how dull
the clarity
of brine shrimp
to a heart
set on
Sea Monkeys
the clarity
of brine shrimp
to a heart
set on
Sea Monkeys
Millicent Bee
from The Surface World
Who shot the Alabama kid? Gunshow cock robin yields to lore. That’s not enough anymore. Chicago on the horizon. Invasions are everywhere. The mesquite trees are winning. It is time of year when the weather can’t settle – right before the assault of the histamines – painted by Nicolas Poussin. Something to look forward to at the bus stop or in the graveyard. I am told we are winning the war.
Seth Copeland
from The Surface World
If I try to write about now, will now try to kill me ;?: Hush you. There’s always more to endure. Lindsey chases a spring around his perfect universe in the apartment. Germs say similar things about us to each other.
What survives of the moment must be true to what people were really feeling. This is not boundary stele – bas relief of the smitten Hyksos. Let it be known the people wanted bread.
Stevie runs by stalking something on the floor. Their night is not our fight. They will wake to the same world.
Seth Copeland
from The Surface World
St. Patrick’s Day or I am always reborn in Dublin
Read old poets right old poems. That’s the way of it. When I was a baby bard, I tried out Romantic phrases w/ anon and blithe & wrenched wretched syntax. Goofy shit, but no practice is wasted. Rumi is still telling us to take off the mask, ol’ Bill Billiams the doctor man must always tell us the young sycamore, on & on like famine & war, and the teams head brass and that goddamned yellow square of charlock narrowed and narrowed. Mohamad Mossadegh sleeps in his living room on the isle of Avalon. Sunday night’s blizzard is already drifts eaten away. Some of it doesn’t stay. And then it will again.
Seth Copeland
The Pain
Pain never knocks. It has its own key. At first it rearranges the furniture, then the photographs. One morning I discover it wearing my face. Visitors still ask, “How are you?” Pain smiles before I do. It has become polite. That is how I know it plans to stay.
Subhash Roy Choudhury
Detour Through Troy
The antique shop sells
unlabeled VHS tapes.
One of them contains
a man teaching silence
to a room full of clocks.
unlabeled VHS tapes.
One of them contains
a man teaching silence
to a room full of clocks.
Sarp Sozdinler
Poem
despite evidence to the contrary
in her mouth
was a green door
ebb tide
a deep blue ocean
on the other side
Lafcadio
Poem
under the beach apple tree
the green-skinned saints
are all on meds
the green-skinned saints
are all on meds
Patrick Sweeney
Poem
if he’s not the son of man,
who’s wearing one sneaker on the burning off-ramp
who’s wearing one sneaker on the burning off-ramp
Patrick Sweeney
Moshe
The door had given up on locks.
It wasn’t the kind of door most people pushed.
Greeted by steep stairs peeling.
Pigeonholed behind glass
he held our freedom in bejewelled hands.
Rubied beacons caught in bulb light
blinking an S.O.S. I chose to ignore
your softly spoken voice laced with danger.
It wasn’t the kind of door most people pushed.
Greeted by steep stairs peeling.
Pigeonholed behind glass
he held our freedom in bejewelled hands.
Rubied beacons caught in bulb light
blinking an S.O.S. I chose to ignore
your softly spoken voice laced with danger.
Marcus Slingsby
the other bunny 