Poetry

  • Cross-Genre,  Poetry

    Two Poems by Phoebe Reeves

    May 4, 2020 /

    Part One, Question the Sixteenth: Works of Truth**

     

    There are fourteen species of silent star,

    and the species vary according to generative power.

    A woman cannot perform divination, knowing

    that blood and the dead answer. But think—

    the soul appeared through a woman who was

    a witch, just as the images of things

    are called by the names they represent.
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  • Corona Chronicle,  Cross-Genre,  Poetry

    “ode to summer” by Cheyanne Anderson

    May 2, 2020 /
    every time I go onto my balcony
    bare feet on dusty cement
    and look down the street
    towards the subway
    towards the market
    towards the road straight to the beach
    the air gets a little warmer
    and I can feel the spring preparing,
    about to pass me by
    _
    and I hope I’ll make it out in time to buy a new sundress
    and a pair of sandals
    because summer somehow always catches me by surprise
    and by the time I’ve thought to embrace the way humidity sits on skin

    there’s a bite in the air and it’s gone again
    _
    I keep dreaming of ways to catch it
    like a firefly in a jar
    (only temporary)
    so I can see it up close
    so I can remember to notice the sweat on the back of my neck
    and the proof it serves
    that     I was alive that day
    so     I can skip down sidewalks
    so     I can lie in the park
    so     I can chill another bottle of wine
    s    o I can kiss and kiss and kiss
    s    o I can forget to put on sunscreen
    s    o I can walk until my feet ache
    s    o I can embrace the way my hair frizzes from my scalp like a crown
    s    o I can fall in love in ways I’m not sure I deserve
    s    o I can remember to admire the way the fire hydrant down the street
    (    somehow always breaking open)
    w    ashes away cigarette butts and receipts and regrets
    a    nd makes a babbling brook on Bushwick streets
    j    ust until the repairman comes on Monday
    j    ust until I can bring myself to open the jar and let it go
    a    nd whisper well wishes into the first breeze of autumn

    my heart is too big for this bedroom,

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  • Art and Photography,  Poetry,  Translation

    Four “Corn Songs” by Kinga Tóth (translated from the Hungarian by Timea Balogh) Drawings by Kinga Tóth

    April 30, 2020 /

     

    Corn Songs

     

    song five

    they pierce the ground with spoon straws
    that’s how the roots will breathe
    that’s how they’ll pull them out when they’re ripe
    the others arrive behind the diggers
    they write with felt pens
    take away the dialect and unsettle everyone
    they piss with their legs apart
    and that’s when they forget what
    they talked about at harvest time
    they take the tongues out of their mouths
    with which they were understood
    and take pictures till they are distracted from the conversation
    only the spoon-holding hands remain
    squatting they examine the air-bagged roots
    this will serve as amnesty and the writers
    will be the only ones permitted to speak

     

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  • Poetry

    To California, Wine, Politics, Turtles, Nihilism, and My Heart, by Adam Scheffler

    April 27, 2020 /

    After Kenneth Koch

    What a jumble,
    I don’t know if it’s a good idea to have all of you here
    Especially you wine and politics!
    Though you my heart and turtles go together always
    And even politics and turtles sounds good.

    But in any case here you all are:
    I wake up and my heart is holding you all like a shopping cart
    Full of hasty impulse purchases

    With California sticking out the back cartoonishly
    Amidst the wine it’s known for
    And politics snuggling next to but never quite touching nihilism,

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  • Poetry

    University Town by Michael Homolka

    April 27, 2020 /
    Up steep hills which crack open like pebbles
    the green-black ocean wanders

    in the form of a human among low squat

    brick facades    old typewriter paper
    and armchairs subconsciously within

    lost as all academia to self-absorption

    hands in back pockets    inquiring
    of the psychological grass whether it perceives
    itself to flow uphill mostly or down

    Joycean   that is to say or   Virginian

    Sorting stackfuls of family photos
    most of which it plans to toss out anyway
    between existences   the brainy seaweed

    soaks up all possible inferences
    as to the ocean   Whether literal or metaphoric
    whatever anyone believes in whatever
    way they believe it  :  it’s the opposite

    *

    Michael Homolka’s collection,
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  • Corona Chronicle,  Cross-Genre,  Poetry

    “Social Distances” by L.B. Browne

    April 24, 2020 /
    There is a man
    wearing dark glasses
    and a blue paper surgical mask
    in the fluorescent sun of the grocery store.
    Hey buddy, 6 feet!
    a young woman shouts
    as he backs up, nearly touches her,
    outrageous,
    she does not see
    the white cane he slides in small arcs at his feet,
    tip tapping the way

    down ravaged empty aisles.

    There is a woman
    with a 3-day-old cough
    and a nasal drip that runs down the back of her throat,
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