Poetry

As Far As You Know

A. F. Moritz

 

When you last saw me I was waiting
and now that you will never see me again
for all you know I still am. The time
it turned out was the last time I was sitting

Animal Kingdom

Amy Roa

 

The first finback whale took an evolutionary leap onto land,
and the president was on TV,
shaking the whale’s fin,
all sleek and blubber.

Middle of the Movie

Andrew Saviano

 

The TV is on mute: a slender man
in a towel shoos a moth from the sill
of an open door, while on the porch appears

After Seeing the Irish Modern Dance Theatre’s Lear

Catherine Staples

 

Slow light is breaking
beyond the donkey’s pasture.
Inside the darkened house
brightness rims the shutters.  

Hurricane

Catherine Staples

 

The harbor hardly sleeps at night, what with
listening in, glittering. Masts hover and sway
while keels answer in watery knocks, their own way

In a Hurry

Catherine Staples

 

It’s the peeling birch and the lake glimpsed through it,
sheets buckling in wind, the emerald seams of moss
between pavers, three children rounding a bend.

The Nest in Winter

Kimiko Hahn

 

In the Father’s shadowy hoard
pillows belch feathers across
mattress and floors:

What Feeds on Want

John Rybicki

 

I row with the wind in my apple-wood skin,
maw on crow’s dust and raw turnips.
What feeds on want behind the masks of houses?

California Christmas

Noah Warren

 

A year of rain in an hour.
Then dawn. On the Quikcrete
patio a leaden mirror.

On Sundays

Willie Perdomo

 

On Sundays we composed our own music.

Tapped a nickel against a mailbox,
pounded the wall with the heel of our
palms, and sought a demo-type sound.

Beret

Natania Rosenfeld

 

Strange word for so simple
a thing as a flat felt hat.

Don’t forget your bear-ay,
my mother’d say, and I thought it

Nick

Natania Rosenfeld

 

You nicked me
now give me back,
un-wrinkled.

Unbudgably Yours

Samuel Hazo

 

Summering in Pennsylvania
  and wintering in Florida
  would give me two addresses.

Albuquerque Aubade

Randy Blasing

 

Making a pilgrimage to Albuquerque
to give thanks I cheated heart surgery
of a bad outcome only last month,

Hasty Pudding

Stanley Moss

 

On a road leading to where I used to live,
thoughts go back to friends who would visit,
most now are in places quite exquisite,

Against Pessimism

Vona Groarke

 

I remember there was a big bridge
with a toll, and for once I had change.
The river was a shadow of itself below

Against Anxiety

Vona Groarke

 

A cartoon rider on a horse so real
it shits and stalls and rears against the rider
it’s been saddled with in this narrative.

The Old Country

Vona Groarke

 

I came out of that country
with one suitcase
crammed with newspaper,
seeds in every fold.

Perspective

Carolie Parker

 

There is one pointtwo point and pointless
(I am referring to some of
the excesses of Canaletto).

Light Steps

Jeredith Merrin

 

Sorrow, keep calm.
Evening—you asked for it—has come.
Darkening streets (depending who you are)
bring peace, or fear.

Verklärte Nacht

Bruce Bond

 

The dawn of the age is an old tune just barely in d minor.
You can go there, listen, hear what Arnold Schoenberg heard

Boats

Hailey Leithauser

 

Boats are sad folks
as they rock
and they rock tied

Dove Song

Hailey Leithauser

 

Murmurous muezzin, hedge-
hiding, no reason to
silence for never I’d harm
you, not Rueheart, not

Invitation

Hailey Leithauser

 

Slovenly blondes, mussed
and unbuttoned,
in feathering snow,
in ice-burst of spring,

Jar Song

Don Bogen

 

How could I calm the ache
that drifted through my sleep?
A plain ceramic jar,
rounded at the lip,

The Sandy Hook Fire

Henry Hart

 

Like a monk hunched over gilded letters,
my brother studied flies hatching on the Pootatuck,
picked a red and gold Parmachene Belle
from a metal box, tied it to a tippet

On Atrazine

Zoë Hitzig

 

“Well I drank it,” says the scientist
When they ask him what he has
Done with the contaminated
Water. “There is less in the lab’s

Proxy Means

Zoë Hitzig

 

A test. In a morning
Blue suit the Census taker
Drops his credentials
And picks them up

Nostalgia

James Arthur

 

The museum was closed, so no one saw
the statue of Adam
tumble to the floor, and break. No one saw
the plywood pedestal
 

Prospects from the Palisades

John Koethe

 

We’re always other people, whoever they are.
I’m grateful to poets’ biographies—a genre nearly as
Obsolete as its subjects—for helping me make myself up,