Cake
Noah Eli GordonLook, you
want it
you devour it
and then, then
good as it was
you realize
it wasn’t
what you
exactly
wanted
what you
wanted
exactly was
wanting
Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.
Noah Eli Gordon
I’d give you another day dizzy
in its bracket for the reluctant circumference
of a sad sad satellite’s antiquated orbital stoppage.
You can’t jump with a lead foot, can’t
anthropomorphize insect anticipation, can’t
pixelate postcard nostalgia, can’t
trace a boy’s tiny hand and call him
king of anything that crosses your path, your past,
your iconographic reluctance to let go the toehold
of ordinary New York lasting so long at night, so
lusty in traffic & another orphan absently
kicking the underside of an orange plastic chair.
Poems shouldn’t make you wait for them to finish.
Like love, they should finish making you wait.
Tender Buttons [Dirt and Not Copper]
Gertrude SteinDirt and not copper makes a color darker. It makes the shape so heavy and makes no melody harder.
It makes mercy and relaxation and even a strength to spread a table fuller. There are more places not empty. They see cover.
Breakfast
Minnie Bruce PrattRush hour, and the short order cook lobs breakfast
sandwiches, silverfoil softballs, up and down the line.
We stand until someone says, Yes? The next person behind
breathes hungrily. The cashier’s hands never stop. He shouts:
Where’s my double double? We help. We eliminate all verbs.
The superfluous want, need, give they already know. Nothing’s left
but stay or go, and a few things like bread. No one can stay long,
not even the stolid man in blue-hooded sweats, head down, eating,
his work boots powdered with cement dust like snow that never melts.
Silent Poem
Robert Francis
backroad leafmold stonewall chipmunk
underbrush grapevine woodchuck shadblow
woodsmoke cowbarn honeysuckle woodpile
sawhorse bucksaw outhouse wellsweep
backdoor flagstone bulkhead buttermilk
candlestick ragrug firedog brownbread
hilltop outcrop cowbell buttercup
whetstone thunderstorm pitchfork steeplebush
gristmill millstone cornmeal waterwheel
watercress buckwheat firefly jewelweed
gravestone groundpine windbreak bedrock
weathercock snowfall starlight cockcrow
after Robert Francis’s “Silent Poem”
rain storm rock pore flow path earth crust
thrust fault drip slope trough dam blue ooze
tile floor stained glass sitz bath rust stain
sun porch deck chair sky light gas lamp
foot bridge leaf twitch dirt trail red oak
white tail hoof prints moss stump wood thrush
chert flake clay shard pit mine whet stone
knife blade green gorge creek mud blue tent
fire ring wood smoke sign post steep road
store front plate glass stone arch tile roof
street light pump house brick walk steam grate
hot wisp guard rail foot soak spa town
Dear Diary:
Daily Roast Daily Brew House Blend Latte
Cappuccino Flat White Macchiato
Breve Pike Willow Willow Café au lait
Espresso Espressino Doppio
Moka Skinny Mocha Mochaccino
Columbian Sumatra Verona
Allongé Americano Roma
Green tea Black tea White tea Oolong Half Caff
Lemonade Hot Chocolate Coolatta
Eastern DR Congo Kenya Decaf
Reduced Fat Low Fat Non Fat Almond Dream
Almond Soy Almond Breeze Frappuccino
One Percent Two Percent Fat Free Whipped Cream
Squirts Shots Syrups Cinnamon Sweet n’ Low
Frothed Caramel Coffee with Marshmallows
Hazelnut Coconut French Vanilla
Red Eye Black Eye Blonde on Blonde Barista
Grande Venti Trenta Long Tall Small Short
Stevia Truvia Equal Splenda
Grande Venti Trenta Long Tall Small Short
Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?
Why do trees conceal
the splendor of their roots?
Who hears the regrets
of the thieving automobile?
Is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?
Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder’s hands,
two socks as soft
as rabbits.
I slipped my feet
into them
as though into
two
cases
knitted
with threads of
twilight
and goatskin.
