Poetry
Petrichor
Click to hear Eric Weinstein read his poem, “Petrichor” The Russians seeded the clouds over Belarus the morning after Chernobyl the forest for thirty kilometers round in a ring bloomed a terrible red and died for thirty years or so … Continue reading
Clamor
Click to hear Nick Norwood read his poem, “Clamor” The mill’s non-stop noise, a whir and a clangor, follows him home, over the bridge and up the hill, while at his back it goes on wheezing, chuffing lint through manifold … Continue reading
Speaking of Belief
Somehow the mimosa, chopped down in all her grace, has produced an heir. The stump has delivered a twig: a wee surrogate big in bravery, tribute to no one but a dead mother who believed. This faith business, a mama’s … Continue reading
Coming Home
Click to hear Alice Friman read her poem, “Coming Home” Early March, and a pale sky tightens down spiteful. What clump of green there is seems vulgar, out of place, superfluous as last year’s newspaper or the curtain in that … Continue reading
The Brazos
Click to hear John Poch read his poem, “The Brazos” Below the Possum Kingdom Dam, this stretch, like a housewife toward a happy anniversary, hurries certainly, knowing how steadily, far but sure like an ocean gussied up with palms and … Continue reading
Cradle Song to One Who Is Afraid of the Dark
Here is the eager shadow a stairwell casts when the oak wood boards for the steps are still being sawed Here is the solemn shadow of hair, not necessarily over a face Here is a curtain’s mannered shadow, behind which … Continue reading
The Davydov
An audio recording of Donald Platt reading “The Davydov“ The sadness one millimeter under my psychotherapist’s voice seems always about to break through like the first strident notes of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor. Dave had to cancel our … Continue reading
Sunday Walk
Not only colorful beds of flowers ruffled today by a breeze off the lake but the ruffled surface of the lake itself, and later a boathouse and an oak tree so old its heavy limbs rested on the ground. And … Continue reading
The Navel
The brain’s most amazing function is that it enables us to think about how we think. I say, mucking in the frontal cortex, stirring the neural soup, makes for migraines. Since when was the navel we so loved to gaze … Continue reading
Child Lost at the Beach
This time, the boy had gone missing for so many hours that a television crew was sent to cover the story, which is how I came to hear one lifeguard explain to the camera that a lost child will usually … Continue reading