Contributed By: Alistair Noon, Osip Mandelshtam
Against the pale-blue enamel
that April makes conceivable,
the branches of the birch-trees stand
and gradually turn into evening.
Their pattern is sharp and complete,
the stiffened gauze is fine,
like a drawing that someone has neatly
traced out on a plate of china.
Some merciful artist has performed
that design on the glassy heavens,
knowing the transience of such force,
oblivious to the sorrow of death.
1909
Return to table of contents for Issue 3 Fall 2010
Last summer your skin tasted of orange peel, of ephemeral lies buried deep in your lungs. Never more than two words: that hurts, or like that, right there. Every- thing inside me became unlocked, the Stanley knife you stole that looked as though it could barely break flesh, the love letters […]
Ben and I drink five pitchers of Michelob Light at the bowling alley. Outside, Ben pisses on a car tire. It is Friday, near midnight. On the interstate not far away headlights sweep past. I search for my keys under arc-sodium lights. Ben has a cigarette in his mouth, his head tilted back so the […]
The experience of reading a thoughtful and responsible critic who severely questions the value of certain poems is crucial for anyone seeking a deeper relation to poetry. This is true whether the poems are by Milton or Wordsworth or our contemporaries. If you float along year after year reading poetry without encountering any severely demanding […]
