Brigadista in Retirement
Every nation teaches itself the myths
of its survival. Fantasy, harnessed,
feeds the impulse to die for la patria,
and then the war is over. In the after-
glow of dizzying celebration, a purpling
sky
Genre: Poetry
When a bolt of lightning falls in love
with an old woman, sex is reinvented
as the world’s first toaster oven.
When lightning falls in love with a middle-
aged woman, lightning gives
birth to an electric guitar. …
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Poetry
Chronicles on Disappearance; It Is Sad to See a Horse Sleeping; Phantom Limb; & Displaced Distance as a Red Berry
Phantom Limb
after Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”
The truth is, let’s say, that the tin soldier did not fall in love
with the paper-doll ballerina. He fell in love with his missing limb.
Let’s hold …
PREFACE
WhateverWordsworth: Dear Reader is the Poet. The poet is above all a reader. Poetry is nothing more than hysterical citation. A love affair with the bust I’m drawing in college: I’ve made too soft the edges, and my teacher …
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Poetry
Beginner’s Astrology for Anarchist Jurisdictions in a Pandemic; 17 Days (Piano & a Microphone 1983); Sisyphus Says Relax; Nine Twenty-Nine Twenty-Twenty; & My Face in a Jar by the Door
Beginner’s Astrology for Anarchist
Jurisdictions in a Pandemic
They are a nation without sense, there is no discernment in them.
—Deuteronomy 32:28
The stars are further away. The flicker we see from them
been. The pin drops above …
The Black Ugly Duckling
So, in first grade in a school
where I was one in three of Black
kids in the whole goddamn school,
my teacher (let’s call her Mrs. Snow)
decided her class was going to put…
Love Poem with Parenthetical
I
Shadow branches rise through our bedroom window
It’s garbage day Tuesday We hear squeaky wheels
a blue jay lifting from the sky the small sighs of waking
We’ve unplugged the clock and can’t …
Poetry
The Visitation of God; The Leaf Blower among the Swimming Pool Lights; Egg; & In Praise of Disquiet
In Praise of Disquiet
The years are fine with dust that settles in the eyes.
The stars are bound to gods from abandoned temples.
By night you fear the abdication of the sun.
By day you wear the light …
Poetry
[the tree remembers]; [here the contours]; [don’t change your name]; [and so mother]; [the space of a length of time]; & [here’s where the source of origins], translated from the French by Nancy Naomi Carlson
Translated from the French by Nancy Naomi Carlson
[the tree remembers]
the tree remembers
this legend
a grave
a cross
and a cloud of silence
since
l’arbre se souvient
de cette légende
une tombe
une croix…
