Now, in April, when lilacs shake in gusts of rain, the crown-like buds Waving thick and green on sceptre tips, I ask myself: What have we been. We two curled tight in winter’s dark? And when lilacs fully unfurl themselves. Their heart-shaped leaves. Their fragrant . . . . Continue Reading »
I I have been considering the ravens, who live without worrying and have no bins or barns And have no reaping machines. Yet they are fed well—their bodies sleek, gloved in black silk. With what a minor tempest They startle and settle, yet they are the poets of motion. Like folk songs their . . . . Continue Reading »
the wind's blown stars to powder in the sky's blueso the morning's pale and clear, soft as breath,those are storms' leavings,these horizons swept clean. we fill, we empty we connect and retract and sometimes each dream, every cell . . . . Continue Reading »
It drew people to it like a fire,The needle floating up and down its dial,Fishing for the news. It was a horror house,A band-stand, Europe in flames,A dummy and his master.AmongThe cloudy mirrors and calendars,The radio knobs are toys now,The beasts have been dragged out;No tankers hug the coast at . . . . Continue Reading »
She turned to me one night as if to say: “I know.” And though I waited for her words as we Walked along the outside path of cobblestones And grass, her eyes instead made effort to Explain her inner thoughts and fears. Pain, I knew she’d meant to share aloud. Had . . . . Continue Reading »
Some of the sounds here are familiar: Vivaldi plays the same in this language, keys rattle in locks, the engines of buses sigh as they turn street corners. But something is different, an odd solitude. It digs itself under my watch into the small bones of my wrist. Here in . . . . Continue Reading »
I will become dust and you will become dust and ashes our tongues and ashes our eyes but, ever beloved and empassioned dust, our embers will last as long as the skies.—Anthony . . . . Continue Reading »
That the world should end in an orgy of pain was inconceivable at my conception in the Panama Canal Zone where the hydraulic locks were emblems of the unity of oceans. But the hydraulic harmony was striated with tropical diseases and now cancer where was torrid procreation; day . . . . Continue Reading »
The rules of chaos are simple: A mountain is never a perfect cone. A lake is never really a circle. A dropof dew is not a microcosm. No. Flowers wither. Dust collects. There is therelentless return of what we do not want. Everything inclines to disorder. But then how . . . . Continue Reading »
Q. Who made you? A. (Melissa Murphy, Age 10): Who makes me you should say! I co-creates me ev’ry day. My tender psyche I unlocks & with my mental pencil box I brightly crayons, without fault, My very very own gestalt & so I comes to be alert To all my pain & all my hurt & then when . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
