Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Mar 16, 2022 - 5:26am
Elegy Patrick Cabello Hansel
On your face, your beloved face, your sweat skinned face, the remnant grace of mother, father hidden there, the wind of years, the triumphs and the savagery, on your springtime harvest nightfall sunlit face, let me linger there. Let me touch it as a baby, my fingers unfolded gently, my voice harboring no words, let me touch my face to your face, Father, let us be here, face to face, in this land we have sown and reaped, in that time that has no wind, no words to worry, let us touch, Father, let us linger, let us be.
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Mar 8, 2022 - 4:49am
Dark Charms
by Dorianne Laux
Eventually the future shows up everywhere:
those burly summers and unslept nights in deep lines and dark splotches, thinning skin. Here's the corner store grown to a condo, the bike reduced to one spinning wheel, the ghost of a dog that used to be, her trail no longer trodden, just a dip in the weeds. The clear water we drank as thirsty children still runs through our veins. Stars we saw then we still see now, only fewer, dimmer, less often. The old tunes play and continue to move us in spite of our learning, the wraith of romance, lost innocence, literature, the death of the poets. We continue to speak, if only in whispers, to something inside us that longs to be named. We name it the past and drag it behind us, bag like a lung filled with shadow and song, dreams of running, the keys to lost names.
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Mar 7, 2022 - 5:14am
NEXT YEAR
by Gary Johnson
When we win the lottery next year,
Let’s buy a flat in Paris, France, And I will worship you, my dear, In lovely rooms with flowering plants. Me, a somewhat endearing old relic, A jowly but still charming man, And you my darling, rather angelic
Reclining prettily on a silk divan.
When I’m tired and don’t feel well,
Pack me off to a nice hotel With Egyptian sheets and fresh-cut flowers And room service is 24 hours. When I die, which I will do, Wear black for a month or two, Then look around, find someone new.
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Feb 25, 2022 - 4:37am
Everything but God
by Anne Pierson Wiese
In Europe you can see cathedrals
from far away. As you drive toward them across the country they are visible—stony and roosted on the land—even before the towns that surround them. In New York you come upon them with no warning, turn a corner and there one is: on 5th Avenue St. Patrick's, spiny and white as a shell in a gift shop; dark St. Agnes lost near a canal and some housing projects in Brooklyn; or St. John the Divine, listed in every guidebook yet seeming always like a momentary vision on Amsterdam Avenue, with its ragged halo of trees, wide stone
steps ascending directly out of traffic.
Lately I have found myself unable
to pass by. The candles' anonymous wishes waver and flame near the entrance, bright numerous, transitory and eternal as a migration: the birds that fly away are never exactly the same as those that return. The gray, flowering arches' ribs rise until they fade, the bones so large and old they belong to an undetected time on earth. Here and there people's small backs in prayer, the windowed saints' robes' orchid glow, the shadows—ghosts of a long nocturnal snow from a sky below when we did not yet exist, with our questions tender as burns.
Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and Iâve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways Iâll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and thatâs a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.
Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and Iâve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways Iâll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and thatâs a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.
Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.
EMILY DICKINSON I YEARS had been from home, And now before the door, I dare not open, lest a face I never saw before Stare vacant into mine And ask my business there. My business, — just a life I left, Was such still dwelling there? I fumbled at my nerve, I scanned the windows near; The silence like an ocean rolled, And broke against my ear. I laughed a wooden laugh That I could fear a door, Who danger and the dead had faced, But never quaked before. I fitted to the latch My hand with trembling care, Lest back the awful door should spring, And leave me standing there. I moved my fingers off As cautiously as glass, And held my ears, and like a thief Fled gasping from the house.
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Jan 1, 2022 - 5:53am
Another Year
by Gary Johnson
Another year gone and the old man with the scythe
Is mowing closer. He hasn’t been subtle, has he. Too many good people gone, and I could sit and cry For them except that you look exceptionally snazzy Despite the miles on your odometer, As if you have a few more aces up your sleeve, Maybe you were born under a lucky comet or Maybe it’s the wine, but I do believe When I look at you and take your hand you’re Positively glowing. Maybe we’ve been sorry a Long enough time and now we get some grandeur And do our dance and sing our aria. May this year bring us before it has flown All we would have wished for had we only known.
Location: On the edge of tomorrow looking back at yesterday. Gender:
Posted:
Dec 20, 2021 - 5:15pm
Tomorrow the winter solstice creeps up upon us Wearing wings of fractal flakes made of fluffy white snow It says that it needs to trust those of us To make all those worthy a happy warm glow
