poetry
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“Whatever the color and condition of things, open your eyes.”
Below is Robert Hass’s version of Aijaz Ahmad’s literal translation of a Ghalib ghazal: The happiness of a drop of water is to die into a river. When pain is unbearable, pain becomes the medicine. We are so weak our tears become a mild sighing. Now we really believe that water can turn into air.…
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‘Delirium for the Four Legs of a Love’ by Dimitris Athinakis (trans. Karen Emmerich)
I see your yesses coming from afar and my own, like candles, brandish and burn awaiting the centuries A strong wind carries off my hat my glasses my tattoo my arm carries off my leg and an eye [I’m left there smiling before jets gushing the joy of nothingness] joy — it too alone Stay,…
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Mary Ruefle
think like that no like that sniff around a burrow don’t hunt birds think like this no like this raccoons yes groundhogs yes opossum definitely yes think for yourself no not like that not the robin though nor the house sparrow here give me the controller let me have a go at it nor the…
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‘Lightning Bugs’ by August Kleinzahler
A cruel word at eventide and night zips up like a spider’s retreat. Go back to your febrile needlework. We shall not be chasing lightning bugs in the tall grass tonight. Put the whiskey on the shelf and let us speak calmly of money. Source: Kleinzahler, August. Live from the Hong Kong Nile…
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from ‘On Secrets’ by Mary Ruefle
“When you are walking down a city street and not paying much attention—perhaps you are downtrodden by some confusion—and come suddenly upon a rose bush blooming against a brick wall, you may be struck and awakened by the appearance of beauty. But the rose is not beautiful. You think the rose is beautiful and so you…
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Two a Rhythm of the Mind
“6. Greek mathematicians did not think one was a number because the concept one did not involve number. To them, two was the first number. And the hybrid marriage of one, which was not a number, and two, which was, begot three, the second number. And from one, two, and three, all other numbers proceeded,…
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Poets Reading the News publishes ‘Agraphia’
A great poetry website, Poets Reading The News, has published another one of my poems, Agraphia, along with one my recent photos, Car 5 (above). I’m extraordinarily fond, and proud, of this poem. It’s about the way that war and violence affect one’s humanity. It begins with a quote from Gabriele de’ Mussi, a historian of…
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Elizabeth
“If you should dip your hand in, your wrist would ache immediately,” from “At the Fishhouses”, by Elizabeth Bishop
wikipoem.org 