Violent socks,
my feet were
two fish made
of wool,
two long sharks
sea-blue, shot
through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons:
my feet
were honored
in this way
by
these
heavenly
socks.
They were
so handsome
for the first time
my feet seemed to me
unacceptable
like two decrepit
firemen, firemen
unworthy
of that woven
fire,
of those glowing
socks.
Nevertheless
I resisted
the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere
as schoolboys
keep
fireflies,
as learned men
collect
sacred texts,
I resisted
the mad impulse
to put them
into a golden
cage
and each day give them
birdseed
and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers
in the jungle who hand
over the very rare
green deer
to the spit
and eat it
with remorse,
I stretched out
my feet
and pulled on
the magnificent
socks
and then my shoes.
The moral
of my ode is this:
beauty is twice
beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool
in winter.
What sizzles
in boiling
oil
is the world's
pleasure:
French
fries
go
into the pan
like the morning swan's
snowy
feathers
and emerge
half-golden from the olive's
crackling amber.
Garlic
lends them
its earthy aroma,
its spice,
its pollen that braved the reefs.
Then,
dressed
anew
in ivory suits, they fill our plates
with repeated abundance,
and the delicious simplicity of the soil.
(for Emmett Louis Till)
1.
Your limbs buried
in northern muscle carry
their own heartbeat
2.
Mississippi...
alert with
conjugated pain
3.
young Chicago
stutterer whistling
more than flesh
4.
your pores
wild stars embracing
southern eyes
5.
footprints blooming
in the night remember
your blood
6.
in this southern
classroom summer settles
into winter
7.
i hear your
pulse swallowing
neglected light
8.
your limbs
fly off the ground
little birds...
9.
we taste the
blood ritual of
southern hands
10.
blue midnite
breaths sailing on
smiling tongues
11.
say no words
time is collapsing
in the woods
12.
a mother’s eyes
remembering a cradle
pray out loud
13.
walking in Mississippi
i hold the stars
between my teeth
14.
your death
a blues, i could not
drink away.
1.
Peony silks,
in wax-light:
that petal-sheen,
gold or apricot or rose
candled into-
what to call it,
lumina, aurora, aureole?
About gowns,
the Old Masters,
were they ever wrong?
This penitent Magdalen’s
wrapped in a yellow
so voluptuous
she seems to wear
all she’s renounced;
this boy angel
isn’t touching the ground,
but his billow
of yardage refers
not to heaven
but to pleasure’s
textures, the tactile
sheers and voiles
and tulles
which weren’t made
to adorn the soul.
Eternity’s plainly nude;
the naked here and now
longs for a little
dressing up. And though
they seem to prefer
the invisible, every saint
in the gallery
flaunts an improbable
tumble of drapery,
a nearly audible liquidity
(bright brass embroidery,
satin’s violin-sheen)
raveled around the body’s
plain prose; exquisite
(dis?)guises; poetry,
music, clothes.
2.
Nothing needs to be this lavish.
Even the words I’d choose
for these leaves;
intricate, stippled, foxed,
tortoise, mottled, splotched
-jeweled adjectives
for a forest by Fabergé,
all cloisonné and enamel,
a yellow grove golden
in its gleaming couture,
brass buttons
tumbling to the floor.
Who’s it for?
Who’s the audience
for this bravura?
Maybe the world’s
just trompe l’oeil,
appearances laid out
to dazzle the eye;
who could see through this
to any world beyond forms?
Maybe the costume’s
the whole show,
all of revelation
we’ll be offered.
So? Show me what’s not
a world of appearances.
Autumn’s a grand old drag
in torched and tumbled chiffon
striking her weary pose.
Talk about your mellow
fruitfulness! Smoky alto,
thou hast thy music,
too; unforgettable,
those October damasks,
the dazzling kimono
worn, dishabille,
uncountable curtain calls
in these footlights’
dusky, flattering rose.
The world’s made fabulous
by fabulous clothes.
