Nobody cries for the rock turned into a statue. There is no one to mourn the statue, on its patient way to dust… I want to praise the scar. You shall know them by their scars. * * * Никой не плаче за камъка, превръщан в статуя. Няма кой да оплаче статуята, по търпеливия път към прахта… […]
Poetry
True Confessions by Steve Davenport (German translation by Änne Troester, Spanish translation by Octavio Quintanilla)
1 The ball fields under the old bridge are lit, the fences are short, and the river stinks some nights like dead fish and men sweating after work and cigarettes, beer and piss. Here the catcher squats, toad in a jersey. I’m on deck and there’s this married woman. I’m counting the syllables of a […]
Fishers of Men by Paul Crenshaw
for Paul Between the ridges mirrored on water, in the cold aspect of an October dawn with the quick wind in our faces, my great uncle and I watch the kingfishers lifting off the river we have come to know in the silent places of our hearts. An eagle scans us as we pass, sentinel […]
Vintage Gallery of Our Ruined Affair by Anne Barngrover and Avni Vyas
Foxes are the new owls are the new bluebirds. I forget to miss you, forget to pine or oak or beech you. Nothing is fashionable anymore except jewelry that might electrocute or a craft hour where you build a pipe bomb. Flannel, bagels and cappuccinos are a time capsule back to feminism— but I still […]
Pillow Talk, Brunch, then Cowboy Boots by Anne Barngrover and Avni Vyas
There are worse things to count than failures. Pink and taut, a slab of meat twitches in the crockpot like a gymnast’s muscle. Tonight I parse the cook time by redness. When it’s the color of my lips, it’s time to pour the Wild Turkey and bash in the spider webs. In heels I can […]
Cheat by Ryo Yamaguchi
The vendor calls the sandwiches by what’s not on them. We are localized—everything is at risk; the season hangs in a stiff haw. As a way of being instituted, I have been copied. I have been made in the image. O heuristic of common motion, to where do I walk when this has all gone […]
At the Memorial Park by Kirby Wright
I bring yellow heliconia and red torch ginger. You’re planted on a rise beside the shower tree. Diamond Head looms in the background. You’re too low to see the ocean. You’re planted on a rise beside the shower tree. Show people you love ‘em when they’re alive, you said. You’re too low to see the […]
Canyonlands National Park by Jeffrey Taylor
A suicidal pheasant offered himself to me as sunrise peeled the thin skin off a dreaming canyon. The tree-line and hills cracked knuckles. This silly bird snapped his own neck against a hackberry stump. So strange. I gathered him up— quietly mourning. On the hood of my truck, desert heat loosened soft meat from bird-ribs […]
you and self: do not force the lust weak-willed by Maggie Rosenau
prosody + bibliomancy landing at Cendrars = I. why not cut through a rabble with rutting eyes and hands (would he like this?) the man wants to worship the worship of your mouth and his member, II. and i his rhythmic locution— to wake up a prosodic unit and inhale and exhale first slow, then […]
The Tomato by Mary Quade
A Retelling The forbidden—a tomato, arousing its vine. Sin abides in tendrils— no need for a snake, for the fork in a tongue. She takes her teeth to its skin. Knowledge isn’t crisp; it succumbs to her searching. No need for metaphor— all flesh and seed. Pomodori The ecstasy of green kindling to red— this […]
