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Ah, the beauty of the pose, that favored spot, once attained, never to let go like the 19th century ballerina poised on the toe hold, so demure, so sweet, we play our ploys and then, repeat, repeat, repeat, So delicately balanced, each moment carried, like the goose’s...

Wait is like being stuck on the ceiling (One of my little students wrote “Bored is like a piece of chewing gum stuck on the ceiling”) Wait is an old horse who can’t get up the hill Wait is porridge, too thick, the spoon in a bind Wait is my body in the traffic jam...

When crocheting a poem be sure to be awake Do not use Siri She is forever asleep She has no dreams She will take your words and insert them in her circuits and her machines will whirl in random patterns producing a million monkeys on typewriters quoting Shakespeare...

Sometimes everything seems dirty to me. I rush about cleaning, doing loads of laundry as if I still had kids, cleaning in the corners where hairy dust clusters imply I am lax. I change beds in the playroom, plump up pillows, put tinker toys away in their faded,...

Something was up when Aunt Ann came. My mother scrubbed the floors until they bled. She washed up all the curtains and starched my dress to death, you never saw such fear in all your life. My sister who understood everything said, go find your white gloves, Aunt Ann...

I used to know some stars, now I wake from sleep, I stare back to where you were, and beyond, to where the world was not yet, into the preceding oblivion, where I see a man in a grubby club chair, bent, writing, his back to me, and I recognize as in a pair of mirrors...

playground gate chained shut domestic violence stats spike pandemic data seesaws

The country in ruins, rivers and mountains continue. The city’s grown lush with spring. Tu Fu (712 – 770, China) Lofty ideas and scientific discoveries come and go like blueberries. Social chaos: constant as sun and moon.

The Way between as clear as birth and death Bookends, Yet still preachers moralize about Satan, Buddha-realms and Virgins, And people listen. Listen to the hummingbirds Feeding off flowers no one planted!

already miserable the internet goes down dog doesn’t notice we sit on balcony watch blue-headed sparrows darting back and forth Dan O’Connell is a four-time award winning poet whose poems have appeared in Mississippi Review, Homestead Review, San Francisco Reader,...

If I can make patience my master, But live like groundnuts, with my rewards Beneath my ribcage earth, firmly Concealed out of sight. If I can make love my one true north, Carrying her inside every pocket, No longer searching for a key to a new lock, To entertain no...

Afterwards, we lay still as light. Great gray roots cradle the last Swell of our bodies. Underneath, Yellow-green moss grows tune. I strum along her white arm. Back and forth, my fingertips play Until a moist murmur leaps To land abuzzing on my lips. I smile and gaze...

The men at the Tomb of the Unknown aren’t honor guards, but sentries pledged to prevent those below from rising, And tell of the failure of the throne: that a union of the unholy hired all the killing kings. The dead would confirm the discrete Count of one and one is...

Ignacio comes from Toronto guides tourists to freshwater caves (cenotes) of the Yucatan peninsula where death once rained down destroying the Earth once again. Ignacio knows his geological shit about the ebb and flow of oceans slow evolution of stalactites how...

My wife bought a string of prayer flags to hang on the porch of our apartment. In this time of disease of biology, society and political leadership, I hope that prayers sent into the air will fill the void left by my disbelief in such things spiritual. But they are...