The dead bird, color of a bruise,
and smaller than an eye
swollen shut,
is king among omens.
Who can blame the ants for feasting?
Let him cast the first crumb.
~
We once tended the oracles.
Now we rely on a photograph
a fingerprint
a hand we never saw
coming.
~
A man draws a chalk outline
first in his mind
around nothing
then around the body
of another man.
He does this without thinking.
~
What can I do about the white room I left
behind? What can I do about the great stones
I walk among now? What can I do
but sing.
Even a small cut can sing all day.
~
There are entire nights
I would take back.
Nostalgia is a thin moon,
disappearing
into a sky like cold,
unfeeling iron.
~
I dreamed
you were a drowned man, crown
of phosphorescent, seaweed in your hair,
water in your shoes. I woke up desperate
for air.
~
In another dream, I was a field
and you combed through me
searching for something
you only thought you had lost.
~
What have we left at the altar of sorrow?
What blessed thing will we leave tomorrow?
I tell my father about the way
I collect small things
in the sacs of my heart—
thick juniper berries
apple cores that retain their shape
and the click of shells
that sound like an oven baking.
He presses the mole on my shoulder
that matches his shoulder,
proof that I was not found
at the bottom of the sea.
I also got his feet, far from
Cinderella’s dainty glass slippers—
and fingers, too wide for most
Cracker Jack wedding rings.
I read how some mammals never
forget their young—
their speckled spots, odd goat
cries, or birthmarks on curved
ivory tusks. There must be some
thread of magic there
cooling honey to stone—where
like recognizes like or how
a rib seeks its twin.
You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.
Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.
Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.
Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the off sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.
The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.
The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.
The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.
The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.
The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.
I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.
I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.
You feel adequate to the demands of this position?
What qualities do you feel you
Personally have to offer?
Ah.
Let us consider your application form.
Your qualifications, though impressive, are
Not, we must admit, precisely what
We had in mind. Would you care
To defend their relevance?
Indeed.
Now your age. Perhaps you feel able
To make your own comment about that,
Too? We are conscious ourselves
Of the need for a candidate with precisely
The right degree of immaturity.
So glad we agree.
And now a delicate matter: your looks.
You do appreciate this work involves
Contact with the actual public? Might they,
Perhaps, find your appearance
Disturbing?
Quite so.
And your accent. That is the way
You have always spoken, is it? What
Of your education? We mean, of course,
Where were you educated?
And how
Much of a handicap is that to you,
Would you say?
Married, children,
We see. The usual dubious
Desire to perpetuate what had better
Not have happened at all. We do not
Ask what domestic desires shimmer
Behind that vaguely unsuitable address.
And you were born--?
Yes. Pity.
So glad we agree.
They gathered to trade
where the stones were white
between midday and midnight
between the good earth and the great sea.
Foxes, feathers and fireflies to the north
fins, skunks and onions to the south
different echoes whispered
different memories made.
Workers and wanderers stealing days
forging dreams big as melting stars
sometimes fantastic
sometimes familiar.
I’m sorry I was late.
I was pulled over by a cop
for driving blindfolded
with a raspberry-scented candle
flickering in my mouth.
I’m sorry I was late.
I was on my way
when I felt a plot
thickening in my arm.
I have a fear of heights.
Luckily the Earth
is on the second floor
of the universe.
I am not the egg man.
I am the owl
who just witnessed
another tree fall over
in the forest of your life.
I am your father
shaking his head
at the thought of you.
I am his words dissolving
in your mind like footprints
in a rainstorm.
I am a long-legged martini.
I am feeding olives
to the bull inside you.
I am decorating
your labyrinth,
tacking up snapshots
of all the people
who’ve gotten lost
in your corridors.
one is hard & the other tried to be
one is fast & the other was faster
one is loud & one is a song
with one note & endless rest
one’s whole life is a flash
both spend their life
trying to find a warmth to call home
both spark quite the debate,
some folks want to protect them/some think we should just get rid
of the damn things all together.
