	null
Literary Historian	I remember them saying, these poems, their something for someone at sometime for me too, at one time. That got in the way; so I sent them away back into history— just temporarily. They won’t come back now. I can’t remember how the words spoke, or what they said, except: We are all d...	Veronica Forrest-Thomson	Poetry & Poets	null
The Hyphen	For the centenary of Girton College i hyphen (Gk. together, in one) a short dash or line used to connect two words together as a compound 1869- 1969 to connect Chapel Wing and Library. But also: to divide for etymological or other purpose. A gap in stone makes actual ...	Veronica Forrest-Thomson	Language & Linguistics	null
Not Pastoral Enough	homage to William Empson It is the sense, it is the sense, controls, Landing every poem like a fish. Unhuman forms must not assert their roles. Glittering scales require the deadly tolls Of net and knife. Scales fall to relish. It is the sense, it is the sen...	Veronica Forrest-Thomson	Poetry & Poets	null
The Guardians	All day we packed boxes. We read birth and death certificates. The yellowed telegrams that announced our births, the cards of congratulations and condolences, the deeds and debts, love letters, valentines with a heart ripped out, the obituaries. We opened the divorce decree, a terrible document of di...	Jill Bialosky	null	null
Homecoming	At the high school football game, the boys stroke their new muscles, the girls sweeten their lips with gloss that smells of bubblegum, candy cane, or cinnamon. In pleated cheerleader skirts they walk home with each other, practicing yells, their long bare legs forming in the dark. Under the arched field ...	Dorianne Laux	null	null
What the Oracle Said	You will leave your home: nothing will hold you. You will wear dresses of gold; skins of silver, copper, and bronze. The sky above you will shift in meaning each time you think you understand. You will spend a lifetime chipping away layers of flesh. The shadow of your scales will always remain. You w...	Shara McCallum	Living,Coming of Age,Disappointment & Failure,Life Choices,Nature,Seas, Rivers, & Streams,Social Commentaries	null
The Hot Dog Factory (1937)	Of course now children take it for granted but once we watched boxes on a conveyor belt, sliding by, magically filled and closed, packed and wrapped. We couldn't get enough of it, running alongside the machine. In kindergarten Miss Haynes walked our class down Stuyvesant Avenue, then up Prospect Street t...	Grace Cavalieri	null	null
The Significance of Location	The cat has the chance to make the sunlight Beautiful, to stop it and turn it immediately Into black fur and motion, to take it As shifting branch and brown feather Into the back of the brain forever. The cardinal has flown the sun in red Through the oak forest to the lawn. The finch has caught it in y...	Pattiann Rogers	Relationships,Pets,Nature,Animals,Stars, Planets, Heavens	null
History Textbook, America	I'd search for Philippines in History class. The index named one page, moved on to Pierce.The Making of America marched past my enigmatic father's place of birth. The week he died some man we didn't know called up. This is his brother, one more shock,phoning for him. "He died three days ago." The leaden bl...	JoAnn Balingit	Relationships,Family & Ancestors,Social Commentaries,History & Politics,Race & Ethnicity	null
Proem	Not, in the saying of you, are you said. Baffled and like a root stopped by a stone you turn back questioning the tree you feed. But what the leaves hear is not what the roots ask. Inexhaustibly, being at one time what was to be said and at another time what has been said the saying of you remains the ...	Martin Carter	Life Choices,Language & Linguistics	null
Haiti	For the earth has spoken, to you, her magma Creole. Full-throated syllables, up- rising from deep down, an honest elocution — rudimentary sound: guttural nouns, forthright, strong, the rumbled conviction of verbs unfettered by reticence as the first poetry of creation. A secret has passed between...	Jennifer Rahim	Arts & Sciences,Language & Linguistics,Social Commentaries,Cities & Urban Life,History & Politics,Race & Ethnicity	null
ain't that easy	when i look at my life i feel like bursting into tears marriage and mental illness vintage washed michael jackson graphic spiritual disco grieving ritual sell your body to your horse-eyed past little fictions somebody got to sing and somebody got to play the squaw last time i saw him last...	erica lewis	Living,Life Choices,Separation & Divorce,Sorrow & Grieving,Love,Break-ups & Vexed Love,Arts & Sciences,Music,Social Commentaries,Race & Ethnicity	null
Between The Griffon and Met Life	I am totally enamored of every person passing in this unseasonably warm mid-March evening near 39th and Park The young women, of course, with their lives in front of them, and the young men too, just standing here as I am, checking it out, hanging out, talking But everyone here, every age, every type, is...	Vincent Katz	Living,Time & Brevity,Love,Infatuation & Crushes,Nature,Spring,Social Commentaries,Cities & Urban Life	null
Cold Sore Lip Red Coat	What if I ate too much food there being Not enough money immigranty And save all the ketchup packets George Carlin record on the record player saying how many ways you can curse and they are all funny (small brown bird with a black neck and a beak full of f...	Hoa Nguyen	Living,Youth,Activities,Eating & Drinking,Relationships,Home Life,Arts & Sciences,Humor & Satire,Social Commentaries,History & Politics,Money & Economics	null
Imaginary Book	Imaginary book on Imaginary paper in Imaginary hands Imaginary dance on Imaginary floor in Imaginary lands Imaginary phone and Imaginary car Imaginary raising of Imaginary bar Imaginary kid Imaginary tree Imaginary you makes Imaginary three Imaginary soul Imaginary d...	Julien Poirier	Living,The Mind,Arts & Sciences,Reading & Books	null
The Lamp of Mutual Aid	Many nights while walking home after work, from downtown to an apartment below a market, I’d think of Alfred Espinas: “We do not get together to die, but to live and to improve life.” Sudden changes of weather and contagious diseases nearly broke the spirits of many friends that winter, but char...	Joshua Edwards	Activities,Jobs & Working,Relationships,Friends & Enemies,Social Commentaries,History & Politics,Money & Economics	null
After Noise	and who are you now in this different blue space without pain remarking on chemtrails and snowmelt, misreading the “sea” whose letters cease to arrive remain transfixed in midflight turbulent coasts aloft as a principle of life-- count invisible clams under n...	Sueyeun Juliette Lee	Living,Sorrow & Grieving,Activities,Travels & Journeys,Nature,Landscapes & Pastorals	null
Relationships	Family, lover, colleague. Notions, veneers, nation. Teeth of no health insurance. A boom can be a microphone affixed to a pole and not an explosion. Shadows, we sweep at them constantly and on the table is chocolate, newspapers, commentary, and vastly different pay stubs. I lean in to y...	Jill Magi	null	null
Lifting My Daughter	As I leave for work she holds out her arms, and I bend to lift her . . . always heavier than I remember, because in my mind she is still that seedling bough I used to cradle in one elbow. Her hug is honest, fierce, forgiving. I think of Oregon's coastal pines, wind-bent even on quiet days; they've grown in...	Joseph Hutchison	null	null

