Posts filed under ‘Poetry’
Poetry: “Equation,” by Donald Illich
Keep this secret word
you spray inside my
bedroom. Fire, wish,
comb were abandoned
as too functional.
This is your thesaurus
with break in case of
disaster glass over it.
The numbered secret
you kept in my textbook
is so unknown
mathematicians plot
against you. How do you
figure anything out?
The equation of language
with numbers is dangerous.
Terminate the tongue
with a following beyond
the page. Let it blacken
before their vaults.
Poetry: “What Might Reasonably Be Called People,” Nick Lehner
Something from the comic books—
yes, that’s a good beginning. We’ll start
out unreal and fantastic, turning dark
and graphic in time. Fantastic. Shazam,
kapow. Inset—a face with tears puddling,
unrealistic eyepools of sorrow, balloon
filled with Father! father! or exclamations
equally italicized and important. Some
thing of import, so that later when blood
burbles from enemy chest, we know
the motivation. It’s important to know
the motivation. We might reasonably
be called people, but then again we’re alien
forces, battling and uncertain, juxtaposed
against the bright world of justice.
Life forces nonetheless, not robotic
but vital, seething. Seething. It seems
important to repeat certain things.
Others can be written once, erased or
consigned to some shelf. Dusty, arcane.
Where to place emphasis. What to outline
in black. Sketched like this, we look
like people, only graphic, creatures of graphite,
dark smudges imperfectly drawn against
surreal landscapes, the world we’ve come to know.
Poetry: “To Virginia Woolf,” by Paulette Guerin
Drifting down a long trip to the sea
Silk sash swelled with all she did not write
Then dips the pen’s sharp silver beads
In ink pools, oily spills, across veinless leaves,
Each pocket of rocks holding tight
Drifting down a long trip to the sea.
She chose the tides, a moon guide, not to bleed,
Marches to the river waist height,
Then dips the pen’s sharp silver beads.
She sifts the sand and steals a stone for every need
She has to carry into the night,
Drifting down a long trip to the sea.
Starving, on her own hunger she feeds,
Then lays down the arms of her last fight,
Then drips the pen’s sharp silver beads.
She signs the slip, leaves it for him to see.
Strangely grinning lips, now her body seems so light,
Drifting down a long trip to the sea,
Then drips the pen’s sharp silver beads.
Poetry: “Leaves in the Moon,” by C.L. O’Dell
Light unfolds itself
in the dark of your veins,
in the deserted
cold of midnight
when my eyelids
jig for fish,
where skin separates
the fragile seasons.
I am asleep,
curled-up with the spiders
and a strange scent
of mold.
You’re a wet leaf hanging
in the thin belly of the moon;
I reach for the door to grab your hair
by the invisibility of it.
A sink full of applauding glass and metal
rolls my shoulder,
a dog’s rib-cage wedged
between my legs.
A flock of birds
move like thought
in the breaks of your voice,
prancing through my temple –
a shotgun blast of pellets
floating to the surface of a pond.
I moan and smear my forehead, a dying flower,
reaching for a dark hole,
wishing that you would
come and dream with me.
Poetry: “Romance Language” by Maryann Corbett
At first, when sounds were shifting,
(although the moves were noiseless)
by unresisted drifting
we voiced what should be voiceless
and though your moves were noiseless,
still I was moved, the cause
your voice. No longer voiceless,
we broke the ancient laws,
moved by a modern cause
to mock a classic notion.
We broke the ancient laws
and set the tongues in motion,
but mock a classic notion
(grim are the laws of change)
and tongues, once set in motion,
can let the words grow strange.
Grim are the laws of change:
the syllables, unstrung,
have let the words grow strange
so now a vulgar tongue,
its syllables unstrung,
leaves endings unresolved.
We speak a vulgar tongue.
Its case cannot not be solved
by endings. Unresolved,
the lips, the cheeks grow hollow.
Their case cannot be solved.
Their logic does not follow.
The lips and cheeks grow hollow
at last, and sounds are shifting.
We let the logic follow
its unresisted drifting.
Sneak Preview: “Appreciation in G-Major” by John Hart
This week’s Winter 2009 sneak preview: “Appreciation in G-Major,” a poem by John Hart.
Sneak Preview: “Truck Noises” by Charles Umeano
We know you’ve all been waiting for the Winter 2009 issue — and it’s almost here, we promise. In the meantime, check out our sneak previews of the latest poetry and prose from Euphony. First up: “Truck Noises,” a poem by the runner-up in last spring’s uchicagospeak poetry reading contest.
Poetry: Velásquez Bone by Kenny Williams
This one goes out to anyone
who’s ever looked up and found themselves
alone on the bus.
Birds and frogs are perversions of each other,
each in perfection exactly what the other isn’t
in its itty-bitty bones.
Would they, the riders who left you
alone like that, without even saying goodbye,
without so much as cursing your name. . . .
Would they?
At last, at the museum, no one is envying anyone.
You lift a canvas off the wall. It’s heavy with midgets
and skirted children. And because they seem to be you
in equal measure I despise them.
