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stripped batting of cloud glimpsed ligaments dusk coming up under lithographic nibhatchings instruments click the finesprung locust replicate dinge along hilllines tailings of umber the rust smudge there is still that hemmed ocean of oaks the various reds the somehow silver cast over the browngold the underbrushed shad... | 0 |
transient voyager of heaven o silent sign of winter skies what adverse wind thy sail has driven to dungeons where a prisoner lies methinks the hands that shut the sun so sternly from this mornings brow might still their rebel task have done and checked a thing so frail as thou they would have... | 1 |
the winter evening settles down with smell of steaks in passageways six o’clock the burntout ends of smoky days and now a gusty shower wraps the grimy scraps of withered leaves about your feet and newspapers from vacant lots the showers beat on broken blinds and chimneypots and at the corner of the street a lonely cab... | 2 |
the bike path a bunnys body and blood where the head should be something has torn off its foot something has eaten its heart its entrails frozen in snow the plow growls past me this morning i left eggs behind the couch to incubate i spent last night walking until all the blood left my feet and my thighs throbbed the s... | 3 |
he snow arrives after long silence from its high home where nothing leaves tracks or strains or keeps time the sky it fell from pale as oatmeal bears up like sheep before shearing the cat at my window watches amazed so many feathers and no bird all day the snow sets its table with clean linen putting its house in order... | 4 |
when i can no longer say thank you for this new day and the waking into it for the cold scrape of the kitchen chair and the ticking of the space heater glowing orange as it warms the floor near my feet i know it’s because i’ve been fooled again by the selfish unruly man who lives in me and believes he deserves only saf... | 5 |
under the magnolia a winterstarved hare stills and pretends it is not there and wanting less of fearfulness i pretend that i do not see my camouflage the wild promises in my gaze and step carefully by morning bitter morning— lack and awful patience wait at every compass point mourning mournful the prairie seals windsco... | 6 |
was the hard winter she came frozen larks plummeting through the gloam like falling stars each pail in the yard a slattern’s looking glass each dusk the house cobwebbed by creeping frost my husband slipped like a knife from an oyster my sons nestled like dormice in their cots i stood at my black window and oh the cold... | 7 |
rabbit has stopped on the gravel driveway imbibing the silence you stare at spruce needles theres no sound of a leaf blower no sign of a black bear a few weeks ago a buck scraped his rack against an aspen trunk a carpenter scribed a plank along a curved stone wall you only spot the rabbits ears and tail when it moves ... | 8 |
for lucie brockbroidoit was delivered to me in the snow the kids were all sleeping in separate corners of the house like unfound crystals i wiped the flakes off holding what i thought could save me my neighbors were afraid i was disappearing the branches above trembled with hidden birds i didn’t know i read and kept re... | 9 |
so when i walk down the street i hold hands with the wind there’s a chimney coughing up ahead a sky so honey i could almost taste it a cat struts away from me two yellow eyes become four just like that i’m the loneliest creature on this block soon the streetlights will come alive television sets will light up with b... | 10 |
noon in the city in the park in the salted air in the cold cringe cringing two hands glued red to my cheeks i give away comfort to get it back oh look at the sun i must say to myself over and over so that i might look at the sun i rent a language guide to hold my hand while i sit sneezing in home’s direction—i am far ... | 11 |
oblique the eagle’s angle than the osprey’s precipitous fall but rose up both and under them dangled a trout the point of it all festooned a limb on each one’s favored tree either side of the river with chains of bone and lace of skin the river’s wind made shiver sat under them both one in december one in july in diam... | 12 |
a bleary part of town i traverse the blackboard silence of snow through the slats of the cypresses flounce paperwhite feathers of snow on the red leaves of my palms distend melted messages of snow the road is iron anvil stinging with sparks of snow my nocturnal heart thrums in white wasp whir of snow moonlight purls l... | 13 |