The sky is melting. Me too.
Who hasn’t seen it this way?
Pink between the castlework
of buildings.
Pensive syrup
drizzled over clouds.
It is almost catastrophic how heavenly.
A million poets, at least,
have stood in this very spot,
groceries in hand, wondering:
“Can I witness the Rapture
and still make it home in time for dinner?”
Garden of Starlit Flowers Pink Carnation Dynamite
Flaming Chrysanthemum Fountain of Silver Kisses
Blue Umbrellas (w/ report) Emerald Parachutes (7 ct.)
All-Blooming Chandelier Loudly Flowering Bower
Birds of Double Paradise Wall of Sunlit Butterflies
Happy Lightning Rocket Repeating Beehives (blue)
Innumerable Stars (12 ct.) Repeating Beehives (gold)
Bomb of Heaven Singing Bouquet of Wild Comets
Jumbo Christmas Missile Blessèd Festival Cannon
Jumping Monkey Candle Blessèd Family Firebomb
The last line should strike like a lover’s complaint.
You should never see it coming.
And you should never hear the end of it.
Hot Springs
Davis McCombsafter Robert Francis’s “Silent Poem”
rain storm rock pore flow path earth crust
thrust fault drip slope trough dam blue ooze
tile floor stained glass sitz bath rust stain
sun porch deck chair sky light gas lamp
foot bridge leaf twitch dirt trail red oak
white tail hoof prints moss stump wood thrush
chert flake clay shard pit mine whet stone
knife blade green gorge creek mud blue tent
fire ring wood smoke sign post steep road
store front plate glass stone arch tile roof
street light pump house brick walk steam grate
hot wisp guard rail foot soak spa town
Ordering at Cafe Dizain
Rachelle Chia Bijou
Dear Diary:
Daily Roast Daily Brew House Blend Latte
Cappuccino Flat White Macchiato
Breve Pike Willow Willow Café au lait
Espresso Espressino Doppio
Moka Skinny Mocha Mochaccino
Columbian Sumatra Verona
Allongé Americano Roma
Green tea Black tea White tea Oolong Half Caff
Lemonade Hot Chocolate Coolatta
Eastern DR Congo Kenya Decaf
Reduced Fat Low Fat Non Fat Almond Dream
Almond Soy Almond Breeze Frappuccino
One Percent Two Percent Fat Free Whipped Cream
Squirts Shots Syrups Cinnamon Sweet n’ Low
Frothed Caramel Coffee with Marshmallows
Hazelnut Coconut French Vanilla
Red Eye Black Eye Blonde on Blonde Barista
Grande Venti Trenta Long Tall Small Short
Stevia Truvia Equal Splenda
Grande Venti Trenta Long Tall Small Short
The Book of Questions, III
Pablo NerudaTell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?
Why do trees conceal
the splendor of their roots?
Who hears the regrets
of the thieving automobile?
Is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?
Ode to My Socks
Pablo NerudaMaru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder’s hands,
two socks as soft
as rabbits.
I slipped my feet
into them
as though into
two
cases
knitted
with threads of
twilight
and goatskin.
Violent socks,
my feet were
two fish made
of wool,
two long sharks
sea-blue, shot
through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons:
my feet
were honored
in this way
by
these
heavenly
socks.
They were
so handsome
for the first time
my feet seemed to me
unacceptable
like two decrepit
firemen, firemen
unworthy
of that woven
fire,
of those glowing
socks.
Nevertheless
I resisted
the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere
as schoolboys
keep
fireflies,
as learned men
collect
sacred texts,
I resisted
the mad impulse
to put them
into a golden
cage
and each day give them
birdseed
and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers
in the jungle who hand
over the very rare
green deer
to the spit
and eat it
with remorse,
I stretched out
my feet
and pulled on
the magnificent
socks
and then my shoes.
The moral
of my ode is this:
beauty is twice
beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool
in winter.
