issue 36 > poetry

• Two poems from Live Concert

  by Rosa Alice Branco. Translated by Alexis Levitin.

  “You spent the afternoon throwing stones at the chickens”
  running back and forth in the yard

  “Parents think of the children of others”
  as children dressed in the upright propriety 

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• American History Quiz Photos

  by Stephen Gibson

  1932: the Dust Bowl: five kids sleep on cots, open tent-flap:
  Is that worn out woman ma or grandma resting beside them?

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• Cribs

  by Stephen Gibson

  In a tour of ancient brothels in Pompeii, our guide explains
  a slave girl became what was taught her in the crib.

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• Rome

  by Stephen Gibson

  The Hotel Russie’s brochure claims its linens are the softest, its toiletries
  “organic”; here, Cocteau picked oranges from trees on his hotel balcony.

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• unworldly

  by Donald Kuspit

  bliss it was not to be born
  this world wanting 

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• Second childhood

  by Donald Kuspit

  Second childhood,
  The grave before the grave,

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• Wonder

  by Donald Kuspit

  Oh that the wonder had not passed,
  The words been forgotten,

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• Words

  by Donald Kuspit

  Words witless, broken, moaning,
  Hanging on a thread of thought,

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• Kundalini

  by Michele Leavitt

  Stretched out on this windowsill,
  a yard long, end to end,

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• Long-Tailed Weasel in Fog

  by Michele Leavitt

  Brushstroke through a watercolor wash in coal,

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• The Right to Oblivion

  by David Slavitt

  Mostly it's Google's problem, but the French
  assert it, because fame doesn't last and shouldn't.  

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• Zouaves

  by David Slavitt

  Their aggressively wide, white, gauzy pantaloons
  and broad scarlet sashes mock the precision 

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• A Walk Long After Class

  by Lee Slonimsky

  Three ways to start a poem, I tell my morning students:
  an image, word, or an abstract idea.

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• Poet at Work

  by Lee Slonimsky

  A courtesan of loops, this wind-smoothed oak:
  at 10 AM, branch-curlicues of white 

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• Light everywhere evenly at once

  by Alice Teeter

  Your mother looks at the light
  dawning through the trees.

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• Rock face

  by Alice Teeter

  On this mountain there is a granite cliff
  that stretches for hundreds of yards

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• Shadows

  by Alice Teeter

  Once the sun crests the rim of the world
  on the mountain to the east

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• Your Mother's View

  by Alice Teeter

  Your mother’s view is wide –
  a sweeping vista of the valley

  Once the sun crests the rim of the world
  on the mountain to the east

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• Embrace

  by Lewis Turco

  The winter is wearing its whitest winter face.

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• Gloss on a Line by Whitman

  by Lewis Turco

  Darkness slips out of the moon

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