christmas eves our dad would bring home from the farm real hay for the reindeer that didnt exist and after we were finally asleep would get out and take the slabs up in his arms and carry them back to the bed of his pickup making sure to litter the snow with chaff so he could show us in the morning the place where they... | 14 |
bowl of rose water dreams itself empty on the radiator its december and we can hardly afford the heat our milk money crinkling hungry over the cold counter of our convenience store the very last of our cash for creamer for pleasantries for cheap tea and cigarettes for the barely there scent of roses burning softly we ... | 15 |
the rowboat i tied her shoes and the river cussed and spat our feet swelled and our bellies begged the end is never how you expect this is where i lose her at the shoreline in sweet water we fed wild dogs overripe apples and herring my hands shine with hunger her hair hung in willow boughs mine in wild onion i reel th... | 16 |
he wagon and mule time and eternity stop to change places their lean and slopeback shadow my reservation the moon moves like infested flour at the river bloody victories meet bloody massacres they tell each other about their dead grandmothers eat buffalo instead of hamburger after supper guitar chords bite through grav... | 17 |
s winter went on every morning’s spoon of buckwheat honey resembled more the taste of that isosceles at midpoint of your weight its smell brought sweetly back the pendulumlike pace moving us from windowsill to floor from floor to bed and back to floor mapping haste’s measure of the room our smell but also meubles book ... | 18 |
know it wont be receivedor sent the page will bein shreds as soon as i have scribbled itlater sometime youve grown used to itreading between the lines that never reached youunderstanding everything on the tiny sheetnot making haste i find room for the nightwhats the hurry when the hour thats passedis all part of the s... | 19 |
our first houselet in london she drew on the tablecloth to createa calligraphic feast our friends all begged for her ink on their bodies alefs that rose up from one side to form a podiumonce i leaned her back mouth to mouth in the kitchen claimed a medal of my own but i never knew which words were holyshereen eize ser... | 20 |
man by the name of skinner becomes famousfor keeping caged pigeons whom his clock feeds or starves at random their tiny twitching heads exaggerate until one bird swings its weight like a pendulum one turns counterclockwise three times one aims its beak to the corner and sings my love let me break which has nothing to ... | 21 |
s important she says that summerflatten itself against autumn that it keep insisting yes yes its true yes the heatmakes things difficult she shows him how her shoulders have gone darker stillbut do you remember she looks with eyes wide how cold the cold is howwe can barely stand morning until hot showers—press the heat... | 22 |
ue rim a soft hole—tender meat trim—mind leitmotiv doe moss petal veinhart hilt waist fawn—incoherent slidestrewn rib—hooved mother—move treeto invoke sex—a dim refraineat harvest smoke stones pond—thin anklesvinetwist—artery rite beargod shank—night enshawls house—hook web goth twink—hare huntunfolds smooth rope cho... | 23 |
’s the first time you stayin the morning you bring taliban poems back to bedi drink cardamom coffee and you read their tender lines‘may you not be hungry in the desert my dear’their loving as ordinary as oursi see wilding men shouldering rpgs by the swimming poolof a warlord’s compound and think they’re beautifulwatch... | 24 |
teacher says of their cat now gone missing in his absence everything is still the small silvered line in a grieffilled night when my love arrived into my life they brought noise their ideas their laugh their loud joy they rumbled thunder in the distance then the dog came too noise his fluffyeared need to play before i... | 25 |
loved you since i was little on the playground breaktime brawled with you and your mismatched cuffs tufts of eileen brown hair pinned down like a sheep under a sheet you wanted love the way boys got loved begged for it with all that eileen swagger and jaw when we bump together at the bar i’m still trying to tackle the ... | 26 |
all the boyswho asked meto dance and to all the boys to whomi said yes and to all the steps we tookright and left and to the one who boughtme a corsage of rosesto match my dress and tothe one who asked meif i wanted a kiss and to the one i kissed even thoughi didn’t want to kiss and to the one who kissed the girli rea... | 27 |
d it ends of course in fabulous heartbreak like anything—it’s not an if but when—so the trick is learning how to bendthe days you get nailing our flowers to the wall readingside by side memorize his body curving like a questionmark asking can we stay like this forever we canwe travel to his boyhood home to ancient rome... | 28 |
the building two women’s restroom in the strangest placesi want to tell you the most mundane things how this afternoonour favorite barista added a free extra shot of vanilla to mycoffee with a wink a just because it’s strong doesn’t mean it has to behard to drink around my straw i thought this is what the sharpness o... | 29 |
ffanyi’ve gotten used to sunlight with youbut no pressure just—spring doesn’t hurt as much anymoreyour softnessas the green seeps ini’ve got only ¢and some soulto spend on yousudden sunlight striking throughto find myself kneelingmy bones shatteredthen welded into this sudden page and youin a dorm roomwe make sin out o... | 30 |
ulling the foreign body off me— out of the dress up over my arms through the neckhole— he says you are more beautiful than a school spelling prize muezzin sirens us to break the fuck into a run the banquet table taps her feet in disapproval its bride season im his take on the call to prayer his sister sticks a sapphire... | 31 |
s of october antitrans bills were under consideration across the united states seeking to deny trans people access to basic healthcare education safety legal recognition and the right to exist see translegislationcomi my beloved is called an inconceivable beast a spectacle diagnosed with teratoid genitalia a chaos of ... | 32 |
for carlthis love dares not speak its name in some states until your eyes say it on a beach in ft lauderdale staring into mine and the cosmos spins out of my iris y nos nubla y nos vuela into the postulated sky of matted matter and sparkling light safely in a haze of shadows and shine away from the marches against our ... | 33 |
fter sonia sanchez sarah russell and barbara jane reyes with e her yg mac dre dorrough the supremes and joe bataan i wish i could tell you why i go back and forth between cities maybe i belong to the bridges freeway maybe loneliness is not an ending i want these songs to show me the way back to myself can i build y... | 34 |
here are so many things i’m not allowed to tell you i touch myself i dreamwearing your clothes or standing in the shower for over an hour pretending that this skin is your skin these hands your hands these shins these soapy flanks the musicians start the overture while i hide behind the microphonetrying to match the du... | 35 |
warm night of flesh pimples alonefear pressing between my eyes the mark of despair my thighs once a sanctuary guarding your precious cage of ribshave shivered to invisibility and do not existforget the oceanlove water falling from the gate of my soulfor the sea wiped its eyes sometimes agoand all is dry madnesswhat is ... | 36 |
he first gun we knew came in a toolbox for the apocalypse hammer barrel crushed can pack of newports a ballpoint pen someone took apart momma said dont touch we didnt—because all that could happen next seemed obvious blue lights in the windows of houses already turned out for the evening boys with pockets clenched in ... | 37 |
visn’t it dangerous to be a woman surrounded by men questionsabout risktaking parenting i’m childless and personalrelationships are directed at me i am a female photojournalistguy is a photojournalist and ivor’s male gaze is just his ownhas anyone ever hurt you is what they are really asking theyhave but not in the fie... | 38 |
long empty roads stretching as long as the gas tank is willing— sixtyseven dollars left from last summer’s job but that doesn’t matter with the windows rolled down her hair blowing back she doesn’t push it behind her ear her hand is busy holding mine lana del rey on the radio turned as high as our consciences allow— go... | 39 |
’s boxing day and i’m nearly ten and a halfi got the camouflaged action man for christmasi told mum i wanted to open it on my ownbut my special scissors won’t cut the plasticjust as i start to stick my tongue out and sweatmum calls my name from the front roomi shuffle down the stairs on my bummum says i should use the ... | 40 |
ugust and the drivein picture is packedwe lounge on the hood of the pontiacsurrounded by the slowburning spirals they sellat the window to vanquish the hordes of mosquitoesnothing works they break through the smoke screen for blood always the lookout spots the indians firstspread north to south barring progressthe siou... | 41 |
