What grace given as redemption
can this grace be now? she wonders,
walking past his corner again
in the glassy white glare of 6 o’clock,
seeing what little is left
of what he gave his life to.
This was a man who worked the same job
for twenty-seven years, fixing machines
made by other men, machines meant to break
from wear, from neglect, from war.
A man who worked in a concrete box
on the corner of Patterson and Main
in a soiled, quarter-sleeved jumpsuit,
washing away the work each night
back home – chassis grease, used gear oil,
human sweat.
He was a man who lived in ways people
couldn’t see, a “good” man, the neighbors said,
who only charged what he thought his work
was worth.…
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People claim to have been crushed by love.
I doubt it.
Alien compression most likely, pressed for time,
squeezed into a photo booth or lost
in the grip of gravity. I often contemplate
what 3 Gs might do to an unwary spine.
But I won’t take the fall, there’s still spring in my step.
Once on a field trip I gazed out the window
of a trans-galactic express and immense objects
appeared out of nowhere, threatening to demolish the ship.
I rubbed my lucky wart and secured safe passage
for saint and sinner alike. Go ahead
roll your eyes or roll the dice. Matters not.
When it’s your time to go well there you go.
Keep your eyes wide open amigos
you can be crushed by nearly everything.…
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Sometimes I wonder if everyone doesn’t need someone to miss
A peg where they can hang that heartache hat
And its miles of clouds
Its volume of sleepless sadness.
You are the doorway through which my mourning passes.
We could not house happiness
But you remain safely in my heart
Winnowing the sadness.
– Jenny McBride…
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Thursday started with a gauzy sand bar sky
The LED sun yawning widely over the horizon
Today, like every work day, the ideas blackboard
Streaked with years of smudgy lessons, the surviving
Word “catch” or was it “batch” down in the corner,
Avoiding erasure. No products appeal,
Or really matter, maybe you can market
But you can’t pawn the sunrise
Which easily eclipses the mind when it’s wrapped in a
Tortilla, so chewy, like yesterday‘s disappeared stanzas.
Aspiring light has no goals, just a paper route,
Delivering holograms of unconfined content,
Another daily batch, today’s fresh catch.
Checked blue surface of a gauzy sand bar sky.
– Michel Krug
…
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Therefore, I am
Prostrate before the moon and the sun
And the rain that followed, once again
The moon, the sun, and the rain that followed,
Once again
And forever more, I fear
For the flame that burnt my hands and eyes,
Charred the snow-hearted and scalded their brothers
Lay covered in earth, in ash, in suffocating pitch
Starved of fuel more potent than a prone body, prostrate before the moon
And the sun
And the rain that followed, once again
As I watch it fall, from clouds of nothing
– Izzy Fishbach
Author’s Note: Philosophers of all persuasions have spilled much ink debating whether it is possible to know that one exists, and if so, how to prove it. This poem is the opposite of that: it suggests that we don’t exist at all.…
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Fishermen are good at sea.
Strong arms, pull steady sails
In shifting wind,
In storm.
Rudders for left hips guid straight to streams pregnant with catch, so they may cast their nets in place of incantations.
Heave!
And here’s the day—easy. The water like a looking glass, they sit upon white decks watching the world. Fishermen are very good at sea.
When beached, the ground moves under them. Confident steps slide, awkward and uneven. The air too warm, the wind too dry. The sea just there, and not.
They’re caught
Right on the precipice of life—free to stare, but not enter.
There, they mend their nets. Knit fingers bloody, set gaze upon the sand. Bottle up complaints—though that part’s harder. They wake and walk and sleep, all on flat land and adrift, with only God for anchor.…
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as a ship in a bottle
believing every wooden piece
a symbol of something
that can be shaped.
I see each fragile word nestled in your
lined fingers being carefully homed.
Eyes straining, focusing,
anything can be built despite
the small opening.
You laugh
when I tell you the ship
will never sail.
My words, random particles,
amass to nothing.…
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