On the 20th National Anniversary

On the morning of the 20th National Day my uncle came home and told us: “All our troops have got into position, for the Russians may throw an atom-bomb on us today.” After breakfast he returned to the headquarters, but I had to go to school and join the celebration. The fear oppressed my back lik...

Ha Jin

Coming of Age,War & Conflict

null

Hello, Baihua Mountain

The sound of a guitar drifts through the air. Cupped in my hand, a snowflake quivers lightly. Thick patches of fog draw back to reveal A mountain range, rolling like a melody. I have gathered the inheritance of the four seasons. There is no sign of man in the valley. Picked wild flowers continue to grow,...

Bei Dao

Landscapes & Pastorals

null

Declaration

for Yu Luoke Perhaps the final hour is come I have left no testament Only a pen, for my mother I am no hero In an age without heroes I just want to be a man The still horizon Divides the ranks of the living and the dead I can only choose the sky I will not kneel on the ground ...

Bei Dao

Death,Crime & Punishment

null

Black Map

in the end, cold crows piece together the night: a black map I've come home—the way back longer than the wrong road long as a life bring the heart of winter when spring water and horse pills become the words of night when memory barks a rainbow haunts the black market my father's life-spark small...

Bei Dao

Travels & Journeys

null

The Good Provider

The best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact. My mother took my heart out. She banked it on top of her stove. It glowed white. She put it back in my chest. Tita knew that overseas workers often had affairs. He licked me and I pretended it pinged through my body like a swift idea ...

Sarah Gambito

Home Life,Animals

null

Getting Used to It

She brightens at the evidence. Like a strong appliance. You can make it hot. Grown ass people having tantrums. I’m unbought, unheated. Like a perfectly square morsel of lasagna. A wrathful rubics cube. To realize, I wish to ridicule people interested in martial arts. That I’m not ...

Sarah Gambito

Family & Ancestors,Humor & Satire,Race & Ethnicity

null

Rapproachement

The art of war teaches us to rely not on the chance of the enemy not attacking but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. —Sun Tzu My father called me a chink so I’d know how to receive it. So I wouldn’t be surprised. Therefore the good soldier will be ...

Sarah Gambito

Home Life,Race & Ethnicity

null

Immigrant Song

All birds—even those that do not fly —have wings A constant confession Admission of omission This is your punctuated equilibrium And everything in between Slow it down The moment of extinction The death of the last individual of a species (Let’s put it aside for now) Stay with it ...

Sun Yung Shin

Family & Ancestors,Animals

null

Over the Course of Several Decades Following the Korean War, South Korea Became the World’s Largest Supplier of Children to Developed Countries

Some(where a) woman wears the face once given. Possessions scarce we go halves on slant of eye & span of palm with cousin & other ghosts. Where is the man with the face lent mother? Fathers rare; infant found at Shinkyo police station box—official shoes careened around fortune ...

Sun Yung Shin

History & Politics

null

(Riot Police)

This is you—Titanus giganteus, your maw snapping pencils in half and cutting through human flesh. My encyclopedia chokes on your bulk. My camera, timid, afraid to look, as if you’re naked—not one adult male, but millions. Few garments sound as fine as flak jacket, the best of the tagmata the thorax, more pri...