dunbar castle or arcadewe rode with the exotic sheikthrough deserts of erotic flowersheld in the siren madonnas armswere safe from the billcollectors powerforgave the rats and roaches wecould not defeat beguiled by jazzbostrutting of a mouse and whenthe swell guy roused to noblest wrathshot down all those weakéd menoh... | 42 |
he zoo is tough terrain hillyi wheel as fast as i can —then mum shouts ‘keep up’i stop ‘hand me my crutches’i shakily get up tear off my splints’velcro straps and put them on heri sit her in the chair ‘you have a go’at first she spins in circles‘no’ i say ‘use both arms in unison’she still veers away zigzagging sweatin... | 43 |
ue darkness is in a child’s bedroom deep blackelsewhere there’s just a meager watery twilight in whicheverything in the end acquires a humiliating distinctnesscopyright credit petr hruška night from everything indicates selected poems translated by jonathan bolton copyright © by petr hruška reprinted by permission of b... | 44 |
ll stiff and spinytry to make it to the other sideand risk savage thornswe who left home in our teenschildren who crossed boundaries and were tornby its thousand serrated tongueswe who bear scars that bloom and bloombeneath healed skins who have we becomei ask myself is home my ghostdoes it wear my underwearfolded neat... | 45 |
brother holds a snake by its head the whole length of the snake is the length of my brother’s body the snake’s head is held safely securely as if my brother is showing him something in the distant high grass i don’t know why he wants to hold them their strong bodies wrapping themselves around the warmth of his arm con... | 46 |
could tell you this marigolds are a night flowerin the hour of my birth there were men in the streetssome with knives and some between skin and somepeeling open buds with swollen hands trying to finda home to hide in my mother fingered a ripenedbowl of hot water carving out upon its surface the linesby which our famil... | 47 |
can remember my father bringing home spruce gumhe worked in the woods and filled his pocketswith golden chunks of pitchfor his childrenhe provided this special sacramentand we’d gather at this feet around his legsbumping his lunchbox and his empty thermos rattled insideour skin would stick to daddys gluey clothingand ... | 48 |
frank’s sister grew long blue feathers she said it was worse than cutting teeth she spent a month screaming in the cave pushing them out frank would lie in bed at night touching his own back crying praying it wouldn’t come to him but the day his sister flew to the house he stood by the window in awe giant blue spread c... | 49 |
her was angry when frank accused his brother of being a cartoon “but look” frank said “i can fold him into airplanes i can chew him into spitballs” “stop chewing and folding your brother he loves you very much” she said “then why doesn’t he say so” “because we can’t afford a screenwriter’s fee”copyright credit caconrad... | 50 |
u’ve never seen a lilac in mississippi backstage you wear lotion laced with its chemical imitation a ballet mistress says relevé always as command lift onto the toe using only the heel your ankle’s bewilderment old as the horned owl gaze from your mother hunched in the audience you enter the stage as lilac fairy fairi... | 51 |
watch kevin bacon conjure fake tears in a real hallway i am real tears in a fake hallway “procreation is gross though” i’m nine a half watching “the miracle of life” on my mother’s bed stirring my shells cheese i see that big ’s bush split in twain i drop my spoon surely i am not this bloody meat i march down to t... | 52 |
los angeles california for me the movie starts with a black man leaping into an orbit of badges tiny moons catching the sheen of his perfect black afro arc kicks karate chops and thirty cops on their backs it starts with the swagger the cool lean into the leather front seat of the black and white he takes off in deep h... | 53 |
love is boring and passé all that old baggage the bloody bricabrac the bad the gothic retrograde obscurantist hum and drum of it needs to be swept away so night after night we sit in the dark of the roxy beside grandmothers with their shanks tied up in the tourniquets of rolled stockings and open ourselves like earth t... | 54 |
s a secrete the grls speeching mye hole inn the lindens wee go out playe footballe verie nashenallie how wee leeve a stall piteus wen the grls speech me this is how u make a porno cuping mye hole on the sportes feeld speech is wut grls do but speech doesnt a grl make reel its a secrete i wuld be a porno abot ... | 55 |
