i woke up to the nightmare
of my house swallowed in snow.
in greenland we watch
floorboards fall through the fluxing ice
/ only the roof was left i
wanted to crawl into the attic window
to smell the wood of it.
i wanted to curl into the chest
too heavy to lift / filled with quilts.
/ when the permafrost melts, little
bubbles pop when they reach the
top of the lake nearby.
we watch the gases go skyward, they
meet with the geese going south.
the geese say,
methane has lives beyond any wads of old swamp on fire.
i know the frost wants to stay tired,
asleep. be the feverish girl immobile,
a frozen frog on top of a log.
once fully awake, it’s hard
to go back to sleep.…
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Picture sky, its timeless entirety: north, south, east, west,
directions encompassing life beneath it, existence through it,
eternal bird species know best, returning flock after flock,
if not driven to extinction, the air, everywhere, ground of hunt.
This horizon, for now, does not seem to have that, bluing more pearlescent
with less coal smoke & oily carbon exhaust poking ozone holes
for blazing rays in separate glory, shaft by shaft.
Behind that the perfectly burning circular sun grants photosynthesis
or fires wild as if humanity has nothing to do with this present
as early on stoves were for wood & the heaping of peat,
the past air so pure lungs sung with oxygen glistening
from valleys and glades, deserts and alps.
Imagine this kitchen window here having such painterly sheen,
all interior surfaces dust-mote gleaming to the richness of shadows
while in close-up particular hands on a bread board pound & shape dough.…
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Once at the county fair a foreigner—a Russian with an elaborately waxed yellow mustache—was selling wooden dolls, cleverly made so that they seemed to be only one doll, pear-shaped and gaily painted, but inside each peasant woman was a similar doll except slightly smaller; and inside her a similar doll; and insider her; and inside her . . . six altogether, the smallest representing a peasant child, a brightly smiling infant.
Nord thought the dolls were the cleverest woodworking he’d seen. He bought one for Peggy, but she didn’t seem to see the cleverness—maybe because, being a woman, she’d never worked wood so therefore couldn’t appreciate the skill such a set of dolls required.
The dolls were kept, one inside the rest, in a cabinet in the parlor.…
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My friend’s backyard is a refuge for gypsies
feathered birds and fireflies, migrating spirits
on this plane and the next.
A bullfrog found a way through a fence
into his new pond, buzzing life to the grass
and trees beyond.
He’s a man who carries his hometown
tattooed under his skin, the stories
of people he loved in their own voices,
those who made and rejected him
in a single breath; set him to wandering,
led him to marry the world instead.
– Joseph Hardy
Author’s Note: I am drawn to write about the meaningful confusions of life.…
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In 1973, when I wasn’t wondering how David Bowie had managed to bring the entire cosmos down to earth for our critical examination, I was pondering how to become as stylish as his glam rival, Roxy Music’s singer Bryan Ferry. I never worked it out, though found out quickly that I could wear the clothes and sing the songs and still be exactly where I was the next day: living a mundane working-class existence in a grim corner of South London. Such is escapism. You manage for a while, then its elastic snaps you back to square one.
I was already a long-term Roxy Music fan. Never having heard of them, I’d blundered into one of their rare low-key gigs before their hit, “Virginia Plain,” catapulted them to festivals, television, and worldwide success.…
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Sonny didn’t go to the bar often, but when he did it was a circus. He was a real character, always had some new thing to showboat about, something he bought or something he had planned. He liked to drink, but the attention, that’s what he lived for, and boy he could get it. There were so many nights like that, where he marched in with a big smile and yelled out something absurd and had the whole place in his palm, but the night you mean is the one with the horse, right? That wasn’t just one night. That stretched on for weeks. But that’s all right if you want to hear it.
I don’t know horses well so I don’t know what kind it was, but before Sonny’s, it was Joey’s. …
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A sad man walks past my house. His hat covers his ears and his scarf covers his mouth, but I can see something of his eyes and I recognize the curve of his spine. I don’t need to see the tears to know that he’s crying.
“Get your shoes on,” Marnie says to me. “You’re going to be late to your appointment.”
In this car, the radio doesn’t work right. Set the stations if you like, but they’ll drift the next day. When I listened to the radio on Sunday, they were playing “The Magnificent Seven” by the Clash. Today, I swear it’s Richard Marx. Richard Marx or Rick Astley. This can’t be the same station.
“When you’re done, wait,” Marnie says to me. “I’m going to be at the store, but I won’t be long.”…
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