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Rachel Contreni Flynn The Match Girl Lights Them One By One I must not envy sparrows. I must not punish my body. I must not pull the wings off. I must not disinfect everything. I must not shrivel into dust mites. I must not dream inside a chimney. I must not seek comfort from this. |
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Ian Randall Wilson A Journalistic Approach to the Mysteries Oh my lead paragraph, my bridge, my inverted pyramid of love— all things depend on the placement of object to observer. This morning when I rolled on top of you. There were many facts in the beginning and at the end, few. I like the way a period can jump to the size of a planet over night. I'm aware of the new geometry which tells us the coastline of England has never been measured. It's true: They keep parsing things into smaller pieces and the damned beach gets longer. If just once I could nail my thoughts to the southern wall and observe them— These days I look for a reaction, the turn of the cat's head by the window. I have the words but not the feelings. When things reverse I don't know what to say. I'll have to wait for someone who can explain things clearly and in a voice that doesn't sound. |
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Dean Young Unrestraining Order Ever since coming to this blunderous city famous for crab and mildew, I haven't had it easy. Comrades stabbing each other over institutional affiliation, no one understanding the parking restrictions. Yet you remain before me like a blackbird erased from a blackboard oh yeah and wah wah while I saw nary a crab, I felt encouraged by ye distant spires, ye antique towers, ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, ye living lamps by whose clear light I searched for my contact lens. But I was younger then, walking by the sea as recommended by Rilke, looking for your number. One of my teachers thinks because rabbits have no natural enemy in Australia, all you have to do is be a rabbit in Australia. One of my students swallows a thorn thus transforming himself into solid callous. Me? I struggle with twinkle lights and ladders. I struggle with the mattress on the stairs but still you do not come. Yet once more, o ye laurels, once more you do not come, you do not do, you do not do, you meaner beauties of the night I will never see naked enough but when I finally sip at sleep you call: Meet me in New Jersey! but then you are not there and me, a college professor. In one version, every other word is ouch, another yippee. The wind wants in and when I let it, immediately it wants back out. |
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Frances Sjoberg On Rouault: Chorus 1 the artist moves with the staggering step of a paralytic male to female, man to man;—as a rule his hope is folly we cannot exactly narrate the plot or sum his message up it is not worth yielding to its lures; his work is the last violent twist in the history of the nude male to female, man to man;—as a rule his hope is folly as to the burden of meaning, we seek in thickly laid impasto or light unfettered hues the last violent twist in the history of the nude revolving around his own meanderings he compels the gentle ones to turn to monsters of depravity whether thickly laid impasto or light unfettered hues he puts his finger in a pot of paint and smears it into the inferno of brutal and ugly even the gentle ones turn to depravity the message seems to be: man's fate upon earth is tragic a descent into the inferno of brutal and ugly with the staggering step of a paralytic we cannot exactly narrate the plot or sum his message up |
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Shauna Hannibal Wrong Vesicle The light from the setting sun shone through the cracks in the glass of forever. I thought this must be what it's like inside a red balloon on a hot, clear day in the park. The man just made a goddamn big mistake. Wrong testicle. But it's February, too early for the monkey-hand tree to bloom. |
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William Waltz Assistant to the Stars Governor piledrives Jawbone of Late Show into Turnbuckle. He's Action Figure with intermittent impetigo. I stash alibis under grandstands in green mint boxes. Careers have family trees. I am cut man, idea guy, right-hand man with two right hands. I am from elsewhere. Yesterday Hidden Camera arrived and for a moment I felt nostalgic for Times we were all dreamers, so I opened my black box and offered First Lady a peek. She was busy teasing her hair into Shape of Mushroom Cloud. Tomorrow, ten thousand undulating fingers; Governor will graze their tips, symbiotic fish gliding by anesthetic tentacles. I will maintain my distance from Vortex, smelling salts ready, the glass exoskeleton pulsing between my fingers as if it were a honey bee. |
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Sarah Manguso Two Attempts To Explain What I Do 1. The Romans had a good proverb: Brave men lived before Agamemnon. It means that writing is a good approximation of the universe, but only a corollary to it. 2. I read my mother a line from Chekhov. Isn't it good? I ask in the silence afterward. That's why he was famous, she says. |