don’t know why most mexicans in my hood wore nike cortez’s– why the breakers in my crew polished ‘em daily as if a little spit could salvage our childhoods– why we all know cortez’s are best for cwalking gang shit sick moves thrust upon an opponent’s pride– why we thought by wearing the name of our conqueror we might ... | 56 |
consider the market consider the gross domestic product of korea call it kimchiferment culture in a brine of ks buried undergroundin the spring it comes out kbbq kpop kdramas consider that japan renamed corea during its occupationso japan would be first alphabetically consider the ways we want to be read by our coloniz... | 57 |
m sorry it wasnt till the end of the yearthat i asked you to write about yourselves you filled pages in may and june my armand wrist were sore from writingwow and oh my goodness in the margins as you shared stories from your livesabout the times you fell in loveor lost somebody or learned to ride a bike and so many of ... | 59 |
your mouth your tongueput it out let it waitlet it wait till it isdry and cool let it wait past the point long past itwhen you think here i ama grown man standing herelike a child then your hands hold them out too openthem and let them wait tooif you would understandwant to know what i knew you would wait hold yoursel... | 60 |
when one is seen gliding through the woods and close to the observer it passes like a thought and on trying to see it again the eye searches in vain the bird is gone an infinite numbersaid champlain on the islandsin took a greatquantity fully as abundant asfish said the jesuit fathers inacadia incredible added sto... | 62 |
what if you knew youd be the lastto touch someoneif you were taking tickets for exampleat the theater tearing themgiving back the ragged stubsyou might take care to touch that palmbrush your fingertipsalong the life lines crease when a man pulls his wheeled suitcasetoo slowly through the airport whenthe car in front of... | 63 |
saint augustine preached humility the need to simply be on the ground do you wish to rise he asked what would he say of these words then which after all are meant to replace us what would he say of the way i go back again again to the burning house the house weve already escaped these words— so quick the way they ris... | 65 |
kindergarten i find myself sitting crosslegged on the playground having a nosebleed steady like a saline drip across my lip into my mouth down my chin through my fingers then blooming in a constellation of tiny red supernovas across my leg warmers and the mulch i tip my head back mouthbreatheboth bloodied palms open t... | 68 |
u might be wondering how i got herered handed pants down under the bleachersby the football field with four other girls crossmy heart and hope to die it’s not what you thinkwhat had happened was i got my periodduring gym class we were running the milethere i was giving it my all chest tightcalves and quads seizing up r... | 69 |
remember this clearly am bed sheets riftedwith confessions waves of linen—mother’s riftedocean i pulled prayers pain from like my fatheri babied sucked sore thumbs on a bed the riftedcharacters mulled by tongue before leaving fourteenyears of solitude teeth i spoke to her rifts—her mother’s buried love while she st... | 70 |
ll the secondgen immigrant berkeley moms somehow allwent to stanford i’m laughing becausei want to be in on the joke when i tell the joketo my mom she says she’s heard it before she doesn’tunderstand the punchline i want to be the daughter ofa mother who gives me octavia butler and ursula k le guinbook recs i want to b... | 71 |
berrystained month of summer grandmother cups flour ½ cup sugar tablespoon baking powder ½ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon nutmeg brown eggs ½ cup milk ½ cup melted butter cups wild blueberries cinnamon sugar to taste heat oven to °f dig into flour to unearth inherited secrets watch your grandmother when she advises “let me s... | 72 |
heir names have been lostonly the winds only the mountainskeep them we’ve forgotten the namesof the mountains my people the morewe bent our knees to worship the gods of the city the gods with jaguar eyes who sit in the smog which could be mistaken for clouds but for the ink they leave in our lungs rorschach paintings ... | 73 |
