Poetry
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Four Poems by John Deming
Rhapsody in Rat
Rats know when you’re watching them.
Yeah, so I’m smoking on the fire escape
overlooking the alley, and rats
fleck in and out, as they do,
and I look with pure fury
at a rat maybe fifty yards off,
its furry back, thick tail
and burning oven of pursuit,
and it is not even facing me
but freezes then sprints
through a brick wall. The rat
ran through a brick wall.
Rats can feel you looking at them. -
film room 208, avenue of the poet rilke by Christian Formoso (translated from the Chilean Spanish by Sydney Tammarine and Terry Hermsen) Photography by Michael Angelo Yáñez
film room 208, avenue of the poet rilke
1
fade to black and two cut-off images: a woman in front of a window—the gesture of gathering her hair from her face—and a smudged name like graffiti scrawled on the bridge at ronda. someone who looks like you across from the woman. a blink. the end of the gesture and the movement already washed-out and no longer there.
2
you refuse to speak, thinking of the tree on a small hill. you want to see it in the scene and so it appears.
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Two Poems by M. Vasalis and Arno Bohlmeijer (translated from the Dutch by Arno Bohlmeijer) Artwork by Ton van Rijsbergen
Death
Death pointed out little interesting things:
here’s a nail – said Death – and here’s is a rope.
I look him in the eye, a child. He is my master
because I trust and admire him,
Death.He showed me everything: drink, pills,
pistols, gas tap, steep roofs,
a bath tub, a razor, a white sheet,
“casually”– in case I’d fancy it, one day,
death.And before he left, he gave me a little portrait…
“I don’t know if you forgot it yet, -
Two Poems by David Kirby
Our Fathers Give Birth to Themselves
I am eight and riding the bus with my dad, and he tells a manacross the aisle to stop doing whatever it is that he’s doing,
and the other man starts to swing at my father, who says somethingin the man’s ear that makes him lower his hand and get off
at the next stop. “What did you say to him?” I ask,but my father just shakes his head,
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Three Poems by Rubén Merriwether Peña (translated from the Chilean Spanish by David Rock)
I’m Pretty Sure I Saw You
I’m pretty sure I saw you
at the end of the world,
trembling under the weight of your perfections.
Your endless eyes like a wellspring
of second guesses, trompe l’oeil of Venus
eclipsing everything.I’m pretty sure I saw you
on the road to tomorrow,
going the other way, farm girl of these
my most fruitful illusions, patroness of hunters
with empty hands.I’m pretty sure I saw you
kneeling in the church
of a misguided God, -
Sonnet of Little Faith by William Fargason
The rain pressing the maple leaves looks
like broken green piano keys. This view
out my bedroom window, this TV without
sound. I prayed for snow, not wet sunlight.In a clearing, I once asked God to hold
my sadness and was told to build
a bigger heart. A bigger ark. A better window
to clean the smudges off each morning.In the maple tree, a cardinal looks covered
in its own blood. He sees himself in the dirty glass
and tries to attack his shade. For two hours.
