January 2009
61 posts
“Women and birds are able to see without turning their heads, and that is indeed...”
– James Stephens
Dangerous for Girls | Connie Voisine
It was the summer of Chandra Levy, disappearing from Washington D.C., her lover a Congressman, evasive and blow-dried from Modesto, the TV wondering
in every room in America to an image of her tight jeans and piles of curls frozen in a studio pose. It was the summer the only woman known as a serial killer, a ten-dollar whore trolling
the plains of central Florida, said she knew she would ...
“I think it’s really unwise to talk about what a song is, or means, or was....”
– Benjamin Smoke
“There is something missing when I don’t hear music, and when I do, then...”
– Robert Walser
from "Bad Girl" | Kim Addonizio
“You’ve locked her in with her perfume and cheap novels, her deep need for trouble. She’s the one calling to you through the keyhole, then sneaking away to squirm out a window and tear her silk dress. You can’t guess where she’s going, or who you’ll wake up with when you finally wake up, your head throbbing like a heart.”
“One of my wings beat faster,
I couldn’t help it-
the one away from the...”
– Growing Up | William Stafford
“Everyone is born a genius, but it is drummed out of us almost from the minute we...”
– Michael Greenberg, from “Hurry Down Sunshine”
from "Somewhere Holy" | Carl Phillips
“There are men inside the world who, never mind how much they tell you that they’re trying, can’t persuade you that it isn’t you, it’s life, it’s life in general where it hurts, a fear, of everything, of nothing, when if only they would name it maybe then you’d stay, you all the time aware it’s you that’s talking, so who’s going anywhere...
“The hero must expect evil
to continue. He cannot afford
to be surprised by...”
– from “Dark Matter” | Lawrence Raab
from "Naked Poem" | Urszula Kozioł
“last night into your dream left ajar I ran in without knocking for a moment I found you in black snow among pink peacocks but when I shone toward you through a shadowy triangle I heard your heart beat you glanced and in sudden commotion the transfixed stars changed places with each other “
There's A Hole In My Sidewalk | Portia Nelson
I I walk down a street and there’s a big hole. I don’t see it and fall into it. It’s dark and hopeless and it takes me a long time to find my way out. It’s not my fault II I walk down the same street. There’s a big hole and I can see it, but I still fall in. It’s dark and hopeless and it takes me a long time to get out. It’s still not my fault. III I...
“We were in the gold room where everyone
finally gets what they want, so I said...”
– Richard Siken, from “Snow and Dirty Rain”
“I look for uncomplicated hymns
but love has none.”
– Anne Sexton
Something To Remember You By | Elisa Gabbert
Last night I dreamt about last night, with a few differences: we were dancing,
but not at a bar, at a bake sale, and one of the Young Republicans
played “Pictures of You” on a boom box, and we laced our fingers together,
breathing in the angel food vapors. We stepped outside to share a cigarette,
to trace hearts and our initials on a dusty van. Then we went for drinks
but in the dream...
“If only I could tell someone.
The humiliation I go through
when I think of my...”
– from “Letter” | Franz Wright
“Do I look like a bride in these rags of wind? Do I look like the angel of home...”
– Cecilia Woloch, from “Proposals” (via lookunderfoot)
Language Lesson, 1976 | Heather McHugh
“When Americans say a man takes liberties, they mean he’s gone too far. In Philadelphia today I saw a kid on a leash look mom-ward and announce his fondest wish: one bicentennial burger, hold the relish. Hold is forget, in American. On the courts of Philadelphia the rich prepare to serve, to fault. The language is a game as well, in which love can mean nothing, doubletalk mean lie....
“Sometimes they thought it was the words.
What they wanted to say could not be...”
– from “Spaces” | Arkaye Kierulf