More on: poetry

They went on and on, singing “In Memory Forever,” Though it seemed, rather, that what there was to remember Was only things falling apart, ice under the eaves, And the singing itself. On and on they went as they counted, recalling How many of them earth’s ice-mold had covered, While here and there hysterical women…

In 1907, at forty-three years of age, Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo published his first book of poetry, titled simply Poesías (Poems). Already well known in Spain as a prominent intellectual and the rector of the University of Salamanca, by this time Unamuno had produced novels, essays, and works of philosophy. Yet in the verse…

In 1907, at forty-three years of age, Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo published his first book of poetry, titled simply Poesías (Poems). Already well known in Spain as a prominent intellectual and the rector of the University of Salamanca, by this time Unamuno had produced novels, essays, and works of philosophy. Yet in the verse…

When I was wounded whether by God, the devil, or myself —I don’t know yet which— it was seeing the sparrows again and clumps of clover, after three days, that told me I hadn’t died. When I was young, all it took were those sparrows, those lush little leaves, for me to sing praises, dedicate…

Eyes set into the ridgepole, the house peers down at the man. Now and then the ears tremble, Such sensitive, discerning walls: love one minute, invective the next, then fist-pounding panic. God is touched by the house the man has made, God whose eyes peer down from the ridgepole of the world. The house begs…

Farther away the closer it gets, time outwits science. This fossil is how many millions of years old? The same age as my pain. Love laughs at swagger, men sleepless over their calculators. The invisible enemy decks himself out to keep me from saying what makes me eternal: O world! I’ve loved you ever since…

Something has descended    like feathered prophecy.          Someone has offered the world    a bowl of frozen tears, has traced the veins and edges    of leaves with furred ink.          The staff is stiff as the strings    of a lute. And, day by day, the tiny windows   …

————–Not the branches we cut each ————–windy March to hang with eggs ————–dyed red. Not those ————–we bless with palms ————–& smoke. These arced ————–spines & split limbs bud ————–through straining bark. Backs ————–humped & bent, bound. Does ————–God suffer these husked ————–velvet knobs? Stunted, ————–a wreath of tumors. ————–Yes, he does. Gather them ————–for…

I’d like to scale the cord in the vibrating dark, to find the source of all sound, to translate the frequencies. The way, as a child, I could hang onto a knot of rope and kick myself back from a wall into the arc and blur of summer air—that’s the prayer I want. To open…

It didn’t help that the boys are Jewish, and the stone angels only clumsy halfway- hoverers, not as smart as electrons, quarks, or strings that turn like dazed rubber bands in a breeze. It didn’t help that we’d walked all over Paris first. Still, the rose window entered them: a complication, a shattering of light.…