IN name of the Holy Spirit of grace, In name of the Father of the City of peace, In name of Jesus who took death off us, Oh! in name of the Three who shield us in every need, If well thou hast found us to-night, Seven times better mayest thou leave us without harm, […]
by Wallace Stevens Is it Ulysses that approaches from the east, The interminable adventurer? The trees are mended. That winter is washed away. Someone is moving On the horizon and lifting himself up above it. A form of fire approaches the cretonnes of Penelope, Whose mere savage presence awakens the world in which she dwells. […]
You who let yourselves feel: enter the breathing …that is more than your own. Let it brush your cheeks as it divides and rejoins behind you. Blessed ones, whole ones, you where the heart begins: You are the bow that shoots the arrows and you are the target. Fear not the pain. Let its weight […]
by Arthur Rimbaud Translated from the French by Louise Varése If I’ve a taste, its not alone For the earth and stones, Rocks, coal, iron, air, That’s my daily fare. Turn my hungers, hungers browse On the field of sound, Suck up bindweed’s gay venom Along the ground. Eat the pebbles that one breaks, Churches’ […]
by Adam Zagajewski You who see our homes at night and the frail walls of our conscience, you who hear our conversations droning on like sewing machines —save me, tear me from sleep, from amnesia. Why is childhood—oh, tinfoil treasures, oh, the rustling of lead, lovely and foreboding— our only origin, our only longing? Why […]
by Matthew Zapruder It may feel good to go wherever. Desires lead you into old familiar destructive awareness. Going a thousand miles away seems to be keeping up. Unsettled and anxious signals: They’re so microscope. Be a sleuth. Tiny sparkling under those around you sees you feeling and waiting. Life today is slow-moving coworkers. Respond […]
by Mary Oliver You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the […]
by Dianne Bilyak In our world nothing sets, it turns. Galileo observed this through a weak lens, saw the strongest of Jupiter’s moons as four points of light shifting their positions in time. And even when he could not, he discovered they were only concealed by the cyclic eclipses of steady, celestial motion, by rotations […]
by Adam Zagajewski In a small black town, your town, where even trains linger unwilling, anxious to be on their way, in a park, defying soot and shadows, a gray building stands lined with mother-of-pearl. Forget the snow, the frost’s repeated blows; inside you’re greeted by a damp anthology of breezes and the enigmatic whispers […]
(excerpt) by Michael Dickman Our crowns look nothing like his crown needles and light and needles of light fingers stamen Our crowns are made of dead hair and get swept out with the trash or ripped out by hand Our capes are bath towels wrapped around our necks and fastened with giant safety pins Not […]