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poetry: results 217–240 of 735

Amuse Bouche, or "The Art of the Kiss"  by MICHAEL DE LOS REYES

17 March 2008
Vol. 8, No. 1

what comes to pass

at the pass


of stitches, of interstices


of wet weather on sandy rocks?

pirate  by MICHAEL S. RERICK

11 March 2008
Vol. 8, No. 1

in maiz, in maiz, gentle, ease

y with the cutlass easy maiz,

steady with the cutlass gentle

boarding axe, plank by plank

Objects, a History  by MICHAEL S. RERICK

9 March 2008
Vol. 8, No. 1
prose poem

Swiss, great-grandmother says "blood" to the row of the riverboat gently covering its tracks. Father defends their western terms, "I'm no wagon, no horse." Anchored—land, land ho—grandfather's in the motor, radio, hull, in the rain. Aunt J says "he touched it, it's ruined" and pops bread from a bread pan. Uncles talk Canada, a state away, with its good hunting, fishing.

Khmer Orphan, American Girl and Her Red Bandana  by CATHERINE STRISIK

4 March 2008
Vol. 8, No. 1

Say, "remove your red bandana" and even her doll's eyes blink—

even the Mekong stops flowing,

even the small Khmer orphan.

The throw-away camera aims, and shoots an expression, arm-distance away.

Knuckles  by ALLISON SHOEMAKER

2 March 2008
Vol. 8, No. 1

He called

my thumb the knuckled tornado; called me

darling when we hid in the closet,

giggling, fumbling, splendid. That was the roast,

the rest was gravy.

Above the Roof  by ROB SCHLEGEL

26 February 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4

In black branches hanging

over the roof, four or five

crab apples, overripe. Even

when no one is looking, walls

exhibit images made by the troubled hands.

Packing List  by ROB SCHLEGEL

24 February 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4

Washed from my hands

a thin film after shelving

jars filled with leeches pond

lilies green stems so when

the time comes to extract

bad blood mixing with the good

I feel nothing…

Gacela of Flooding Love  by J. P. DANCING BEAR

20 February 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4

Because your water is discovered by clouds

rising into the rapt blue abyss of sky,

now your body is love, on the rise, a mist.

Gacela of Unforgotten Love  by J. P. DANCING BEAR

18 February 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4

If anyone asks: did you ever love? Say that

a moth was born from leaves and landed

on your tongue, like fingers plucking the harp strings.


And though it was not pronounced

you knew that an angelic form had come

with dusty wings.

Mouth  by ELIZABETH KERLIKOWSKE

16 February 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4
ghazal

Scallop of the top lip crowned in points, full pout

of the lower lip, teeth even ivories, an aristocratic mouth.


Before alar and DDT and GMO's, she was a red stone

in a cling peach whose stem was an aromatic mouth.

Love Song  by RAINER MARIA RILKE

15 February 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4
classic, translation

Yet everything that touches us, me and you,

takes us together like a violin's bow,

which draws one voice out of two separate strings.

Camomile Tea  by KATHERINE MANSFIELD

14 February 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4
classic, rhyme

We might be fifty, we might be five,

So snug, so compact, so wise are we!

Under the kitchen-table leg

My knee is pressing against his knee.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.  by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

13 February 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4
classic, sonnet, rhyme

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

For Michaela, who can't stand work anymore  by CHRISTIEN GHOLSON

11 February 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4

The only store in walking distance

is the one for the rich. So many aisles; bright

and convenient as Dinner-Nirvana: Tofu

from Iowa, rice from California, cherries

from Chile. Everything fresh-

frozen in plastic. I can feel The Invisible-Hand-

of-the-Market reaching into my pants.

Epistolary  by JILL ALEXANDER ESSBAUM

6 February 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4

Dear BLANK.

I shall be brief, but frank,


Terse if not curt, aloof, though unswerving—

What little we had amounted to nothing.

The Nyctophobe  by JILL ALEXANDER ESSBAUM

4 February 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4

It's a furnace of the first place, fever of mine.

The mattress can't be trusted. I suture shut my eyelids.

I align my terrors to their predetermined brinks.

But the bed that is my boat, slopes lee side,


Then sinks.

First Fall  by JILL ALEXANDER ESSBAUM

2 February 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4

Then Winter.

Then Spring.


Then came those seasons

That splinter from the seasons.


Then came the ring

That I wore without good reason.

To Winter  by WILLIAM BLAKE

1 February 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4
classic

'O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:

The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark

Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,

Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.'

Postcard from a Nude Beach  by RICHARD GARCIA

30 January 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4
prose poem

The waves, as if they were ashamed, roll up to it tentatively, and just before they reach the shore, they turn back.

Undecided  by RICHARD GARCIA

28 January 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4
prose poem

On the treadmill, he did not know if he was walking forward or backward. It was the same when he was stopped in traffic and the cars started to move and his car seemed to be drifting backward and he slammed on the breaks.

Gone August  by REBECCA BYRKIT

26 January 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4
ghazal, rhyme

Gone grazin'. You Boch-drunk. Clink of spoons on sunglasses—

Me, girl gone glisterlight. Whitehot malaise in the grasses


Gone soft aspen slantlight that blisters, then passes—

Gone your kisses, O my Clearing! Wildwooded ways in the grasses…

Disclosure  by BRIAN D. MORRISON

24 January 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4

A break is a labor

precise as bonework,


a steady dismantling

of dichotomy: …

Frost at Midnight  by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

21 January 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4
classic

The Frost performs its secret ministry,

Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry

Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.

The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,

Have left me to that solitude, which suits

Abstruser musings: save that at my side

My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.

There's a certain slant of light,  by EMILY DICKINSON

20 January 2008
Vol. 7, No. 4
classic

There's a certain slant of light,

On winter afternoons,

That oppresses, like the weight

Of cathedral tunes.


Heavenly hurt it gives us;

 

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