Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Tuesday poem #317 : Alex Manley : Bombastic

Enact a controlled demolition of the self.                Then say: Adieu 

to the death. All these years, and the city still hasn't been bombed.

The churches all stand still,                  though some have converted 

into condominiums.                  On the sidewalk there’s the barcode 

of ash that a bush burnt to cinder leaves behind.                   We are 

cold packed, like river stones,                a few neighbourhoods over. 

The barest trees form the prettiest shadows.            We’re bedding

down together.                      There’s an eye downstairs, in the living 

room, watching the eleven o’clock news.               The anointed one

kneels, vacillating.               To be caught in flagrante, etc. To be un

covered,            like an archaeopteryx at the mercy of steel dowsing

rods.                    Questions follow.              How many hands does it

take to make light work    and     how many monarchs do you need

to topple a statue.             Later you realize: There is no downstairs 

and there is no living room. But there is always an eye.           Later 

still, someone says:               Wait. That was the couple your hopes 

were riding on?             Me, I put a bet on every single horse in the 

carousel.           The writing, the wall, even the Constantine dream.



Alex Manley [photo credit: Selina Vesely] is a Montreal-based writer and editor. A graduate of Concordia University's creative writing program, he won the Irving Layton Award for Fiction there in 2012. His work has appeared in, amongst others, Maisonneuve magazine, Carte Blanche, The Puritan, Lemon Hound and the Association of American Poets' Poem-a-Day feature. He supports a universal basic income and you can read more of his work at alexmanley.com.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Tuesday poem #316 : Erin Bedford : Reed Warbler to Cuckoo



Funny egg
blithe bird
don’t fret

You didn’t mean to
it was just a trick of nature
an old rule of biology

Imprint

And who pretended more that you were mine?

Your red-raw throat wide for everything I brought
you outgrew the nest
before I thought to peck and run you off

Now look at you on your high branch
grown so fat and fine
some part of that mine
singing songs that sweep me away

Trick me again


Erin Bedford's work is published in William Patterson University's Map Literary, Flash Fiction Magazine, The Temz Review, and Train: a poetry journal. She attended and won a Certificate of Distinction for her novel Fathom Lines from the Humber School for Writers. Currently, she is acting as shill for her second novel, Illumining, and a manuscript of poetry. Follow her to find out more @ErinLBedford

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Tuesday poem #315 : Tim Atkins : Excerpt from a book called: NOTHING CONCLUSIVE HAS YET TAKEN PLACE IN THE WORLD THE ULTIMATE WORD OF THE WORLD AND ABOUT THE WORLD HAS NOT YET BEEN SPOKEN THE WORLD IS OPEN AND FREE EVERYTHING IS STILL IN THE FUTURE AND WILL ALWAYS BE



Section 3.1.2 47-82

When you are less angry the landscape recedes to a horizon or a moment that clangs

In the soundscape of the Danube there are those who make me want to puke over my shoulder when no news comes

You loved Tishe Amijo Head when she left your body in Oxnard and all that remained was a postcard of the beats with her name on

A book bearing your name may or may not exist moulding a jello map from prominent bumps

That book may contain invectives against the government along with portions of August and forgotten poets from The Penguin Book of 20th Century German Verse

I take hold of the toe of infinite power and loved Tishe Amijo Head she lived in a car with a bank robber called Buck when we made love

The book you may have written you believe makes no mention of this

When a woman leaves her body they leave yours also to listen to the Danube but no longer see it

When you lie flat beneath the wine dark sea and feel the fresh water touching it there are marks on your arms where the secret police promised to twist them

Turning away from metonomy towards the space that the globe opens up things you wish you had never written thinking you had hidden them in the lungs and the liver

& the spaces between letters

When you are less happy you try everything revolutionary

To turn the clock back to a time before the industrial revolution you think

You do not know if there was ever a time when the secret police did not know where you lived

When you are busy initiating and documenting a more sexual mode it is harder to tell if any of the participants work for the filth

To fight with a person you must use cum but not for the weapon for example I fight the monkey with a rose

Cum simia rosa pugno in England thou is commonly used because in that country they have no need for police

Everyone who lives there is dead or asleep



Tim Atkins is the author of books published by Book Thug, The Figures, O Books, Barque, Crater, Boiler House, ifpthenq, and many other presses. Petrarch Collected Atkins was a Times Literary Supplement book of the year in 2014. He is the editor of onedit.net. He can be reached at timatkins1234@googlemail.com

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan


Tuesday, April 09, 2019

Tuesday poem #314 : Timothy Otte : from “Psalms After Jamme”




Timothy Otte is a poet and critic. Poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Denver Quarterly, Sixth Finch, Reservoir, SAND Journal, Structo, and others. Reviews have appeared in the Poetry Project Newsletter, LitHub, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. Otte runs the Poetry Book Club at SubText Books in St. Paul, MN, works at Coffee House Press, and keeps a home on the internet: www.timothyotte.com. Say his last name like body.

The Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan