Tuesday poem #425 : Nate Logan : Any Major Dude Will Tell You

 

The crossover episode is never a bad idea. Meredith got sent to jail for lopping off Dave’s head. I don’t think that word properly denotes the severity of the action. Lop. I’ve got a bar of silver at home collecting dust. After the first day, I knew a philosophy major wasn’t for me (the ethics of revenge). 3-D is overrated and everyone loves it. Believing in nonsense is the same as believing in a car bomb. A workout headband says a lot about a person. Lawnmowers are properly rated. Clu Gulager invented the backflip and demolition derby. This ham is too salty.

 

 

 

Nate Logan is the author of Inside the Golden Days of Missing You (Magic Helicopter Press, 2019). He teaches at Franklin College and Marian University.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #424 : Jack Jung : A Wave

 

 

I had to go see a flowering tree.
Hanging on one of its branches
Was a fruit with a flower on it upside down.
If fruits only come after flowers,
Or if flowers only come after fruits, then
A flower blossoming on a fruit
Like a fabric breaking out of a shell
Is not in the same flow of Time
In which I decided to go out
Before the end of a season and found
A fruit that could not have waited
For petals to wither first,
The flower that could not let the fruit bend
Branch’s arc alone. Lowering to be possible
For me to catch with one hand
That I may push my other in as a flower
Flowers while a fruit forms, or
A fruit forms a flower before it’s full,
Until arriving with an open palm
At the warm rotting core.

 

 

 

Jack Jung is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was a Truman Capote Fellow. He was born in Seoul, South Korea, and immigrated to the United States. He received his BA in English from Harvard, and an MA in Korean Language and Literature from Seoul National University. His translations of Korean poet Yi Sang’s poetry and prose are published in Yi Sang: Selected Works by Wave Books. He is the American Literary Translation Association’s 2021 Emerging Translator Mentorship Program Mentor for Korean poetry. He currently teaches Korean poetry translation at Literature Translation Institute of Korea.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

 

Tuesday poem #423 : Helen Robertson : Amphibian

 

I lack the vestigial hips                                     to claim

            I belong

                                         only                                                 to the sea.

 

I spend too much time parched                       astride the shoreline

looking to land                                                 believing

                         it could love me back.

 

And every time I venture                                 I find my skin ruptured

by the heat of this assumption,

 

that I am built for that environment.

 

But I’m terrified of drowning;

                                                                        find myself

                                                                                          overwhelmed

by the apparent peace                                      of water —

                                                                                           aware

that its depth

                       can be as dangerous.

 

                   Yet —                                           the whales knew this too

          so,

   at least for now                                             I’ll turn my back to the earth.

 

 

 

Possible witch, definite bitch, and full time disaster Helen Robertson is a genderqueer trans woman moving through the lifelong process of accepting how lucky they've been; using poetry to excise their ire and sorrow — hopefully turning it into something worthwhile.

Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Quarterly, The Fiddlehead, The Puritan, The /tƐmz/ Review, and others.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

 

Tuesday poem #422 : Ren Pike : In the leaves of change Alberta

 

 

Normal, this nervous riff. This ruinous rancour.
Sitting and pecking. My bird heart waits.
For him and them. The set of three. Just
down the way. Bargaining. Imprinted

with kicks and schemes. This territory
they've crossed so fast. Short of breath, out of
means. Ready to bloody the next. Fore-
boding swooping in. Weary. Pleading

for swift return to sorrows wrested.
From a thousand metres, these dark pools
seem sweet waters. Oil slick. Easy to
get caught up in their mephitic waves.

I'm not indifferent. Out on this
limb. Stripping bark and feigning patience.

 

 

 

Ren Pike grew up in Newfoundland. Through sheer luck, she was born into a family who understood the exceptional value of a library card. Her poetry has appeared in Train, NDQ, IceFloe Press, and Juniper. When she is not writing, she wrangles data for non-profit organizations in Calgary, Canada.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan