Tasmania: fragments from a story
THE MAN
The Governor built his prisons,
but he built his chapels, too.
Now the Lamb of God beams down
in light that’s brightly stained,
right foreleg implausibly curled
around a regimental flag.
When someone tells me a story, even a newspaper headline, I ask, “Where was that? Where did that happen?” From the context—the who, the where, and the when—I construct meaning. I believe I’m not alone. We have a fundamental desire to understand our environments, to understand how they affect who we are and what we care about.
All day those stones have writhed with myth,
roots have snaked necks, have had the cheek
to prod gods and kings, crack armies, cities, ships;
mocked Shiva, made him sprout arthritic wrists.
By DON SHARE
Rabbit fur and hair strewn through the lawns
of the Midwest!
The famous feral parakeets of Chicago
are chattering
With cold.
By DON SHARE
I have a bone to pick
with whoever runs this joint.
I don’t much like
being stuck out in the rain
By DON SHARE
Hobo, Bono, boneheap.
I mutilate dandelions in the sun,
rattle my rake like a saber
When Michelle-my-neighbor,
over compost, opines
that Aqualung’s a classic
I took three stones from there:
one from the water
one from the sun
and a small one
to grow.
The puzzle of the sun’s longing for
the sea
The marvel: her love fills the sky overflows the rim till the
sea is one
with the sky
The Common is heralded in today’s Inside Higher Ed.
“The last few years had many literary journal editors’ backs against the wall. Numerous journals teetered between shuttering and downsizing.
The year is 1972, and as you’re driving along the highway in Rifle, Colorado, a giant orange curtain appears, looming vibrantly over a distant valley. Or, maybe it’s 1997 and you’re in Switzerland. You’ve decided it’s a nice day for a walk in Berrower Park when you notice there’s something different about the trees—namely that they’re covered in gargantuan sheets of polyester fabric.
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