By SUSAN HARLAN
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
The Little River isn’t very little or rather
I don’t know what it is little in relationship to.
By the bank the water is smooth as paper
but in the middle my sneakered feet are unsteady
pulled by the current.
By SEAN SINGER
New York City, NY
Floating
Today in the taxi I brought the famous jazz drummer’s wife, Elena, all around Harlem doing errands. Cobb is the last surviving member of the band that recorded Kind of Blue. We went to the bank and to the pharmacy. She let loose with some stories. It was as if his music was not alone waking up from its dream.
This month we welcome back contributor LOREN GOODMAN, the author of Famous Americans, selected by W. S. Merwin for the 2002 Yale Series of Younger Poets, Suppository Writing, and New Products. He is an associate professor of creative writing and English literature at Yonsei University / Underwood International College in Seoul, South Korea, and serves as the UIC Creative Writing Director.
RAPTURE
The Rabbi’s little son
Decked out in stripes
One leather strap
Over the edge
Of the black
Lacquer box wraps
New poems by our contributors, ERICA EHRENBERG and SEBASTIAN MATTHEWS
The Toy Lamb
It was the limpness that I loved,
the way it dangled
even when it was sitting,
when it was as low down
as it possibly could be against the line
of gravity,
New poems by our contributors: NATHALIE HANDAL and STEVE KISTULENTZ
Lettera Lirica, Jerusalem
Because I see the shape
of your shadow in every city
Because you are on the edge
of every body of water
Because your language is tilted
towards the world
but you’ve kept some sentences
well-hidden
Because some words together
can frighten loneliness
like the lagoon moving aside
for the sea
New poems by our contributors CALLY CONAN-DAVIES and PETER JAY SHIPPY
At the Meringo Hotel
There’s nothing to leave at the door.
There is no door.
No writing on the wall.
Where are the walls?
No need to raise the roof.
The lack of roof proves the sun and moon,
and the cliff edge of a continent
is not so steep you can’t head your horse down it.
The best garden in Brooklyn is like Fred Astaire
Charming but inaccessible.
A private creation for public viewing.
I look down into it from my living room,
Its spilling vines and spruce hedge-tops lend cachet to my garden.
Yet a high fence keeps us
Properly separate.
As does the rusty chain link gate on the street side,
which is only opened for
Tree-trimming and the like.
By BESIK KHARANAULI
Translated from the Georgian by ILAN STAVANS with GVANTSA JOBAVA
“We should dig out potatoes tomorrow!”
you told me,
pulling the chair close to the bed
where you were planning to place your clothes
after switching off the light.
Tosca
I heard those ripened, muted swoons, although
that was no kiss—a dagger sunk into my chest.
What use authority if it cannot impose
a hidden will? The songbird, let her muse
the painter in his cavern, his mettle at the test,
In the village, we survey the damage:
every cedar lockbox smashed,
every pillow coated with blood, spit, snot.
The houses have crumbled.
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