Sun Yung Shin

Cities & Urban Life,History & Politics

null

(Demilitarized Zone)

Like a wedding ring, or the bride’s green ribbon, you shelter me. No business but war. You remind me of a kind of heaven. A cairn of rocks casting shadows in the shape of a man. Thou art the table before me in the sight of my adversaries, thou dost anoint my head: oil and rain, thou art a ghost with ...

Sun Yung Shin

War & Conflict

null

Return of the Native

Because of time being an arrow, I had to imagine everything. I had to fold the song with my mind because of the time being. Wash the rice here, in the present. Because of the arrow I pent up the fourth wall as though I were diapering my own newborn. I put time to the breast, though I feared i...

Sun Yung Shin

Time & Brevity

null

Seventh Sphere (Saturn: The Contemplatives)

No more hangings, no more gas chambers. No one allowed to remain in the center of the labyrinth, guarding their dna from the world, from the future. No more contemplation, no more waste. Everyone leaning toward paradise. Shields down and the word enemy will pass from memory. You are my kind.

Sun Yung Shin

History & Politics

null

His Mother's Hair

The last time he cut his mother’s hair the rude morning sun left no corner of her kitchen private, the light surgically clean where it fell on his scissors. Her hair fell in a blonde circle on the lake blue tile—smell of coffee and cinnamon; her laughing shook her head, Hold still...

April Ossmann

Sorrow & Grieving

null

Dust to Dust

Nevermind that keeping ashes on the mantel feels ghoulish, and comically impractical: not just another thing, a miniature memento urn, to dust, but dust to dust— I dread the conversational Hara-kiri, not, that’s what’s leftof my brother, but, he died of suicide: the chasm o...

April Ossmann

Death,Sorrow & Grieving

null

O, Chicago, O'Hare

One among the shifting mass of humanity intent on countless destinations, one hungry stomach and dry mouth among many, one brain dazed by the speed and altitude of flights unnatural to any animal, by herding, followed by waiting succeeded by rushing, waiting, herding— ...

April Ossmann

Travels & Journeys

null

A Wish

I wanted to give you something for your pain. But not the drug du jour or the kind word this side of cliché. Something you wouldn’t find on a talk show, in a department store or dark alleyway. I wanted to give you something for your pain but I couldn’t imagine what. Frankincense, myrrh—even gold ...

Thomas Centolella

Death,The Body

null

View #45

after Hokusai and Hiroshige I dreamt half my life was spent in wonder, and never suspected. So immersed in the moment I forgot I was ever there. Red-tailed hawk turning resistance into ecstasy. The patrolmen joking with the drunk whose butt seemed glued to the sidewalk. ...

Thomas Centolella

Life Choices,The Mind

null

The Orders

One spring night, at the end of my street God was lying in wait. A friend and I were sitting in his new sedan like a couple of cops on surveillance, shooting the breeze to pass the time, chatting up the daydreams, the raw deals, all the wouda-coulda-shoulda’s, the latest “Can you believe that?” A...

Thomas Centolella

The Body,Crime & Punishment

null

“In the Evening We Shall Be Examined on Love”

—St. John of the Cross And it won’t be multiple choice, though some of us would prefer it that way. Neither will it be essay, which tempts us to run on when we should be sticking to the point, if not together. In the evening there shall be implications our fear will change to complicati...

Thomas Centolella

Love

null

Lines of Force

The pleasure of walking a long time on the mountain without seeing a human being, much less speaking to one. And the pleasure of speaking when one is suddenly there. The upgrade from wary to tolerant to convivial, so unlike two brisk bodies on a busy street for whom a sudden magnetic attraction is a ...

Thomas Centolella

Travels & Journeys,Landscapes & Pastorals

null

Anti-Elegy

for TNH There are those who will never return to us as we knew them. Who if they return at all visit our sleep, or daydreams, or turn up in the features of total strangers. Or greet us face to face in the middle of some rush hour street, but from a great distance—and not in the full flu...

Thomas Centolella

Sorrow & Grieving

null

Small Acts

Whitman thought he could live with animals, they were so placid and self-contained, not one of them dissatisfied. I have lived with animals. They kept me up all night. Not only tom cats on the prowl, and neurotic rats behind my baseboards, scratching out a slim existence. There were cattle next door in the...

Thomas Centolella

Animals,Trees & Flowers

null

Mood Ring

Inside me lived a small donkey. I didn’t believe in magic, but the donkey was a sucker for the stuff. Psychics, illusionists, arthritics who’d predict the rainfall. That was the year I had trouble walking. I over-thought it and couldn’t get the rhythm right. The donkey re-taught me. “This foot. Yes, th...

Jaswinder Bolina

The Body,Animals

null

Operating Dictates for a Particle Accelerator

pulse light starts there starts getting smaller All that you can’t remember, Claire says. , With two glass eyes I’m wobbling down a walkway inflecting aloha no thumbtacks, attached no pins, To ...

Jaswinder Bolina

null

Employing My Scythe

I’m standing in field 17 of the long series, employing my scythe. Sometimes a conceptual dog bounds past me, though it’s never my conceptual dog. Occasionally future laureates gather for colloquium, though they’re rarely my future laureates. Thus, evening proceeds precisely the way the handbook describes...

