Tag: sonnet

‘American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin’ by Terrance Hayes

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I only intend to send word to my future
Self perpetuation is a war against Time
Travel is essentially the aim of any religion
Is blindness the color one sees under water
Breath can be overshadowed in darkness
The benefits of blackness can seem radical
Black people in America are rarely compulsive
Is forbidden the only word God doesn’t know
You have to heal yourself to truly be heroic
You have to think once a day of killing your self
Awareness requires a touch of blindness & self
Importance is the only word God knows
To be free is to live because only the dead are slaves

Source: Hayes, Terrance. American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, 2018, p. 79

Breakfast in Bed (Overnight Iranian Forces Fire)

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Wikipedia Poem, No. 778

Maker:0x4c,Date:2017-9-26,Ver:4,Lens:Kan03,Act:Lar01,E-Y

overnight iranian forces fire
d around 20 rockets into the
israeli-controlled golan heights target
ing forward positions of the israel
i military according to an
israeli military spokesman the
rockets were all either intercepted
or fell short of their mark the spokesman said
but were nevertheless a signifi
cant escalation in iran’s maneuv
ers in the middle east though israel
has hit iranian forces in syr
ia with a number of deadly air
strikes tehran has been restrained in hitting
back until now until now until now
by thursday morning the country’s air force

Ariana Reines

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Wikipedia Poem, No. 530

W530
“I felt very human.” Ariana Reines

Driving 80 down the Turnpike, I begin typing into my iPhone:

I’m obsessed with petri curls
UV fancy s longways
Transfixed a Paver
Sears zebrawood w they do but know
What babe brand r u
Burning steel
Fine particles panicked began priests
W us Celine too

They do fast response day
Evict to satisfy Rhys speedster cat us B
Are white judges like war paint
Revved into nz taxes to pick up frenzy navigate
I have Mercedes Benz C 240 black
Is detected bet I hate the NRA

Wizards Fall

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Wikipedia Poem, No. 501

parenthetically
a mean kind of english
wreccan driven out
outcast elend misery
reflecting one’s genetic survival
instinct outcast misery miserly

development of meaning
a sorry state in vile dallag erman
the old english drive
driven out punished person
exiled and remarkable
a strong sense of the vile

drive them out who strive for natural gifts
our vile reflection senses its spirit lift

Dear Poets

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amelia-sm

.

FORM I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FORM
FORM I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FORM
FORM I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FORM

FORM I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FORM
FORM I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FORM
FORM I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FORM
FORM I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FORM

..

FIELD I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FIELD
FIELD I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FIELD
FIELD I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FIELD

FIELD I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FIELD
FIELD I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FIELD
FIELD I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FIELD
FIELD I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FIELD

…

FIGURE I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FIGURE
FIGURE I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FIGURE
FIGURE I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FIGURE

FIGURE I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FIGURE
FIGURE I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FIGURE
FIGURE I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FIGURE
FIGURE I don’t want to tell you how to do your job
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job FIGURE

§, by Ben Lerner

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Now to defend a bit of structure: beeline, skyline, dateline, saline—
now to torch your effluent shanty
so the small rain down can rain. I’m so Eastern that my Ph.D.
has edible tubers, my heart a hibachi oiled with rapeseed. I’m so Western that my Ph.D.

can bang and bank all ball game, brining the crowd to its feet
and the critics to their knees. Politically speaking, I’m kind of an animal.
I feed the ducks duck meat in duck sauce when I walk to clown school in my clown shoes.
The Germans call me Ludwig, bearer of estrus, the northern kingdom’s
professional apologist. The Germans call me Benji, the radical browser,
alcoholic groundskeeper of the Providence Little League. All readers of poetry

are Germans, are virgins. All readers of poetry sicken me. You, with your Soviet Ph.D.
and Afghan tiepin. You with your penis stuck in a bottle. And yes, of course, I sicken me,
with my endless and obvious examples
of the profound cultural mediocrity of the American bourgeoisie.

from Ben Lerner’s The Lichtenberg Figures