Tuesday poem #436 : Jaclyn Piudik : Synthese)

 

 

gone, that kick of the soul that fondled light
in pseudonym

maudits quote the breaking deluge
home-grown wars encumbered bilingually

a florilegium: jaded synchronicities –
ferocious pastels boxed in by ennui
amid a commune of fossils 

apropos of bones   abhorred ruins:
remorse trails in long verses
two days’ death fans out like a rose sure of its pale

we’re lagging in solipsism
the words just uttered, impatient to become history,
                                   linger

to hear the eye open –

let’s talk of things we don’t remember
feel the body biologique          (so cramped by the body politic

let’s low univocally at the heights of surrender

 

 

 

Jaclyn Piudik is the author of To Suture What Frays (Kelsay Books 2017) and three chapbooks,  the corpus undone in the blizzard (Espresso Chapbooks 2019), Of Gazelles Unheard (Beautiful Outlaw 2013) and The Tao of Loathliness (fooliar press 2005/8).  Her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including New American Writing, Columbia Poetry Review, Burning House and Barrow Street.  She received a New York Times Fellowship for Creative Writing and the Alice M. Sellers Award from the Academy of American Poets. Piudik  holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from the City College of New York, as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from the University of Toronto.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #435 : Lesle Lewis : Reading William and Gertrude

 

 

 

“The feeling of bare time is the least stimulating experience we can have,”  he said.

Empty space too.

She said, “ A sentence is not why they were worried.”

That’s why we write them.

This is our easy time.

This is our hard time.

Winter is a spider in a jar with only lettuce to eat and  the lettuce to be eaten.

Dave comes to fix the garden shed door.

Shadows of the spoons make us swoon.

We dig into consciousness.

Heart.

Duration.

We invite a lonely word into our home and cook it a full sit-down meal.

Are we using your mental categories or mine?

Some things we remember once and once is enough.

Discontent or discomfort.

Fog or frog or both.

Well-worn or virgin  paths. 

When William’s and Gertrude’s minds met it was all the stars and moons.

We want them to meet again.

And to be a little wanting is all right because to want and then to get is so great a possibility that to be without desire would be sad.

 

 

 

Lesle Lewis' collections include Small Boat (winner of the 2002 Iowa Poetry Prize), Landscapes I & II (Alice James Books, 2006), lie down too (Alice James Books, 2011), A Boot's a Boot (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2014), and Rainy Days on the Farm (Fence Books, 2019). Her chapbook, It's Rothko in Winter or Belgium was published by Factory Hollow Press in 2012. She has had poems appear in American Letters and Commentary, Northern New England Review, Hotel Amerika, Mississippi Review, The Cincinnati Review, Green Mountains Review, Barrow Street, Mudfish, LIT, Pool, jubilat, notnostrums, and Sentence. She lives in New Hampshire.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #434 : Howie Good : Carnivore

 

Rain was rattling down like a steel security grate over a storefront. Faces disappeared off the street only to reappear nine months later on other bodies. At that point, I was sitting on a barstool watching with a kind of puzzled fascination CNN live stream the latest mass shooting. I could feel the tingle of green mold spreading along the inside of my skull. Something told me it wouldn’t be OK anymore to think out loud. The thought uppermost in my mind was, ridiculously enough, that “canine” can refer to a dog or a sharp tooth used for tearing and shredding. 

 

 

 

Howie Good is the author of more than a dozen poetry collections, including most recently The Death Row Shuffle (Finishing Line Press), The Trouble with Being Born (Ethel Micro Press), and Gunmetal Sky (Thirty West Publishing). His collection, The Bad News First, is forthcoming from Kung Fu Treachery Press.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan