Poetry |
“This Book Belongs To”
“This prairie town shunned outsiders, kept dirt local: / Divorce, two suicides, abandonment, / unspoken scandal of a pregnant woman’s fall …”
Poetry |
“The Oracular Mirror” & “In the Mountains”
“the minority / which is not a minority / mail messages / to themselves // in preparation / (dying?) / of the field / of action —”
Poetry |
“In These My Lear Years”
“Lear, / It’s ok. / You have your way / Of doing / This senescence, / I have mine.”
Poetry |
“A Multi-Stemmed Deciduous Shrub of Great Beauty When in Bloom,” “The Art of the Novel” & The History of Music”
“It wasn’t clear / how long the muses / dressed as lunch ladies / kept the place open // The room got dark / though the sun was still out / I went home to think about it”
Literature in Translation |
“My City,” “Beginning of a Song,” “My Hands” & “The Smile Grieves”
“From my glance, which seeks a place to anchor, / comes a cloudy gloom overhanging the mirror, / like a harsh frost that lands / its white cold stamp.”
Literature in Translation |
“Traces,” “The Kite” & “Wilderness”
“From inhabiting the body where a third of its days are spent dreaming, traces remain. A feature in an open air theater. A whiff of the neighbor’s flower bed. A forbidden urge.”
Poetry |
“Viola pedata (Birdsfoot Violet)”
“Magnified thirty-five times, / the birdsfoot ovary / appears to blossom inward, / three groups of petals / in pale green glass.”
Poetry |
“I Love Wonder Bread in This Poem” & “Missing Soul Report”
“Because I am a teenager in it. And because the 21st century has not begun to outrage me yet. / And because I am somewhat like a teapot in my bell-bottoms at this time.”
Lyric Prose |
“Gothic Punctum”
“He was on the point of leaving when the oboist, unwinding her yellow scarf, strode in. A pointed effort to pervert the Rorschach. Children pointing at stars through bare branches.”
Essay |
“Froberger — An Outward Journey Inward”
“The great landmarks of Baroque music are musical reflections of meditative prayer much in practice when devastation and sectarian conflict increased the intensity of spiritual yearning.”
Poetry |
“The Rains of Ljubljana”
“Schnapps and blueberry juice in glistening tulip glasses / to greet us as we step from the deluge. // Ljubljana, because of the music of its name. / And because I’d once heard Tomaž Šalamun read.”
Poetry |
“September Ars Poetica”
“In Gaelic, fox is sionnach, or madra rua / (red dog), rain-beaded, skinny; a fox / querying for food, pantomiming / with his paws something indecipherable.”
Lyric Prose |
“Ars Poetica: Aww”
“You love coming to the dentist, says my dentist with his fingers in my mouth. After I rinse, I smile and say no, I just like you!”
Poetry |
“Suspect Routes” & “Explain the Heart”
“… Frigid abode / where spurned fools pour gasoline on embers, / feeding unspoken thoughts to their remorse.”
Poetry |
“Transplants”
“A nursery clerk sold her on these / invasives — They’ll be 10, 20 feet, / in no time — the city girl believed.”