Ode to French Fries
Pablo NerudaWhat sizzles
in boiling
oil
is the world's
pleasure:
French
fries
go
into the pan
like the morning swan's
snowy
feathers
and emerge
half-golden from the olive's
crackling amber.
Garlic
lends them
its earthy aroma,
its spice,
its pollen that braved the reefs.
Then,
dressed
anew
in ivory suits, they fill our plates
with repeated abundance,
and the delicious simplicity of the soil.
14 haiku
Sonia Sanchez(for Emmett Louis Till)
1.
Your limbs buried
in northern muscle carry
their own heartbeat
2.
Mississippi...
alert with
conjugated pain
3.
young Chicago
stutterer whistling
more than flesh
4.
your pores
wild stars embracing
southern eyes
5.
footprints blooming
in the night remember
your blood
6.
in this southern
classroom summer settles
into winter
7.
i hear your
pulse swallowing
neglected light
8.
your limbs
fly off the ground
little birds...
9.
we taste the
blood ritual of
southern hands
10.
blue midnite
breaths sailing on
smiling tongues
11.
say no words
time is collapsing
in the woods
12.
a mother’s eyes
remembering a cradle
pray out loud
13.
walking in Mississippi
i hold the stars
between my teeth
14.
your death
a blues, i could not
drink away.
Couture
Mark Doty1.
Peony silks,
in wax-light:
that petal-sheen,
gold or apricot or rose
candled into-
what to call it,
lumina, aurora, aureole?
About gowns,
the Old Masters,
were they ever wrong?
This penitent Magdalen’s
wrapped in a yellow
so voluptuous
she seems to wear
all she’s renounced;
this boy angel
isn’t touching the ground,
but his billow
of yardage refers
not to heaven
but to pleasure’s
textures, the tactile
sheers and voiles
and tulles
which weren’t made
to adorn the soul.
Eternity’s plainly nude;
the naked here and now
longs for a little
dressing up. And though
they seem to prefer
the invisible, every saint
in the gallery
flaunts an improbable
tumble of drapery,
a nearly audible liquidity
(bright brass embroidery,
satin’s violin-sheen)
raveled around the body’s
plain prose; exquisite
(dis?)guises; poetry,
music, clothes.
2.
Nothing needs to be this lavish.
Even the words I’d choose
for these leaves;
intricate, stippled, foxed,
tortoise, mottled, splotched
-jeweled adjectives
for a forest by Fabergé,
all cloisonné and enamel,
a yellow grove golden
in its gleaming couture,
brass buttons
tumbling to the floor.
Who’s it for?
Who’s the audience
for this bravura?
Maybe the world’s
just trompe l’oeil,
appearances laid out
to dazzle the eye;
who could see through this
to any world beyond forms?
Maybe the costume’s
the whole show,
all of revelation
we’ll be offered.
So? Show me what’s not
a world of appearances.
Autumn’s a grand old drag
in torched and tumbled chiffon
striking her weary pose.
Talk about your mellow
fruitfulness! Smoky alto,
thou hast thy music,
too; unforgettable,
those October damasks,
the dazzling kimono
worn, dishabille,
uncountable curtain calls
in these footlights’
dusky, flattering rose.
The world’s made fabulous
by fabulous clothes.
Omens
Cecilia LlompartThe dead bird, color of a bruise,
and smaller than an eye
swollen shut,
is king among omens.
Who can blame the ants for feasting?
Let him cast the first crumb.
~
We once tended the oracles.
Now we rely on a photograph
a fingerprint
a hand we never saw
coming.
~
A man draws a chalk outline
first in his mind
around nothing
then around the body
of another man.
He does this without thinking.
~
What can I do about the white room I left
behind? What can I do about the great stones
I walk among now? What can I do
but sing.
Even a small cut can sing all day.
~
There are entire nights
I would take back.
Nostalgia is a thin moon,
disappearing
into a sky like cold,
unfeeling iron.
~
I dreamed
you were a drowned man, crown
of phosphorescent, seaweed in your hair,
water in your shoes. I woke up desperate
for air.
