At times poetry is the vertigo of bodies and the vertigo of speech and the vertigo of death;
the walk with eyes closed along the edge of the cliff, and the verbena in submarine gardens;
the laughter that sets on fire the rules and the holy commandments;
the descent of parachuting words onto the sands of the page;
the despair that boards a paper boat and crosses,
for forty nights and forty days, the night-sorrow sea and the day-sorrow desert;
the idolatry of the self and the desecration of the self and the dissipation of the self;
the beheading of epithets, the burial of mirrors; the recollection of pronouns freshly cut in the garden of Epicurus, and the garden of Netzahualcoyotl;
the flute solo on the terrace of memory and the dance of flames in the cave of thought;
the migrations of millions of verbs, wings and claws, seeds and hands;
the nouns, bony and full of roots, planted on the waves of language;
the love unseen and the love unheard and the love unsaid: the love in love.
Syllables seeds.
From The Collected Poems 1957–1987. Copyright © 1986 by Octavio Paz and Eliot Weinberger. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.
That time
we all heard it,
cool and clear,
cutting across the hot grit of the day.
The major Voice.
The adult Voice
forgoing Rolling River,
forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge
and other symptoms of an old despond.
Warning, in music-words
devout and large,
that we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.
From The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks (Library of America, 2005). Copyright © 1970 by Gwendolyn Brooks. Reprinted By Consent of Brooks Permissions.
not back, let’s not come back, let’s go by the speed of
queer zest & stay up
there & get ourselves a little
moon cottage (so pretty), then start a moon garden
with lots of moon veggies (so healthy), i mean
i was already moonlighting
as an online moonologist
most weekends, so this is the immensely
logical next step, are you
packing your bags yet, don’t forget your
sailor moon jean jacket, let’s wear
our sailor moon jean jackets while twirling in that lighter,
queerer moon gravity, let’s love each other
(so good) on the moon, let’s love
the moon
on the moon
Copyright © 2021 by Chen Chen. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 31, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on June 25, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.
A man who is probably my husband sails by.
But I just see a sailboat, not who steers it.
But I picture a man, in the gender of things.
My husband who you will not meet.
He’s off, I don’t know, marshalling.
Ideas, not soldiers. Sailing helps him think.
I used to join him. Then we argued.
For a decade we argued. And sometimes
sailed, though I was admittedly mostly
decorative, a mermaid on the prow.
Whether I brought him better luck
is not my weather to tell. I cost him.
Time. He costs me. More.
Copyright © 2022 by Jameson Fitzpatrick. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 25, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.
your little voice Over the wires came leaping and i felt suddenly dizzy With the jostling and shouting of merry flowers wee skipping high-heeled flames courtesied before my eyes or twinkling over to my side Looked up with impertinently exquisite faces floating hands were laid upon me I was whirled and tossed into delicious dancing up Up with the pale important stars and the Humorous moon dear girl How i was crazy how i cried when i heard over time and tide and death leaping Sweetly your voice
This poem is in the public domain.