for jackie mendoza if even now i am excited about it every cow horse every canoe on the surface of pyramid lake— if at two hundred miles out i take a selfie with the bravoland cowboy record us driving by the tule elk reserve record two jetblack crows circling the morning’s blue wrist of light like a scrunchie then i c... | 74 |
ur neighbor’s orange tree is in full bloom fat and overgrown and spilling sunbright fists over our fence onto our quiet shouts of scutch grass sugaring tender rot over our anemones which hardly grew all spring because my father chose a fertilizer with the wrong ph and wrong mineral content my father figures that since ... | 75 |
tells me i smell likeher mom—something flowery and the blackened endingsof a jointi feared her blotchy wraththat sometimes showed itselfand others slept like somethingwithout a hippocampusthis time she possesses no rageonly hurt about the lieshe’d say of me if askedi hold my things tight to my chesttill it’s only half... | 76 |
wake butterfly—its late weve milesto go togethercopyright credit basho ”wake butterfly” from on love and barley haiku of basho translated by lucien stryk copyright © by lucien stryk reprinted by permission of estate of lucien stryksource on love and barley haiku of basho translated by lucien stryk penguin random house... | 78 |
listen carefully—there is land or there is waterand a time whereyou may mistake one for anotherthere is day and there is nightthe only difference between themis that a body may pass through one livingto arrive at the other no longerif by land you will travelthrough the wutong mountains follow the pathto liantang cross ... | 79 |
can hear in your voiceyou were born in one countryand will die in another and where you live is where youll be buriedand when you dream its where you were born and the moon never hangs in both skieson the same night and thats why you think the moon has a sisterthats why your day is hostage to your nights and thats why... | 80 |
that is no country for old men the young in one anothers arms birds in the trees —those dying generations—at their song the salmonfalls the mackerelcrowded seas fish flesh or fowl commend all summer long whatever is begotten born and dies caught in that sensual music all neglect monuments of unageing intellect ii an a... | 81 |
he blades like irises turning very fast to see you completely—steelblue then red where the cut occurs—the cut of you—they don’t want to know you they want to own you—no—not own—we all mean to live to the end—am i human we don’t know that—just because i have this way of transmitting—call it voice—a threat—communal actua... | 82 |
s it okay to begin with the obvious i am full of stones— is it okay not to look out this window but to look out another a mentor once said you cant start a poem with a man looking out a window too many men looking out a window what about a woman today is a haunting one last orange on the counter it is a dead fruit we s... | 83 |
“this is your captain” frank says from the cockpit “all passengers wishing to bail out any time during our flight it is too late i have shredded the parachutes to confetti in celebration of our arrival”copyright credit caconrad “this is your” page excerpted from the book of frank copyright © by ca conrad reprinted by ... | 84 |
que será el café of this holy incorporated place the wild steam of scorched espresso cakes rising like mirages from the aromatic waste waving over the coffeeglossed lips of these faces assembled for a standing breakfast of nostalgia of tastes that swirl with the delicacy of memories in these fortycent cups of brown sug... | 85 |
le annotationshighlightsenseless here’s the man with the crystal contractions with the rumor of sand with a doll’s past tense at the hollow step in a bed of distress nevertheless present at the passage of spring spring tristan tzara wrote this poem during the summer of weeks after the end of world war ii and so this p... | 86 |
he world is not as bad as our neighbors made it to be that day— we’ve seen worse days— and how beautiful they were these days living strife how we loved everything about not having to go to school i won’t describe the past for you i tell you i got held at borders i tell you i am used to it and what what is this record ... | 87 |
hen the clouds rolled in young is the night that is to say a cellophane softness ensued which blew across the sky like wisps of straw their firearms—a job well done young is the night and when the circus tent begins to blaze beneath the eyes speak no more of the delicate acrobat young is the night that is to say the bl... | 88 |