Jaswinder Bolina

Jobs & Working,Travels & Journeys

null

Elephant Armageddon

NYTimes headline for September 4th 2012: Elephants Dying in Epic Frenzy As Ivory Fuels Wars and Profits They return to the site whence they came with eyes tearful, with psalms trumpeting the air. They stand ever so watchful; guarding the graves of their ghosts and their kind. ...

Gerard Malanga

Living,Death,Sorrow & Grieving,Activities,Travels & Journeys,Nature,Animals,Religion,The Spiritual,Social Commentaries,War & Conflict

null

Real Complex Key Shifts

Toward summer or its dependence On demarcations in the sandy vial Some tree spelling astronaut onto a Planet’s arm, it stopped making sense. I am not an apothecary or a wave Or a dog by the 15th hole, I am not A light sparking a whole country’s demise. I will never be a towel holding someone’s Sunscr...

Amanda Nadelberg

Living,The Mind,Religion,Faith & Doubt

null

Mom Betty Addresses the Nature of Proportion

After “She was the song of my dark hour,” a photograph by Paul Tañedo I woke up and I was old— It’s hard to judge if this new country was worth its costs— Fil and Eileen educated themselves— They blessed me with their happiness— Roy and Glen lost themselv...

Eileen R. Tabios

Living,Growing Old,Parenthood,Sorrow & Grieving,Love,Heartache & Loss,Relationships,Family & Ancestors

null

Memorial Day

All that's left is the shroud the back wings. Roaches scurrying in the kitchen. There’s no greater threat than this time at hand. Drunken cackles from the street. Still damp from 4 AM rain. I missed the instr...

Sunnylyn Thibodeaux

Relationships,Home Life,Nature,Animals

null

All Kinds of Fires Inside Our Heads

The number of bodies i have is equal to the number of gurney transfers that are televised. If we’re all “just human” then who is responsible? A fire station drying out from addiction. outside the drizzling of firepower, lowballing suns it’s like a sauna in here. the strain of a ch...

Nikki Wallschlaeger

Living,Death,Health & Illness,Life Choices,Social Commentaries,Race & Ethnicity

null

Keough Hall

November 9, 2016 University of Notre Dame minutes felt like hours "deplorables knocking at your door" he shouted the day after—“build the wall— we're building a wall around your room!" minutes felt like hours "cowards!" you managed,...

Francisco Aragón

Activities,School & Learning,Social Commentaries,History & Politics,Race & Ethnicity

null

Perihan

it doesn’t matter when I cross. two seconds and they’re gone. the ferry facing Ulus. the trees that spanked of green. the narrow bags of temples. beyond that – just – these Peri scenes when the human body sweats the skin produce an oil when Peri bodies sweat ...

Sara Deniz Akant

Relationships,Family & Ancestors,Arts & Sciences,Language & Linguistics,Mythology & Folklore,Fairy-tales & Legends

null

Book Review: The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford

Spoiler alert: in this all-but-forgotten masterwork, Jean Stafford—who was once widely regarded as the leading novelist of her generation, and who wrote this perverse, short, lyrical novel, her second, during the flailing failings of her marriage to my hero Robert Lowell—kills Molly, he...

Craig Morgan Teicher

Coming of Age,Death,Reading & Books

null

Small Shame Blues

I live with the small shame of not knowing the multiple names for blue to describe the nightsky over New Mexico to describe the light in my lover’s eyes. It is a small shame that grows. I live with the small shame which resides in the absences of my speech as I pause to search for the word in S...

Dan Vera

Family & Ancestors,Language & Linguistics

null

Norse Saga

Let us praise the immigrant who leaves the tropics and arrives in Chicago in the dead of winter. Let us praise the immigrant who has never worn coats who must bundle up against an unimaginable cold. For they will write letters home that speak of it like Norse sagas with claims that if a f...

Dan Vera

Winter,Cities & Urban Life

null

Handsome Caudillos

Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal en...

Dan Vera

History & Politics,War & Conflict

null

José Dominguez, the First Latino in Outer Space

In that very first episode the transmission is received on the starship Enterprise that Space Commander Dominguez urgently needs his supplies. Kirk tells Uhura to assure him that the peppers are “prime Mexican reds but he won’t die if he goes a few more days without ’em.”Calm down Mexican.You can wait a fe...

Dan Vera

Popular Culture,Race & Ethnicity

null

lucky number 7 (or indications that I’d be a lesbian)

when i was 7, i hoped rocks would whisper the secret to being hard. fascinated by Keisha’s skin so soft, i seduced her into humping even though she was five years my senior and my babysitter—click of the light covers snatched away like a magic trick reveal i could hear Keisha wail one floor up through th...

T'ai Freedom Ford

Coming of Age,Gay, Lesbian, Queer

null

how to get over ["be born: black..."]

be born: black as ants on a chicken bone black as Nina Simone and Mahalia’s moan black as rock pile smile and resilience black as resistance and rhythm and Sonny’s blues black as no shoes and dirt floors black as whore and Hottentot foxtrot Lindy Hop and Watusi pussy and pyramids black ...

T'ai Freedom Ford

Popular Culture,Race & Ethnicity

null

how to get over ["when the poem flirts..."]

for those of us who can’t quite quit her when the poem flirts similes hugging her thighs like a tight skirt: consider the possibilities. if the poem follows you home, whiskey pickling her tongue: make her coffee, black. if the poem arrives dressed ...

T'ai Freedom Ford

Desire,Poetry & Poets

null

still life—color study

July 13, 2013 Saturday afternoon: in the driveway between buildings they blow up balloons—yellow, red, blue—for a 3-year-old’s party. The intermittent pops startle me like random gunfire—remind me of birthdays brown boys will no longer celebrate. The DJ, having set up...

T'ai Freedom Ford

Birth & Birthdays,Crime & Punishment,Race & Ethnicity

null

Battleground

It showed the War was as my father said: boredom flanked by terror, a matter of keeping low and not freezing. “You wore your helmet square,” he said, not “at some stupid angle, like that draft-dodger Wayne,” who died so photogenically in The Sands of Iwa Jima. Those nights I heard shouts from the...

William Trowbridge

Home Life,War & Conflict

null

Please, Not That Again

How burdensome they seemed, wartime oldies that could drive our parents teary: “I’ll Be Seeing You,” with its hint of being swept off in a global riptide; or the shaky follow-up of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” followed by a shakier “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree (with Anyone Else But Me),...

William Trowbridge

Coming of Age,Music

null

Loud Looks

You better rap, my brother says—he can b-box his ass off. Got DJ scratches and spins, will drop it on the two and four, the three and four. Whatever you need. Me posing my bars: My flowsare second to none, come here,son. See how it’s done. Wanted to be a rapper? Check. Thought I was goi...

Douglas Manuel

Coming of Age,Music,Popular Culture

null

Washing Palms

When the junkies my father sold crack to got too close to me, he told them to back up six dicks’ lengths. This is the man who when I was seven caught me under the bed crying and said: Save those tears. You’ll need them later. The man who told me he smoked crack because he liked it, the man sitti...

Douglas Manuel

Family & Ancestors,Home Life

null

Heading Down

We shouldn’t raise mixed babiesin the South, Kay says as I drive up the crest of another hill on our way into Kentucky. The South, where humidity leaves a sweat mustache, where a truck with a Confederate flag painted on the back windshield skitters in front of us. In its bed, avoiding our eyes, ...

Douglas Manuel

Men & Women,Race & Ethnicity

null

Testify

I swear on the melody of trumpet vines, ants feasting through animal crackers, Burt’s Bees, Tyler Perry movies, my daddy’s .38 slug, footie-socks inside high-top Jordans, disidentification, drag queens, blond dreadlocks, headstones salt-and-peppering the grass, vanilla wafers in banana pudding, Zeus-swan...

Douglas Manuel

Race & Ethnicity

null

His and Hers

She cannot imagine it otherwise. She wakes in the morning and twists her ring, loves how every night in their bed he lies breathing warm in the dark and never shies away. He lets her talk, he lets her sing. She cannot imagine it otherwise. One night she’s surprised how gently he tries to move h...

Diane Gilliam Fisher

Heartache & Loss,Realistic & Complicated,Men & Women

null

First Divorce

There was a bucket, there was a wall, there was a woman and a man. The woman carried the bucket and the man was the wall. There was no place else to go. It was a long, long time for there was much to carry and there was much to wall. There was a path ran straight from the well to the ho...

Diane Gilliam Fisher

Break-ups & Vexed Love,Men & Women

null

Deed

Let it finally be Friday, let me drive downtown before five, park in the one space left open in front and feed the meter the exact change it needs. Let me go into the office, sit and nod, unfold my check on the table and sign. Let the line not be dotted, let it be solid. Let it be my name. Let it be fi...

Diane Gilliam Fisher

Home Life

null

The Hope I Know

doesn’t come with feathers. It lives in flip-flops and, in cold weather, a hooded sweatshirt, like a heavyweight in training, or a monk who has taken a half-hearted vow of perseverance. It only has half a heart, the hope I know. The other half it flings to every stalking hurt. It wears a poker face, qu...

Thomas Centolella

The Mind

null

Namaste

The god in me does not honor the god in you. The god in you murdered me once, and once was more than enough. So the god in me, adept at keeping my nature warm and inspired to love the benign, now prefers the chilly air of indifference, something picked up like a virus from the most vicious of mor...

Thomas Centolella

God & the Divine,War & Conflict

null

Why I'm in Awe of the Spiral

When, in the science museum, I arrive at the overview of our galaxy, with its tiny arrow pointing to You are here (which really ought to be We are here), and see that the two to four hundred billion stars of our local cluster are drifting or chasing or dreaming after each other in circles within milky circ...

Thomas Centolella

Stars, Planets, Heavens,Sciences

null

(“the unwritten volume”)

Elle’s writing her book of wisdom. She writes until she cannot hold her pen. The labyrinth miraculously is uncovered. An American woman’s progressing on her knees. She read something but not Elle’s book. No one will read Elle’s book. I walk the circular path, first the left side, then the right...

