Rachel Contreni Flynn
The Match Girl Lights Them One By One
I must not envy sparrows.
I must not punish my body.
I must not pull the wings off.
I must not disinfect everything.
I must not shrivel into dust mites.
I must not dream inside a chimney.
I must not seek comfort from this.
Ian Randall Wilson
A Journalistic Approach to the Mysteries
Oh my lead paragraph,
my bridge,
my inverted pyramid of love—
all things depend
on the placement of object
to observer. This morning
when I rolled on top of you.
There were many facts in the beginning
and at the end, few.
I like the way a period
can jump to the size of a planet over night.
I'm aware of the new geometry
which tells us the coastline of England
has never been measured.
It's true: They keep parsing things
into smaller pieces
and the damned beach gets longer.
If just once I could nail my thoughts
to the southern wall and observe them—
These days I look for a reaction,
the turn of the cat's head by the window.
I have the words
but not the feelings.
When things reverse
I don't know what to say.
I'll have to wait for someone
who can explain things clearly
and in a voice that doesn't sound.
Dean Young
Unrestraining Order
Ever since coming to this blunderous city
famous for crab and mildew, I haven't
had it easy. Comrades stabbing each other
over institutional affiliation, no one
understanding the parking restrictions.
Yet you remain before me like a blackbird
erased from a blackboard oh yeah
and wah wah while I saw nary a crab,
I felt encouraged by ye distant spires,
ye antique towers, ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon,
ye living lamps by whose clear light
I searched for my contact lens.
But I was younger then, walking by the sea
as recommended by Rilke, looking for
your number. One of my teachers thinks
because rabbits have no natural enemy
in Australia, all you have to do is be a rabbit
in Australia. One of my students
swallows a thorn thus transforming
himself into solid callous. Me?
I struggle with twinkle lights and ladders.
I struggle with the mattress on the stairs
but still you do not come. Yet once more,
o ye laurels, once more you do not come,
you do not do, you do not do,
you meaner beauties of the night
I will never see naked enough
but when I finally sip at sleep
you call: Meet me in New Jersey!
but then you are not there
and me, a college professor.
In one version, every other word is ouch,
another yippee. The wind wants in
and when I let it, immediately
it wants back out.
Frances Sjoberg
On Rouault: Chorus 1
the artist moves with the staggering step of a paralytic
male to female, man to man;—as a rule his hope is folly
we cannot exactly narrate the plot or sum his message up
it is not worth yielding to its lures; his work is
the last violent twist in the history of the nude
male to female, man to man;—as a rule his hope is folly
as to the burden of meaning, we seek
in thickly laid impasto or light unfettered hues
the last violent twist in the history of the nude
revolving around his own meanderings
he compels the gentle ones to turn to monsters of depravity
whether thickly laid impasto or light unfettered hues
he puts his finger in a pot of paint and smears it
into the inferno of brutal and ugly
even the gentle ones turn to depravity
the message seems to be: man's fate upon earth is tragic
a descent into the inferno of brutal and ugly
with the staggering step of a paralytic
we cannot exactly narrate the plot or sum his message up
Shauna Hannibal
Wrong Vesicle
The light from the setting sun shone
through the cracks in the glass
of forever.
I thought this must be what it's like
inside a red balloon on a hot,
clear day in the park.
The man just made a goddamn big mistake.
Wrong testicle.
But it's February, too early
for the monkey-hand tree
to bloom.
William Waltz
Assistant to the Stars
Governor piledrives Jawbone of Late Show into Turnbuckle. He's Action Figure with intermittent impetigo. I stash alibis under grandstands in green mint boxes. Careers have family trees. I am cut man, idea guy, right-hand man with two right hands. I am from elsewhere. Yesterday Hidden Camera arrived and for a moment I felt nostalgic for Times we were all dreamers, so I opened my black box and offered First Lady a peek. She was busy teasing her hair into Shape of Mushroom Cloud. Tomorrow, ten thousand undulating fingers; Governor will graze their tips, symbiotic fish gliding by anesthetic tentacles. I will maintain my distance from Vortex, smelling salts ready, the glass exoskeleton pulsing between my fingers as if it were a honey bee.
Sarah Manguso
Two Attempts To Explain What I Do
1.
The Romans had a good proverb: Brave men lived before Agamemnon. It means that writing is a good approximation of the universe, but only a corollary to it.
2.
I read my mother a line from Chekhov. Isn't it good? I ask in the silence afterward. That's why he was famous, she says.