hing worth noting except an andromeda with quadrangular shoots— the boots of the people wet inside they must swim to church thru the floods or be taxed—the blossoms from the bosoms of the leaves fogthick morning— i see only where i now walk i carry my clarity with me hear where her snowgrave is the you ah you of mour... | 89 |
above the fresh ruffles of the surf bright striped urchins flay each other with sand they have contrived a conquest for shell shucks and their fingers crumble fragments of baked weed gaily digging and scattering and in answer to their treble interjections the sun beats lightning on the waves the waves fold thunder on ... | 90 |
ft him anhaga are gebideð metudes miltse þeah þe he modcearig geond lagulade longe sceolde hreran mid hondum hrimcealde sæ wadan wræclastas wyrd bið ful aręd swa cwæð eardstapa earfeþa gemyndig wraþra wælsleahta winemæga hryre “oft ic sceolde ana uhtna gehwylce mine ceare cwiþan nis nu cwicra nan þe ic him modsefan min... | 91 |
h i have slipped the surly bonds of earthand danced the skies on laughtersilvered wingssunward ive climbed and joined the tumbling mirthof sunsplit clouds—and done a hundred thingsyou have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swunghigh in the sunlit silence hovring thereive chased the shouting wind along and flungmy e... | 92 |
diagram of a diagram if properly decoded the first image which will appear is a circle or go backwards the last image a violin which it seems can be read by music and is only the length of a sheet of paper whatever a sheet of paper was in the year jimmy carter was elected — the longest piece of music included is calle... | 93 |
order to assess the situation a good wall is necessary for strategic leaning and contemplative exhalations cast in smoke across the state highway the strip mall sits for sale its parking lot lamps empty umbrellas of spit and shine in this dead of the country night a passing trucker shifts gears to meet a hill and the ... | 94 |
the dmz ravines north of the kaesong wastes edging south of the perfect ruler’s pink and prisoned paradise there is a climate paying no attention to us where cranes repopulate serpentine deltas another history than our own another spreadsheet than human another profit another prophecy chromosomal and intricate nowhere... | 95 |
very morning opening the newspaper i am facedwith the thin line that divides disaster and deprivationfrom a world of luminous wealth tuesday january thfor instance bodies many of them children lie on the groundthey drowned in the canal trying to escape a weapons depot fireand explosion in lagos their heads are twisted ... | 96 |
his is how the story begins a touch a bump a hot mouthjostled skin in an elevator escalation tension even just the illusionof trespass it always seems the smallest contact triggers the firethe tip of a match struck along the lips of containment for a while my sister and i thought the world had no coloruntil the s conv... | 97 |
hese are your stones assembled in matchbox and tincollected from roadside culvert and viaductbattlefield threshing floor basilica abattoir—stones loosened by tanks in the streetsfrom a city whose earliest map was drawn in ink on linenschoolyard stones in the hand of a corpsepebble from baudelaires ouistone of the mind ... | 99 |
vidence is sustenance is support is the law the ship is the captain is the crew perils is the trial is the rains is the seas is the currents jamaica is tobago is islands the case is murder kenyatta mesi nayo yooku ngena is justice africa is the ground is negroes evidence is sustenance is support is the law is the ship... | 100 |
•ver•y ā verē n darkiss ¹blkmale chile foundateid in luv unlimitid fuck anthems ²jeesus fed ghettorious poet who blks on purpose ³sun god who looks like him mama daddy—not a monkey not a monkey not a monkey ⁴ebonic cullud dreamr wif cornbreadid vocal chords ⁵majestic rekkidlutionary who borrows dingaling on very speci... | 102 |
last i’m taking off this coat this black coat of a country that i swore for years was mine that i wore more out of habit than design born wearing it i believed i had no choice i’m taking off this veil this black veil of a faith that made me faithless to myself that tied my mouth gave my god a devil’s face and muffled ... | 103 |
even when we said we were alone there was noise on the radio there was noise in the car there was noise all over the internet there was noise in the atmosphere there was noise trapped in the system there was noise in the economy noise was the economy there was noise on the train there was noi... | 106 |
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