Poetry

  • Poetry

    Three Poems by John Findura

    August 31, 2019 /

    “Nineteen Minutes Ago”

    This morning I am here
    Nineteen minutes ago we might have met
    But we missed each other, somehow
    It is raining very hard but there is no thunder
    Where there is no thunder there are few thoughts of you
    Instead in their place is a stop-motion film
    Of wooden hands playing the piano
    Think of that – those wooden fingers on those ivory keys
    Pictures of a famous actor with a bad haircut
    An actress playing three roles in the same film
    None of them are stop-motion like the wooden hands
    I read a book about volcanoes 
    And the insistence of lava over everything else last night
    And as you know if it didn’t happen there it doesn’t happen here
    Or maybe the reverse,

    read more
  • Poetry

    “Beavis & Butthead Do English Class: Guest Starring the Memory of John Ashbery in a Thought Bubble Floating over Instructor Bodaggit’s Fedora” by Tom Kelly

    August 11, 2019 /
    Beavis, like, bangs his head against the desk
    because the four-eyed fart-knocker by the podium
    forgot to button the bottom of his shirt,
    so when he blabs, his exposed belly does that thing
    where it jiggles like grandma’s gelatin mold
    & I say his navel looks like the Sarlacc Pit
    but Beavis says it looks like the hole in a Krispy Kreme donut
    but I say it looks like a nook where Beavis can stick his snout
    but we agree that if we squint real hard,
    read more
  • Poetry

    “The Spider Spins” by Sean Karns

    June 28, 2019 /
    In its foliage, the spider rides the vibrating
    web. It is patient and waits Buddha-like,
    as if it knows something greater—
    that survival requires less consumption,
    that survival is basic— therefore its needs
    are minimal. When its hunger is met,
    it is blessed, so much so, it wraps its dead in silk.
    It seems simple, the spinning of the web.
    The spider’s world is instinctual—
    it ignores the chaos-order beyond its web.
    read more
  • Poetry

    “The Art of Music” by David Shapiro

    June 10, 2019 /

    You were practicing the early art of memory.
    You would bestow twenty per cent of your attention on me
    Then shut your eyes. From time to time since the invention of print
    The phrase “elephant debt” would force itself to your lips.

    Only one thing exists:   the universe.
    The others by definition cannot; how rigid out theory is.
    Without the flavor of paint however force seems useless.
    Needless to say the stage was set, but what followed?

    Together we will sing in octaves. And the hairy bushes
    And bleeding hearts develop like twining vines.

    read more
  • Poetry,  Translation

    Excerpts from “The Cloud in Trousers” by Vladimir Mayakovsky (translated from the Russian by David Lehman)

    June 1, 2019 /

    The Cloud in Trousers

     

    (From Part One)

    Hey!
    Gentlemen!
    You who,
    next to me,
    are rank amateurs
    in the realms
    of sacrilege,
    mischief,
    and mayhem —
    have you laid eyes on
    the most terrifying thing
    in the world –
    my face
    when I am totally calm,
    cool and collected?

    I fear
    my ego
    isn’t big enough
    for the rest of me
    which
    is struggling
    to emerge
    as a full-born youth
    from a Madonna’s womb.

    read more