The year winds down…. This poem is from EMBLEM: DECEMBER 31st All my undone actions wander naked across the calendar, a band of skinny hunter-gatherers, blown snow scattered here and there, stumbling toward a future folded in the New Year I secure with a pushpin: January’s picture a painting from the 17th century, a still-life: skull […]
A poem from EMBLEM for Columbus Day: EVERYONE Columbus thought he had discovered the Indies so he called the people he encountered Indians, but he was wrong; he had discovered the working class. He took their sage, not their advice; it smoldered like rage but smelled nice. One of the Santa Maria’s crew, avaricious and […]
Here are three poems of mine from the most recent Manhattan Review:COROLLARY The body, six feet underground, requires six days to break down. Bulbs must wait in warming loam six months or more. And so the earth is vast, love urgent. PATRIMONY 1. He is out of work. We are out of money. My mother’s […]
This from Chris Lydon today. Reposting it here. These are conversations that shed light, serious inquiries into what has befallen us and speculations about how we might survive with our humanity intact. Dearest Ones: The ghost of Tony Judt, historian and prophet, hovers over the best conversations we’ve recorded this spring — for all the […]
Just a little taste… the first poem in EMBLEM, published in December. adapted from Alciati’s Book of Emblems[1] Emblem 89 AGAINST THOSE WEALTHY VIA PUBLIC MISCHIEF Avarice in check, the country at peace, does not please everyone. Those who fish for eels, for example, who know how to slice one into segments thin as paper […]
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