~
In another dream, I was a field
and you combed through me
searching for something
you only thought you had lost.
~
What have we left at the altar of sorrow?
What blessed thing will we leave tomorrow?
A Taste of Blue
Cynthia ManickI tell my father about the way
I collect small things
in the sacs of my heart—
thick juniper berries
apple cores that retain their shape
and the click of shells
that sound like an oven baking.
He presses the mole on my shoulder
that matches his shoulder,
proof that I was not found
at the bottom of the sea.
I also got his feet, far from
Cinderella’s dainty glass slippers—
and fingers, too wide for most
Cracker Jack wedding rings.
I read how some mammals never
forget their young—
their speckled spots, odd goat
cries, or birthmarks on curved
ivory tusks. There must be some
thread of magic there
cooling honey to stone—where
like recognizes like or how
a rib seeks its twin.
Valentine for Ernest Mann
Naomi Shihab NyeYou can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.
Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.
Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.
Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the off sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.
Famous
Naomi Shihab NyeThe river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.
The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.
The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.
The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.
The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.
I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.
I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.
You'll be hearing from us shortly
U. A. FanthorpeYou feel adequate to the demands of this position?
What qualities do you feel you
Personally have to offer?
Ah.
Let us consider your application form.
Your qualifications, though impressive, are
Not, we must admit, precisely what
We had in mind. Would you care
To defend their relevance?
Indeed.
Now your age. Perhaps you feel able
To make your own comment about that,
Too? We are conscious ourselves
Of the need for a candidate with precisely
The right degree of immaturity.
So glad we agree.
And now a delicate matter: your looks.
You do appreciate this work involves
Contact with the actual public? Might they,
Perhaps, find your appearance
Disturbing?
Quite so.
And your accent. That is the way
You have always spoken, is it? What
Of your education? We mean, of course,
Where were you educated?
And how
Much of a handicap is that to you,
Would you say?
Married, children,
We see. The usual dubious
Desire to perpetuate what had better
Not have happened at all. We do not
Ask what domestic desires shimmer
Behind that vaguely unsuitable address.
And you were born--?
Yes. Pity.
So glad we agree.
Cream City
Margaret NoodinThey gathered to trade
where the stones were white
between midday and midnight
between the good earth and the great sea.
Foxes, feathers and fireflies to the north
fins, skunks and onions to the south
different echoes whispered
different memories made.
Workers and wanderers stealing days
forging dreams big as melting stars
sometimes fantastic
sometimes familiar.
Compulsively Allergic to the Truth
Jeffrey McDanielI’m sorry I was late.
I was pulled over by a cop
for driving blindfolded
with a raspberry-scented candle
flickering in my mouth.
I’m sorry I was late.
I was on my way
when I felt a plot
thickening in my arm.
I have a fear of heights.
Luckily the Earth
is on the second floor
of the universe.
I am not the egg man.
I am the owl
who just witnessed
another tree fall over
in the forest of your life.
I am your father
shaking his head
at the thought of you.
I am his words dissolving
in your mind like footprints
in a rainstorm.
I am a long-legged martini.
I am feeding olives
to the bull inside you.
I am decorating
your labyrinth,
tacking up snapshots
of all the people
who’ve gotten lost
in your corridors.
juxtaposing the black boy & the bullet
Danez Smithone is hard & the other tried to be
one is fast & the other was faster
one is loud & one is a song
with one note & endless rest
one’s whole life is a flash
both spend their life
trying to find a warmth to call home
both spark quite the debate,
some folks want to protect them/some think we should just get rid
of the damn things all together.
Muffin of Sunsets
Elaine EquiThe sky is melting. Me too.
Who hasn’t seen it this way?
Pink between the castlework
of buildings.
Pensive syrup
drizzled over clouds.
It is almost catastrophic how heavenly.
A million poets, at least,
have stood in this very spot,
groceries in hand, wondering:
“Can I witness the Rapture
and still make it home in time for dinner?”
Firecracker Catalogue
Jay HoplerGarden of Starlit Flowers Pink Carnation Dynamite
Flaming Chrysanthemum Fountain of Silver Kisses
Blue Umbrellas (w/ report) Emerald Parachutes (7 ct.)
All-Blooming Chandelier Loudly Flowering Bower
Birds of Double Paradise Wall of Sunlit Butterflies
Happy Lightning Rocket Repeating Beehives (blue)
Innumerable Stars (12 ct.) Repeating Beehives (gold)
Bomb of Heaven Singing Bouquet of Wild Comets
Jumbo Christmas Missile Blessèd Festival Cannon
Jumping Monkey Candle Blessèd Family Firebomb
On Last Lines
Suzanne BuffamThe last line should strike like a lover’s complaint.
You should never see it coming.
And you should never hear the end of it.
the great american yellow poem
Frances Chung
she heard tales about saving grapefruit skins for cooking
she grew bright under the neon dragon of Chinatown
she made saffron curry rice for friends
she attended a barbecue in Amarillo, Texas
she stepped around yellow piss in snow
she cut herself on a Hawaiian pineapple
she learned to name forsythia where it grew
visions of ochre and citronella eluded her
The Word
Tony Hoagland
Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,
between "green thread"
and "broccoli," you find
that you have penciled "sunlight."
Resting on the page, the word
is beautiful. It touches you
as if you had a friend
and sunlight were a present
he had sent from someplace distant
as this morning—to cheer you up,
and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing
that also needs accomplishing.
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds
of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder
or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue,
but today you get a telegram
from the heart in exile,
proclaiming that the kingdom
still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,
—to any one among them
who can find the time
to sit out in the sun and listen.
I. SKIN & CORN
Her brown skin glistens as the sun
pours through the kitchen window
like gold leche. After grinding
the nixtamal, a word so beautifully ethnic
it must not only be italicized but underlined
to let you, the reader, know you’ve encountered
something beautifully ethnic, she kneads
with the hands of centuries-old ancestor
spirits who magically yet realistically posses her
until the masa is smooth as a lowrider’s
chrome bumper. And I know she must do this
with care because it says so on a website
that explains how to make homemade corn tortillas.
So much labor for this peasant bread,
this edible art birthed from Abuelitas’s
brown skin, which is still glistening
in the sun.
II. APOLOGY
Before she died I called my abuelita
grandma. I cannot remember
if she made corn tortillas from scratch
but, O, how she’d flip the factory fresh
El Milagros (Quality Since 1950)
on the burner, bathe them in butter
& salt for her grandchildren.
How she’d knead the buttons
on the telephone, order me food
from Pizza Hut. I assure you,
gentle reader, this was done
with the spirit of Mesoamérica
ablaze in her fingertips.
for zeyar lynn
it isn’t sweet or salty
it isn’t sour or bitter
it’s somewhere in between
somewhere from above
it’s umami
the savory delight of monosodium glutamate
the buddha’s poop that has colonized our cuisines since 1908
the inducer of droll and drivel, that sensation of furriness on the tongue
the teaser to the throat, the softener to the hard palate
the loveless lover to the lingual tonsil
the made-in-japan-chinese-restaurant syndrome
the diamond powder, the tortoise hair, the hare horn
recognized safe for the general population
no serious adverse reactions
no long-lasting effects
only an imperishable aftertaste
from myeik mohinga to houston beef jerky
from kaesŏng instant noodle to lima pachamanca
from the shrimp cocktail of nasa astronauts in space to
the food-aid package in east africa
even the inuit imbue their whales, walruses and seals with an essence of taste
the seasoning for all seasons
the most addictive of additives
the non-essential you can’t live without
the acid you yearn to lick every second
the undecided neurotransmitter
the enhancer of life’s flavors
the condiment to contemporary conditions
no wonder then
99 percent of humanity is over-ajinomotoed
the rest is under-ajinomotoed
if you are a 1-kilogram rat
15 grams of the sweet dust is your lethal oral dose
it works 50 percent of the time
The Abuelita Poem
Paul Martinez PompaI. SKIN & CORN
Her brown skin glistens as the sun
pours through the kitchen window
like gold leche. After grinding
the nixtamal, a word so beautifully ethnic
it must not only be italicized but underlined
to let you, the reader, know you’ve encountered
something beautifully ethnic, she kneads
with the hands of centuries-old ancestor
spirits who magically yet realistically posses her
until the masa is smooth as a lowrider’s
chrome bumper. And I know she must do this
with care because it says so on a website
that explains how to make homemade corn tortillas.
So much labor for this peasant bread,
this edible art birthed from Abuelitas’s
brown skin, which is still glistening
in the sun.
II. APOLOGY
Before she died I called my abuelita
grandma. I cannot remember
if she made corn tortillas from scratch
but, O, how she’d flip the factory fresh
El Milagros (Quality Since 1950)
on the burner, bathe them in butter
& salt for her grandchildren.
How she’d knead the buttons
on the telephone, order me food
from Pizza Hut. I assure you,
gentle reader, this was done
with the spirit of Mesoamérica
ablaze in her fingertips.
Monosodium Glutamate
Ko Ko Thett
for zeyar lynn
it isn’t sweet or salty
it isn’t sour or bitter
it’s somewhere in between
somewhere from above
it’s umami
the savory delight of monosodium glutamate
the buddha’s poop that has colonized our cuisines since 1908
the inducer of droll and drivel, that sensation of furriness on the tongue
the teaser to the throat, the softener to the hard palate
the loveless lover to the lingual tonsil
the made-in-japan-chinese-restaurant syndrome
the diamond powder, the tortoise hair, the hare horn
recognized safe for the general population
no serious adverse reactions
no long-lasting effects
only an imperishable aftertaste
from myeik mohinga to houston beef jerky
from kaesŏng instant noodle to lima pachamanca
from the shrimp cocktail of nasa astronauts in space to
the food-aid package in east africa
even the inuit imbue their whales, walruses and seals with an essence of taste
the seasoning for all seasons
the most addictive of additives
the non-essential you can’t live without
the acid you yearn to lick every second
the undecided neurotransmitter
the enhancer of life’s flavors
the condiment to contemporary conditions
no wonder then
99 percent of humanity is over-ajinomotoed
the rest is under-ajinomotoed
if you are a 1-kilogram rat
15 grams of the sweet dust is your lethal oral dose
it works 50 percent of the time
La Mian in Melbourne
Kim Cheng Boey
On Little Bourke Street it’s the bewitching hour
of winter dusk’s last riffs playing
long mauve shadows down the blocks,
waking the neon calligraphy, its quavering script
mirrored on the warm sheen of the Noodle King
where a man slaps and pummels the dough
into a pliant wad. He takes a fist-sized ball
and starts his noodle magic, stretching the bands,
the sleight-of-hand plain for you to see,
weaving a stave of floury silent music.
You stand islanded from the passage
of bodies and cars, the art of la mian
reeling you in to a music deep beneath
the murmur of traffic, beyond the fusillade
of a siren down the street. Between here
and wherever home is the noodles stretch,
sinuous, continuous, edible songlines multiplying
into a cat’s cradle of memories, the loom-work
of hands calling to the half-forgotten hum,
hunger for what is gone, the lost noodle-makers
of the country left behind:
the wanton mee hawker in Tiong Bahru,
the mee rebus man on Stamford Road,
and Grandmother serving long life
noodles for each birthday, her deft hands
pulling three generations under one roof.
The noodles were slightly sweetened to ensure
the long years came happy, not like Grandmother’s
difficult eight decades, the family dispersed
at the end, the ritual of birthday noodles lost.
Now you watch the handful of hand-pulled
noodles dunked in a boiling pot, then scooped
with a mesh ladle onto a waiting bowl of broth.
You sit before it, enveloped in steam,
chopsticks ready to seize the ends
or beginnings, and start pulling them in.
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