there comes
a slight wave
pinched on
beneath his parting sail
after mortal dawn
calm and clear
as eerie as a dream
which left its cage
as we
ride in triumph
across a field
through its endless mazes—
I must resign
the polished table
seed text: The Collected Poems of Richard Wilbur
art by anchari
The last cell on this spreadsheet says No.
It’s a figural gesture of cosmic design
for the radiation of the deity vaguely blanketing
the night sky causing a warm tingling
in my leg. The flutes of cancer.
The last female coding handbook
is a forest of armpits. It is the same dandruff
I saw in Warsaw a week ago. In its face
are captains, perhaps lost perhaps not
forcing their way into the rave hall.
This is called the Principle of Arcadia.
art by aci2
June 12, 2013
It’s summer. Employees and imaginary saints
walk around with milkshakes; soccer players
fly albatross arcs across infernal amphitheaters.
I have two boiled eggs for breakfast.
Last night my wife went crazy making stars
out of dead trees she found in the attic
and we drank gin and tonic: “It’s summer!”
I yelled, and she showed me her creations.
Fantastic wheels in the sky beckoned me
toward her hands.
Now I’m up early and on the way to work
my bike takes me precariously through traffic
and construction men point the way.
There are intelligent men coming to see me today
to whom I will confess everything.
I walk toward the soda machine passed
the announcement boards, empty save for pushpins
arranged in misshapen hearts.
art by Tony Hammond
In the next moment
my paradise is agony
the delinquent flesh
a distant music
a hand in its noon
revolving sequences of
difficult planetary patterns
a silence of dust
in her right hand
a shadowy, morphological
paraphernalia of fire.
All fails so miserably—
what few bones remain
on this desert isle
doesn’t help.
You knew in your heart
it should have been
half frozen
but a reflection
can never see—
“we have passed through here”
seed text: The Divine Comedy, by Ivan Argulles
art by tuck
Our eyes turned
forever and ever
the leaves budding pale
left open.
Only then
it was
drawn down
in spite of fatigue
announcing unbidden
every dark-folded
instrument
of the same order;
and he waits
among the living
a few feet away
provisional
as a coil of rain—
therein
is the color of questions.
He restores
without heart,
and the signs with huge heads
save us from water.
seed text: The First Four Books of Poems, by W.S. Merwin
art by Christian Watson
she stared at
a star or two,
blind to sin
which we know
to have no respect
except for that
down-right partiality
between close walls
a sack of bananas
setting
low against his flank
her own complexion
harsh and strong
and soundless explosion
against the hand
seed text: As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
art by cimek
keep your eye
coiled
at the very centre
and its secrecy
in between
like a stored cask
hung with texts
multiple as loaves;
I almost forget
her broken nose
world-refreshing
twist by twist
whispering
loud against the storm
and familiar—
to take
little points
through days and weeks
into the margin
of the college chapel
off green grass
and a tar
seed text: Opened Ground, by Seamus Heaney
art by Sarah Yurow
in my head
the wise hen
required
for me to peck
the earth
as if I
only recently was
where I shouldn’t be
screeching…
with searchlights,
wiping the grime
instead of daisies—
this late
low observance
that cuts a dream in half
unraveling
in the night-school textbook
seed text: Early Selected Poems, by Charles Simic
art by Tony Hammond
1.
The illusion of freedom:
an island garden
shining and glittering
on the flat lake
leaving no mark.
Gradually, over many years,
the birds came
openly, as though
trying to change.
2.
The humanizing sun
cannot be trusted,
not even whole words.
Meaning
is a love of endings:
the boat rocking
in exile forever
shimmering with distractions.
seed text: Louise Gluck, Poems 1962-2012
art by scaraboushka
Don’t be
waking up in some
sort of lateral resurrection
into a shadowy room
not the world.
A hundred reasons
upon the minds
down the grand canal
to the fraction of him
in an electromagnetic system—
metal-to-metal clangor,
pinks in the brush.
The only known Buddhists in the world
floated by in nebulous incoherence
as her strong thighs closed
like a dozen or so kids.
Who would have thought?
The rain:
a stylized human brain
and at last
a small rose farm.
seed text: Against the Day, by Thomas Pynchon
art by d0125
April languor:
blossom
against a human force
like a freezy coin.
I was burning
licking your lips.
The room
may conceal another
of an intelligence
while Mallarmé lay in bed—
his shoes
beautiful,
without desire.
He felt the new
young American
in Zambezi
and the spiritual tooth
turned to me,
the silverware of paradise
wreathed in furs
humming a tune:
“Where are you?”
and the Nouns lay silently
in the light
seed text: The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch
art by Loïc Bahougne
what a frenzy
stays on the soul
like a cow
going to Santiago
and under the leaves
the seven
final echoes
distant and lonely
bled in the sky—
just like
you
quivering
down the river
no one will remember
the infinite mask
that never reaches the sea
seed text: Collected Poems, by Federico Garcia Lorca
art by Jaime Molina ΔΓ|❷
Through an ebony log
for the fourth time
the air without refuge
made mandarins
of no mortal use.
Brown marsh
must work day and night
without looking deeper.
A red bow:
brain work
madder
and not very clean.
With a burning fire of phantasy
a cat sat there
disliking others,
but no Emperor
descending the palace stair
twisteth out of natural measure
as the splendour
half remains.
seed text: The Cantos, by Ezra Pound
art by Fred Cueva
no sunflowers
revolving over and over
for the poems
are going to
St Louis
until it is quite safe…
how much of oneself
you must give me
so that I can get at you
without loss of time;
on the other hand
we curse and abuse each other
on the same day—
I shall therefore choose
the spiritual residence
a slight magnification
my dragon would not
take up the point about,
a rigidly reductive system
before you begin to work
seed text: The Letters of T.S. Eliot, Vol. 1
art by Christian Watson
and even
I stop
to
know why the
quivering
landreefs of gray
and future scoop
keeps dark;
is there one
consistency of motion
he asked
if fern leaf could
sleep
with tight appreciation,
unused to
sunrise at 5:25 /
how I thought
the apple falls
on the gravel
for calculation
in some man’s brain—
hush,
or talk with birds
in the dark, original water
seed text: Collected Poems 1951-1971, by A.R. Ammons
art by d0125