Cynthia Hogue

null

(“to label something something”)

There was an ancient well-site beneath the labyrinth I did not reach, the part underground, labeled (what else?) The Crypt. But labels always hide something about what they seem to define. They set the thing apart without disclosing why. Alive costs a pretty penny to see The Crypt now.

Cynthia Hogue

null

(“to walk the labyrinth is amazing”)

Everything looped, spiraled, circular (thought) But the labyrinth’s not a maze but a singular way to strike “the profoundest chord”across aspire Those who enter the labyrinth can leave (pilgrims sometime don’t) (Elle did not) Inside the largest circle (the labyrinth itself) splits into equal ...

Cynthia Hogue

null

A Hymn to the Evening

Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main The pealing thunder shook the heav'nly plain; Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr's wing, Exhales the incense of the blooming spring. Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes, And through the air their mingled music floats. Through all the heav'ns what be...

Phillis Wheatley

null

Flowers

This morning I was walking upstairs from the kitchen, carrying your beautiful flowers, the flowers you brought me last night, calla lilies and something else, I am not sure what to call them, white flowers, of course you had no way of knowing it has been years since I bought white flowers—but...

Cynthia Zarin

Home Life,Trees & Flowers

null

Summer

for Max Ritvo I Three weeks until summer and then—what? Midsummer’s gravity makes our heads spin each hour a gilt thread spool, winding through the second hand, gossamer fin de semaine,fin de siècle, fin slicing the water of the too-cold-to-breathe bay, molten silver, then recedin...

Cynthia Zarin

Sorrow & Grieving

null

Japanese Poems

Between the bent boughs of the splayed sumac the silver owl rests his head. The perimeter left by your absence is long to walk in one day. The angel in her credenza of extreme beauty dogs swim the river I look for my heart by the lamp where the light is skitter in the wet black leav...

Cynthia Zarin

Sorrow & Grieving,Trees & Flowers

null

The Lucky Ones

Our labor realized in the crowns of marigolds, blue eyes of the hydrangeas, smell of lavender and late bloom of the hosta’s erect purple flower with its marvel of thick green leaves. In our twilight every year we trimmed back and the garden grew more lustrous and untamable as if the eternal woods and a...

Jill Bialosky

Gardening,Animals

null

The Mothers

We loved them. We got up early to toast their bagels. Wrapped them in foil. We filled their water bottles and canteens. We washed and bleached their uniforms, the mud and dirt and blood washed clean of brutality. We marveled at their bodies, thighs thick as the trunk of a spindle pine, shou...

Jill Bialosky

Parenthood,Sports & Outdoor Activities

null

Jane Austen

“A fine Sunday in Bath empties every house of its inhabitants, and all the world appears on such an occasion to walk about and tell their acquaintance what a charming day it is.” —northanger abbey I awoke from the tunnel to the fields of yellow rape, seventeenth-century buildings, and cobbled...

Jill Bialosky

Travels & Journeys,Reading & Books

null

Anne Frank Huis

Even now, after twice her lifetime of grief and anger in the very place, whoever comes to climb these narrow stairs, discovers how the bookcase slides aside, then walks through shadow into sunlit room, can never help but break her secrecy again. Just listening is a kind of guilt: the Westerkirk repea...

Andrew Motion

War & Conflict

null

Passing On

By noon your breathing had changed from normal to shallow and panicky. That’s when the nurse saidNearly there now, in the gentle voice of a parent comforting a child used to failure, slipping her arms beneath your shoulders to hoist you up the pillows, then pressing a startling gauze pad under your jaw. ...

Andrew Motion

Death

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A Moment of Reflection

28 June 1914 Although an assassin has tried and failed to blow him to pieces earlier this morning, Archduke Ferdinand has let it be known he will very soon complete his journey as planned along the quay in Sarajevo. For a moment, however, he has paused to recover his composure a...

Andrew Motion

Sports & Outdoor Activities,History & Politics

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Losses

General Petraeus, when the death-count of American troops in Iraq was close to 3,800, said ‘The truth is you never do get used to losses. There is a kind of bad news vessel with holes, and sometimes it drains, then it fills up, then it empties again’— leaving, in this particular case, the residue of a lo...

Andrew Motion

Poetry & Poets,War & Conflict

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Laying the Fire

I am downstairs early looking for something to do when I find my father on his knees at the fireplace in the sitting-room sweeping ash from around and beneath the grate with the soft brown hand-brush he keeps especially for this. Has he been here all night waiting to catch me out? So far ...

Andrew Motion

Indoor Activities,Home Life

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In My Little Room

In my little room, the emperor removes his robe and we chat about the mechanics of winning an election. “I came, I saw, I conquered,” he says. When the moon comes out above the dilapidated warehouse, he asks me the profundity of going to the moon and back again to the same ghetto room. If it pl...

Koon Woon

Money & Economics

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Let the Chinese Mafia Sleep Tonight

Let them sleep and dream the dream of lobsters; I am likewise at peace in my little cottage trying to become Mr. Five Willows. I figure a crabapple is useful to no one but itself, but my safety depends on having no place where death can enter and not acting on every rustling of the smallest branch. ...

Koon Woon

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Goldfish

The goldfish in my bowl turns into a carp each night. Swimming in circles in the day, regal, admired by emperors, but each night, while I sleep, it turns into silver, a dagger cold and sharp, couched at one spot, enough to frighten cats. The rest of the furniture squats in the cold and dark, ...

Koon Woon

Pets

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How to Cook Rice

Measure two handfuls for a prosperous man. Place in pot and wash by rubbing palms together as if you can’t quite get yourself to pray, or by squeezing it in one fist. Wash several times to get rid of the cloudy water; when you are too high in Heaven, looking down at the clouds, you can’t see what’s preci...

Koon Woon

Eating & Drinking,Class

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Kamakura

I don’t recall when I first understood why you stiffen at the roar of low flying jets— Did you tell me, Mother, or did I just know? When you refused to show me the caves like eyes in the hills behind Bah-chan’s house— Did I only dream it, how when the sirens began the trains stopped dead in their...

Mari L'Esperance

War & Conflict

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Returning to Earth

When Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s defeat over national radio, his divinity was broken, fell away and settled in fine gold dust at his feet. His people understood the gravity of the occasion—a god does not speak over the airwaves with a human voice, ordinary and flecked with static. A god do...

Mari L'Esperance

Disappointment & Failure,History & Politics,War & Conflict

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Finding My Mother

Near dusk I find her in a newly mown field, lying still and face down in the coarse stubble. Her arms are splayed out on either side of her body, palms open and turned upward like two lilies, the slender fingers gently curling, as if holding onto something. Her legs are drawn up underneath her, as ...

Mari L'Esperance

The Mind,Friends & Enemies

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The Book of Ash

Near the end of my searching I came to a door. Entering, I found the story of her life, laid out like a cake on an ebony table, as if waiting there for the lost bride—pages flat and placid, blank as a lake asleep in winter. Hoping ...

Mari L'Esperance

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Stepping Crow

Stepping crow. Moon at half mast. Dawn horse, horse, blanket and mule. The fool knows something you don’t. Stepping crow. Both feet in the boat. Books stacked up, and nowhere to store ’em. Decorum is spontaneous order. Stepping crow. Gone north of the Border. Magic in motion and magic at rest. ...

Anthony Madrid

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Maxims 1

The ampalaya, no matter how bitter, Is sweet to those who like it. The hardest person to awaken Is a lover feigning sleep. The basketball held underwater Wants violently to come up. Easily split asunder is that Which never was united. The water is cold at first, for it Takes time to heat th...

Anthony Madrid

Philosophy

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Maxims 2

Has it coming, the pest. Gets irritated, the stuck up. Gets approval, the dimpled. Gets cold, the talk. The sidewalk separates from the curb. Frogs peek out there. There are passages there, channels. Gardens, orderly, get respect; no one hurts them. Only animals, insects, beings without comprehension...

Anthony Madrid

Philosophy

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Through the Looking Glass

Mirror, mirror on the wall show me in succession all my faces, that I may view and choose which I would like as true. Teach me skill to disguise what’s not pleasing to the eyes, with faith, that life obeys the rules, in man or God or football pools. Always keep me well content to decorate a...

Veronica Forrest-Thomson

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Literary Historian

I remember them saying, these poems, their something for someone at sometime for me too, at one time. That got in the way; so I sent them away back into history— just temporarily. They won’t come back now. I can’t remember how the words spoke, or what they said, except: We are all d...

Veronica Forrest-Thomson

Poetry & Poets

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The Hyphen

For the centenary of Girton College i hyphen (Gk. together, in one) a short dash or line used to connect two words together as a compound 1869- 1969 to connect Chapel Wing and Library. But also: to divide for etymological or other purpose. A gap in stone makes actual ...

Veronica Forrest-Thomson

Language & Linguistics

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Not Pastoral Enough

homage to William Empson It is the sense, it is the sense, controls, Landing every poem like a fish. Unhuman forms must not assert their roles. Glittering scales require the deadly tolls Of net and knife. Scales fall to relish. It is the sense, it is the sen...

Veronica Forrest-Thomson

Poetry & Poets

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The Guardians

All day we packed boxes. We read birth and death certificates. The yellowed telegrams that announced our births, the cards of congratulations and condolences, the deeds and debts, love letters, valentines with a heart ripped out, the obituaries. We opened the divorce decree, a terrible document of di...

Jill Bialosky

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Homecoming

At the high school football game, the boys stroke their new muscles, the girls sweeten their lips with gloss that smells of bubblegum, candy cane, or cinnamon. In pleated cheerleader skirts they walk home with each other, practicing yells, their long bare legs forming in the dark. Under the arched field ...

Dorianne Laux

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What the Oracle Said

You will leave your home: nothing will hold you. You will wear dresses of gold; skins of silver, copper, and bronze. The sky above you will shift in meaning each time you think you understand. You will spend a lifetime chipping away layers of flesh. The shadow of your scales will always remain. You w...

Shara McCallum

Living,Coming of Age,Disappointment & Failure,Life Choices,Nature,Seas, Rivers, & Streams,Social Commentaries

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The Hot Dog Factory (1937)

Of course now children take it for granted but once we watched boxes on a conveyor belt, sliding by, magically filled and closed, packed and wrapped. We couldn't get enough of it, running alongside the machine. In kindergarten Miss Haynes walked our class down Stuyvesant Avenue, then up Prospect Street t...

Grace Cavalieri

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The Significance of Location

The cat has the chance to make the sunlight Beautiful, to stop it and turn it immediately Into black fur and motion, to take it As shifting branch and brown feather Into the back of the brain forever. The cardinal has flown the sun in red Through the oak forest to the lawn. The finch has caught it in y...

Pattiann Rogers

Relationships,Pets,Nature,Animals,Stars, Planets, Heavens

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History Textbook, America

I'd search for Philippines in History class. The index named one page, moved on to Pierce.The Making of America marched past my enigmatic father's place of birth. The week he died some man we didn't know called up. This is his brother, one more shock,phoning for him. "He died three days ago." The leaden bl...

JoAnn Balingit

Relationships,Family & Ancestors,Social Commentaries,History & Politics,Race & Ethnicity

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Proem

Not, in the saying of you, are you said. Baffled and like a root stopped by a stone you turn back questioning the tree you feed. But what the leaves hear is not what the roots ask. Inexhaustibly, being at one time what was to be said and at another time what has been said the saying of you remains the ...

Martin Carter

Life Choices,Language & Linguistics

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Haiti

For the earth has spoken, to you, her magma Creole. Full-throated syllables, up- rising from deep down, an honest elocution — rudimentary sound: guttural nouns, forthright, strong, the rumbled conviction of verbs unfettered by reticence as the first poetry of creation. A secret has passed between...

Jennifer Rahim

Arts & Sciences,Language & Linguistics,Social Commentaries,Cities & Urban Life,History & Politics,Race & Ethnicity

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ain't that easy

when i look at my life i feel like bursting into tears marriage and mental illness vintage washed michael jackson graphic spiritual disco grieving ritual sell your body to your horse-eyed past little fictions somebody got to sing and somebody got to play the squaw last time i saw him last...

erica lewis

Living,Life Choices,Separation & Divorce,Sorrow & Grieving,Love,Break-ups & Vexed Love,Arts & Sciences,Music,Social Commentaries,Race & Ethnicity

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Between The Griffon and Met Life

I am totally enamored of every person passing in this unseasonably warm mid-March evening near 39th and Park The young women, of course, with their lives in front of them, and the young men too, just standing here as I am, checking it out, hanging out, talking But everyone here, every age, every type, is...

Vincent Katz

Living,Time & Brevity,Love,Infatuation & Crushes,Nature,Spring,Social Commentaries,Cities & Urban Life

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Cold Sore Lip Red Coat

What if I ate too much food there being Not enough money immigranty And save all the ketchup packets George Carlin record on the record player saying how many ways you can curse and they are all funny (small brown bird with a black neck and a beak full of f...

Hoa Nguyen

Living,Youth,Activities,Eating & Drinking,Relationships,Home Life,Arts & Sciences,Humor & Satire,Social Commentaries,History & Politics,Money & Economics

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Imaginary Book

Imaginary book on Imaginary paper in Imaginary hands Imaginary dance on Imaginary floor in Imaginary lands Imaginary phone and Imaginary car Imaginary raising of Imaginary bar Imaginary kid Imaginary tree Imaginary you makes Imaginary three Imaginary soul Imaginary d...

Julien Poirier

Living,The Mind,Arts & Sciences,Reading & Books

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The Lamp of Mutual Aid

Many nights while walking home after work, from downtown to an apartment below a market, I’d think of Alfred Espinas: “We do not get together to die, but to live and to improve life.” Sudden changes of weather and contagious diseases nearly broke the spirits of many friends that winter, but char...

Joshua Edwards

Activities,Jobs & Working,Relationships,Friends & Enemies,Social Commentaries,History & Politics,Money & Economics

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After Noise

and who are you now in this different blue space without pain remarking on chemtrails and snowmelt, misreading the “sea” whose letters cease to arrive remain transfixed in midflight turbulent coasts aloft as a principle of life-- count invisible clams under n...

Sueyeun Juliette Lee

Living,Sorrow & Grieving,Activities,Travels & Journeys,Nature,Landscapes & Pastorals

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Relationships

Family, lover, colleague. Notions, veneers, nation. Teeth of no health insurance. A boom can be a microphone affixed to a pole and not an explosion. Shadows, we sweep at them constantly and on the table is chocolate, newspapers, commentary, and vastly different pay stubs. I lean in to y...

Jill Magi

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Lifting My Daughter

As I leave for work she holds out her arms, and I bend to lift her . . . always heavier than I remember, because in my mind she is still that seedling bough I used to cradle in one elbow. Her hug is honest, fierce, forgiving. I think of Oregon's coastal pines, wind-bent even on quiet days; they've grown in...

Joseph Hutchison

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