Poems with Teeth

9/24/22

Next Second, You Were Gone - Randall Stephens

I heard about an old broken phone box
Where people would go to have imaginary conversations
At first, I found it foolish
And then I joined the queue.

When my turn came, I dialled your old number.
There was no ringtone, but I told you everything
and I waited in silence
as if you might respond.

I thought I heard you breathe.
Then I remembered they told me my life should go on.
One second, you were here.

9/4/22

Haiku - Matsuo Bashō

For a lovely bowl

Let us arrange these flowers,

For there is no rice.

7/12/22

The Derelict - Sharon Olds

He passes me on the street, his hair

matted, skin polished with grime,

muttering, suit stained and stiffened—

and yet he is so young, his blond beard like a

sign of beauty and power. But his hands,

strangely flat, as if nerveless, hang and

flap slightly as he walks, like hands of

someone who has had polio, hands

that cannot be used. I smell the waste of his

piss, I see the ingot of his beard,

and think of my younger brother, his beauty,

coinage and voltage of his beard, his life

he is not using, like a violinist whose

hands have been crushed so he cannot play—

I who was there at the crushing of his hands

and helped to crush them.

8/31/21

The Great Gulf - Richard Shelton

Between us and you there is a

great gulf fixed: so that they

which would pass from hence to you

cannot; neither can they pass to us,

that would come from thence.

Luke 16:26

At night when each dark shape in the desert

glows in the light of its own penumbra

I take the road by one white hand

and lead it to a deep arroyo, a dry wash

in which the river lives when it is home.

Stones remain where the water dropped them

and beneath them aged scorpions sleep

in small hotels with no view at all.

The sand is cool. I wonder if the river

will be here when I need to drown.

We choose from what is available and fall

in love: anchorites with spiders, sailors

with each other; the bleeding foot

returns to embrace the shattered glass;

the overdose goes in search of an addict;

and those who are too much afraid

fall in love with their fear.

I was broken by love but I was

so well repaired I can pass for anybody,

standing here where a river used to be.

In one hand my prayers, in the other the answers,

with a great gulf fixed between them.

To get here I dragged my shadow

over sharp stones and felt its cuts

and bruises. But the river was dry.

Oh Jesus Christ

and all my fingers losing their rings!

What will become of me when I offer

my soul to the Devil and he doesn’t

want it? What will I do

when there is no one left to betray?

8/26/21

MIDNIGHT - Louise Glück

Speak to me, aching heart: what

ridiculous errand are you inventing for yourself

weeping in the dark garage

with your sack of garbage: it is not your job

to take out the garbage, it is your job

to empty the dishwasher. You are showing off again,

exactly as you did in childhood—where

is your sporting side, your famous

ironic detachment? A little moonlight hits

the broken window, a little summer moonlight, tender

murmurs from the earth with its ready sweetnesses—

is this the way you communicate

with your husband, not answering

when he calls, or is this the way the heart

behaves when it grieves: it wants to be

alone with the garbage? If I were you,

I’d think ahead. After fifteen years,

his voice could be getting tired; some night

if you don’t answer, someone else will answer.

8/17/21

Confession - Samantha King

I hate you wouldn’t quite do it

I forgive you isn’t quite my speed

I regret meeting you would be a lie

The best thing for me

was removing you from my life

That, I am sure of