Sleepless Nights by Frances Anne Kemble
“In sleepless nights my sad forgotten lute
Breathes with low strains of broken melody”…
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Sleepless Nights
Posted by admin on January 28th, 2012
First Miracle by A.E. Stallings
Posted by admin on January 27th, 2012
Read this poem by A.E. Stallings from the January 2012 issue of Poetry magazine.
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January 1928 by Paul Durica
Posted by admin on January 26th, 2012
The Window
Posted by admin on January 26th, 2012
The Window by Conrad Aiken
“She looks out in the blue morning
and sees a whole wonderful world
she looks out in the morning
and sees a whole world”…
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Ode by David Lehman
Posted by admin on January 26th, 2012
People in the middle ages didn’t think they were living
Between two more important and enlightened eras;
Nor did they see themselves as the players
In act three of a tragedy in five acts.
It was not always late winter in the middle ages.
People in the middle ages were not all middle-aged
Though it is enjoyable on occasion to assume that they were.
The sun was as bright in the dark ages
As it is now—maybe a fraction brighter, in fact.
Think of the middle ages and what do you see:
Gloomy cathedrals, students dressed like monks in the rain,
Or a band of drunken pilgrims telling obscene jokes,
Or heroes embarking for the nearest wilderness come April?
Your answer will reveal yourself to yourself
But you may not know it—may choose to hide
In hazy visions of a serene and indescribable paradise.
And paradise, as we all know, may be paradise when we’re dead,
But is boredom on earth, alas.
We never think of ennui in relation to the middle ages.
Should we? Did Thomas Aquinas never get bored
Cooking up elaborate refutations of diminutive heresies?
No, and you shouldn’t either. Nor did the clerks
of Oxford tire of the sin against the Holy Ghost,
Trying to figure out what it was.
On chill September mornings when
I smoked too much the night before
And I drank too much the night before
And a sinister cough rises up
From the depths of the belly of my being,
I like to imagine living in Provence
Or even in Rheims during the middle ages.
David Lehman, “Ode” from An Alternative to Speech, published by Princeton University Press. Copyright © 1986 by David Lehman. Reprinted by permission of Writers’ Representatives, Inc..
Source: Poetry (November 1979).
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Shell
Posted by admin on January 26th, 2012
Potsherds & Arrowheads by V. Penelope Pelizzon
Posted by admin on January 26th, 2012
The Prisoners
Posted by admin on January 25th, 2012
The Prisoners by Robert Hayden
“Steel doors ? guillotine gates ?
of the doorless house closed massively.
We were locked in with loss”…
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In the Middle of Dinner by Chris Abani
Posted by admin on January 25th, 2012
my mother put down her knife and fork,
pulled her wedding ring from its groove,
placing it contemplatively on her middle
finger. So natural was the move,
so tender, I almost didn’t notice.
Five years, she said, five years, once a week,
I wrote a letter to your father. And waited
until time was like ash on my tongue.
Not one letter back, not a single note.
She sighed, smiling, the weight gone. This
prime rib is really tender, isn’t it? she asked.
Chris Abani, “In the Middle of Dinner” from Dog Woman. Copyright © 2004 by Chris Abani. Reprinted by permission of Red Hen Press.
Source: Dog Woman (Red Hen Press, 2004)
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In the Middle of Dinner by Chris Abani
Posted by admin on January 25th, 2012
my mother put down her knife and fork,
pulled her wedding ring from its groove,
placing it contemplatively on her middle
finger. So natural was the move,
so tender, I almost didn’t notice.
Five years, she said, five years, once a week,
I wrote a letter to your father. And waited
until time was like ash on my tongue.
Not one letter back, not a single note.
She sighed, smiling, the weight gone. This
prime rib is really tender, isn’t it? she asked.
Chris Abani, “In the Middle of Dinner” from Dog Woman. Copyright © 2004 by Chris Abani. Reprinted by permission of Red Hen Press.
Source: Dog Woman (Red Hen Press, 2004)
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