Category Archives: Poetry

trees iii

by Donald Kuspit

not as deeply rooted
                            as you,
not as beholden
                   to the sun,
the moon my infinity,
                             the darkness
my method,
              i also need the sky,
ascend to the unplaceable,
                                      urgent
in clouds
             of consciousness,
shifting shape
                  with every blink,
my eye bound
                to the boundless
as your peak
                is bound to the plenitude,
indistinct
              in the inevitable emptiness
that surrounds
                  the enigma,
bounds us both
                  to the earth,
toiling upward
                  until there is only down,
awaiting our decay,
                           the fall
into memory,
                relieved at last
from the heights,
                     for striving
for the inconceivable
                             once called heaven.

Other work by Donald Kuspit:

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trees iv

by Donald Kuspit

rise wordlessly,
                        clouds the only wit
left in the sky,
                        its emptiness
dispelling
              the bitterness
of thought,
               the thunderstorms
of the gods futile,
                       their wisdom
wasted in echoes,
                     finally abandoned
in the silence.
                   your leaves rustle
with the first music,
                         the wind ferments
your freshness,
                   you grander than time
as you cast your shadow
                               on space,
lifting me to the heights
                                 of wonder.

Other work by Donald Kuspit:

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Diego Rivera Posing with Giant Papier-mâché Devil and Girl

by Stephen Gibson

When the papier-mâché devil moves its arms

to fondle the breasts of the papier-mâché girl,

for Diego, it is like the peasant with his bedroll

when the papier-mâché devil moves its arms:

there is no difference, because each performs

what each is, just like figures in Diego’s murals

when the papier-mâché devil moves its arms

to fondle the breasts of the papier-mâché girl.

Other work by Stephen Gibson:

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In Memoriam C. E. 1957 – 2014

by Stephen Gibson

                                                                  At the Egyptian Museum of the Vatican

 

I followed a woman from one room into the next.

With light ahead, her dress became transparent.

What was she wearing? Was she pantyless?

I followed the woman from one room into the next.

She stopped at the foot of a female-faced sarcophagus

with gold-leaf and lapis for its final garment—

she wasn’t its Ka appearing in this world from the next—

just a woman, with light ahead, her dress transparent.

Other work by Stephen Gibson:

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A Dog’s Bark (No. 3)

by Kelly Cherry

You think a dog can’t talk?

Listen to his bark.

He says he loves you.

He says, These people are all right

but I want you to myself.

He says, Who cares about politics

philosophy

religion

or global economics?

I care about you

you

you.

You are my heart

my salvation

my everything.

He says these things over and over,

and after awhile, you begin to believe him.

You can trust him.

He has your back.

He says he loves you

and you love him back.

Other work by Kelly Cherry:

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On a Violet

by Kelly Cherry

So commonly we see a single violet

Curated in a simple vase—clay pot

Or shallow dish, the dish perhaps a piece

Of Blue Willow-ware, a practically antique pattern

 

By now. The violet is shy and makes no claim

On the black, moistened earth from which it springs:

A modest flower with modest expectations.

Its tint is carefully calibrated between

 

Red and blue, not quite purple—almost one would say

A color that doesn’t exist in the real world

Except here it is, indisputably real.

What shall we make of this? That the real world

 

Grows more mysterious even as we look at it?

That the more we look at the world, the more we see?

 

Do the violet in the Blue Willow bowl and we who view it

Exist in a conspiracy of perception?

Other work by Kelly Cherry:

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The Visitors

by Kelly Cherry

The light was off, the room black-dark.

In black-dark, the bedroom filled

with the shapes and selves of those I’d known

when they were living. Slowly they filed

 

past me—mother, father, brother

and friends, the friends of a lifetime

and others I’d known for the length of a reading

or conference or academic term.

 

So many gone. They pressed so close

to the bed I thought I might be crushed.

I switched the night lamp on: the room,

as empty as air, was bright and hushed.

Other work by Kelly Cherry:

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It was during a trip beyond the hills

by Rosa Alice Branco. Translated by Alexis Levitin

from Live Concert

 

It was during a trip beyond the hills.

There were paths in our words and the sound of flutes

creeping to the edges of the road. They came from the river,

everything came from the river or from our gaze lit by terraced vineyards

dropping toward their watery reflection. “If we go that way,”

you would say on the map, but we, assiduous, got ourselves lost,

for in each of us deep changes were occurring

and we didn’t want them to leave us.

In each map another one was happening, spreading

in our hands. The flowers beside the road were changing

colors and the fallen trunks were pythons, “don’t laugh, Joni,

I swear they were, laugh your heart out somewhere else.”

Later on you’d say the branch there in the middle of the road,

maybe it was the light, then again, you couldn’t say,

looked fallen from a still-life.

 

It was you who were no more, filling

all the spaces of your absence

Other work by Rosa Alice Branco and translated by Alexis Levitin:

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