other people’s poetry
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‘Antiquity Calling’ by Elaine Equi
Looking at Mapplethorpe’s Polaroids, I learn that heliked shoes and armpit crotch-shots of men and women,both shaved and un’—all giving a good whiff to the camera.But best of all are his pictures of ordinary phoneswhich convey a palpable sense of expectancy as ifat any moment, one of the fabulous, laconic nude menstrewn about might call.…
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‘Arena’ by Ariana Reines
I’ve swept the floor.I’ve shaven All the wood and leaves off the bedBrackish semen fills the sky And dazed bees browse my droopingCurls Look asshole. I know exactly who you areI know what you’re trying to do to me Reines, Ariana. Mercury. 1st ed. Fence Books, 2011.
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‘The Field’ by Ron Padgett
Every once in a while whitelines appear in my fieldof vision, curling sometimesat the top of it and Irealize once again that thereis an invisible rectanglearound everything.How do I know it’s there?I just put it there,that’s how.And those white lines?Little hairsstraggling from my eyebrows. Source: Padgett, Ron. “The Field.” Big Cabin, Coffee House Press, 2019,…
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‘Dream Song 238’ by John Berryman
Henry’s Programme for God “It was not gay, that life.” You can’t “make me small,” you “can’t put me down” or take away my job I am immune, although it is not gay. Why did we come at all, consonant to whose bidding? Perhaps God is a slob, playful, vast, rough-hewn. Perhaps God resembles one…
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‘American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin’ by Terrance Hayes
I only intend to send word to my futureSelf perpetuation is a war against TimeTravel is essentially the aim of any religionIs blindness the color one sees under waterBreath can be overshadowed in darknessThe benefits of blackness can seem radicalBlack people in America are rarely compulsiveIs forbidden the only word God doesn’t knowYou have to…
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‘Transformed Creature’ by Liu Xia
Translated from the Chinese by Ming Di and Jennifer Stern You have a strange pet— one eye is a cat’s, the other a sheep’s. Yet, it won’t socialize with felines, will attack any flock of sheep. On moonlit nights, it wanders on roofs. When you’re alone, it will lie in your lap, preoccupied, slowly studying…
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“Aubade Sung at Laetare a Year Ago” by Guillaume Apollinaire
It’s spring come out Esther you should Take a walk in the pretty woods The hens are clucking in the yard Dawn’s pink folds are shooting skyward And love is coming to steal your heart Mars and Venus have come back anew They give each other mad kisses An innocent interlude While beneath the fluttering…
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Other People’s Poetry: “A Litany for Survival” Audre Lorde
For those of us who live at the shoreline standing upon the constant edges of decision crucial and alone for those of us who cannot indulge the passing dreams of choice who love in doorways coming and going in the hours between dawns looking inward and outward at once before and after seeking a…
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