Tuesday poem #605 : David Harrison Horton : A Song of Statuary

 

 

With a gift of live chickens,
having crossed the better part
of the county on foot,
you find your friend is out.

The otters make noises
that do not belong in city libraries;
although, the shelver
has started to glimmer.

There is no mail today.
It is a bank holiday.

The crabs scatter across the shore,
trying to avoid the tide’s pull.
The child has colored
outside of the lines.

 

 

 

 

David Harrison Horton is a Beijing-based writer, artist, editor and curator. He is author of Maze Poems (Arteidolia) and his chap Model Answers is forthcoming from CCCP Chapbooks. He edits the poetry zine SAGINAW.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

 

Tuesday poem #604 : Joseph Donato : Traffic Jam

 

 

I saw a bus poster for that movie you liked
I’m writing this because I couldn’t tell you
What do I do with these moments 
that aren’t supposed to have meaning anymore

I miss the traffic between our cities
Do you know how sad I must be 
to miss traffic

 

 

 

 

Joseph Donato is super cool & popular. He is Editor-in-Chief of Block Party and Overlord of Horror Pop Mag. His stories and poems have appeared in The Ampersand Review, The Foundationalist, and The Hart House Review, among others. His debut chapbook, Toothache, was published by above/ground press in 2023. Joseph enjoys horror, Weezer, and string.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #603 : Han VanderHart : I Like to Think Emily Dickinson Would Read The Ethical Slut under an Umbrella by the Pool

 

 

that she’d sext so cryptically
& well—sending the words 

“Dispatch from Finitude”
accompanied by a nude

(dusk falling and her
bare hips against a quilt)

that her first video
touching herself she shared

with the bees
and Higginson, in that order

to make him gasp
(the bees already knew)

and the lines: “what it means
for poetry to breathe”

that with Susan she shared
her tongue and all of June

that she pollinated Amherst
face first, ass out, dusted with pollen

while cultivating her privacy
with abandon

that she had more lovers even
than she had poems, which numbered 

just under 1800      

Han VanderHart is a queer writer living in Durham, North Carolina. Their manuscript Larks (Ohio University Press, 2025) received the 2024 Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, judged by Chanda Feldman. Han is the author of the poetry collection What Pecan Light (Bull City Press, 2021) and the chapbook Hands Like Birds (Ethel Zine Press, 2019). They have poetry and essays published in The Boston Globe, Kenyon Review, The American Poetry Review, The Rumpus, AGNI and elsewhere. Han hosts Of Poetry Podcast and co-edits the poetry press River River Books with Amorak Huey.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan