9/4/16

New World - Louise Glück

As I saw it,
all my mother's life, my father
held her down, like
lead strapped to her ankles.

She was
buoyant by nature;
she wanted to travel,
go to theater, go to museums.
What he wanted
was to lie on the couch
with the Times
over his face,
so that death, when it came,
wouldn't seem a significant change.

In couples like this,
where the agreement
is to do things together,
it's always the active one
who concedes, who gives.
You can't go to museums
with someone who won't
open his eyes.

I thought my father's death
would free my mother.
In a sense, it has:
she takes trips, looks at
great art. But she's floating.
Like some child's balloon
that gets lost the minute
it isn't held.
Or like an astronaut
who somehow loses the ship
and has to drift in space
knowing, however long it lasts,
this is what's left of being alive: she's free
in that sense.
Without relation to earth.

9/3/16

"A youth in apparel that glittered" - Stephen Crane

A youth in apparel that glittered
Went to walk in a grim forest.
There he met an assassin
Attired all in garb of old days;
He, scowling through the thickets,
And dagger poised quivering,
Rushed upon the youth.
"Sir," said this latter,
"I am enchanted, believe me,
To die, thus,
In this medieval fashion,
According to the best legends;
Ah, what joy!"
Then took he the wound, smiling,
And died, content.

9/2/16

Action - Gösta Ågren

Every victory concludes
itself.  What remains is the way,
the same way again.  It is
possible to learn
knowledge, to conceal that
wild, nameless bird
beneath a name.  It is easy
to realise one's dreams
if one sacrifices them. And
the years, the years go by.  Yet
you must act now.
More profound than all that you do
is all that you are.  The most profound
is all that you must do
in order to be able to remain
who you are.

9/1/16

Grab Ass - C.L. Bledsoe

I wonder if you're dead and buried in a short
coffin, beef-jerky muscles wasted on meth
and misanthropy, daddy's money long spent.

Was the aroma of Ben Gay and rot in the air
while all the ex-footballers cum used car
salesmen wept quietly in their hand-

kerchiefs thinking about the glory days? I wonder
if your cheerleader wife stayed when you lost
your hair. When you got inside her, was there

anything there? Did you even win your blond
medal? What a waste you were. Timmy,
you hated me because I saw through you

to the void where your soul should've been,
and I knew, no matter how fast you ran,
you'd never outpace it. But all I had to do was wait

to get past you. Timmy, I hated you because you ruled
the world from the inside, because you always won
even when you needed to learn how to lose.

7/31/16

Brinkwomanship - Leontia Flynn

When they come for you no bigger than a piece of fruit,
weighing no more and no less than a water biscuit,
this will be my excuse:
that I hoped you were just testing yourself
as I might subtly and irresistibly
poke at a sensitive tooth. That is, not morbidly,
but out of a curiosity
to locate the exact, minute, sensory transition -- between
merely knowing the definition
of pain, and knowing the meaning.

7/30/16

Semi Semi Dash - Jillian Weise

The last time I saw Big Logos he was walking
to the Quantum Physics Store to buy magnets.
He told me his intentions. He was wearing

a jumpsuit with frayed cuffs. I thought the cuffs
got that way from him rubbing them against
his lips but he said they got that way

with age. We had two more blocks to walk.
“Once I do this, what are you going to do?”
he asked. “I wish you wouldn’t do it,” I said.

Big Logos bought the magnets and a crane
delivered them to his house. After he built
the 900-megahertz superconductor, I couldn’t go

to his house anymore because I have all kinds
of metal in my body. I think if you love someone,
you shouldn’t do that, build something like that,

on purpose, right in front of them.