Display Format: Poetry

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National Poetry Month: Twenty-Seven Objects of Explicit Wonder

by L.A. Johnson

Posted on by Zack Ravas

1. house with lawn gone yellow 2. no matter which direction, the wind 3. swimming pools and dreams of pools 4. coyotes that shriek like children 5. naked intruders 6. scent of honeysuckle through a sunroof 7. dish, broken, never thrown away 8. half-lidded sentences that ramble on 9. swimsuits drying on balconies 10. water even a seahorse would swim in 11. the clear circles a hawk makes in the air 12. reservoir, with a lover’s name 13. confessions heard over the ocean’s waves 14. two eggs cracked, each with two yokes 15. fingerprints on mirrors 16. fire danger warning: […]

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National Poetry Month: In Love With a Woman

by Lady Nestor Gomez

Posted on by Zack Ravas

I should die in miscommunication breed fantasies unregulated, losses innumerable Mejor hablar español o componerme en nahuat I could speak and not offend I would stop a symphony and find closure erase bus stops and listen to my sister, the violent rain waiting for your seven days This isn’t a poem of love or hate but our days traveling in gray sand black night beaches and post-birthdays to speak to you I could hide and not love die in anonymity vanish in the ’80s with the rest of my ghosts but I can’t stop searching engines for your name our […]

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Thanks

by Paul Wilner

Posted on by Zack Ravas

for nothing, and the memories, or some. It would appear that we are trying too hard, to fill the silence of those terrifying infinite spaces with even more talk than before. It seemed like a good time to take a break, take five, take a knee, take a chance rather than fill the air with more of our lessness. But thanks anyway – I know you meant well, whatever that might mean. The planet spins, the moon shines and Ruby and the Romantics had it right – If we live, our day will come. […]

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Taming the Dog

by Kristen Tracy

Posted on by Zack Ravas

We hope it’s a safe and restful holiday for you and your loved ones. In that spirit, we’re sharing Kristen Tracy’s poem from Issue 112, “Taming the Dog”: Your dog arrives at my open window filled with advice. He sees how I trim the beans and complains. He believes the way I tenderize my lamb is an abomination. The neck may be tough, but in my house we use everything. We hang our laundry. We beat our rugs and there is joy. Last night, he caught me pruning the magnolia tree, appeared beneath my ladder, fur holding the light of […]

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‘Albatross’

by Paul Wilner

Posted on by Zack Ravas

(For Peter Greenbaum, 1946-2020) The British rocker died for our sins, of course, right on time. No ancient mariner, he ate some acid  from that smug asshole Owsley Stanley, who always had the good stuff, but  didn’t know what to do  with it, or himself. Of  course, he was a legend, like Liberty Valance, or Sportin’ Life. Lonely kid In his basement practicing  his ax. The ax fell, a long  time ago, the shock of  recognition administered  by all-too-ready mental health “professionals.” Clapton is God, the poster  said, as another child fell out a window. He was  fleet of foot, […]

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‘For McClure’

by Paul Wilner

Posted on by Zack Ravas

Debonair dude, bird thou never wert. Fly high, higher, highest, higher than that, far. Lionhearted lover roaring of sex, death and tantric miracles. You rode the wave, surfed above and beyond beatitudes to a still harmonic humming. Cool customer, hot to the touch. In Eternity, you pose the ecstatic, unanswerable koan. “Before you can pry any secrets from me you must first find the real me. Which one will you pursue?’’ Mane, mind and scrotum, you are ready to meet your Maker, and ours, in a blue velvet Paradise. Death be not proud, nor is it humble. Jesus, he was […]

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Shelter in Place Schedule

by Christine Sneed

Posted on by Zack Ravas

7 AM Rise from bed in a sunny mood 7:15 Drink coffee from home-roasted beans, painstakingly ground by hand with Japanese-engineered grinder while listening to northern mockingbird sing from the top of a nearby lemon tree. 7:20 Feel upsurge in mood after caffeine hit and read a New Yorker profile of a hearing impaired beekeeper 7:40 Feel good mood wane as neighbor starts blasting Meatloaf CD through the wall 7:43 Pound on wall 7:48 Pound on wall again 7:52 Pound on wall a third time while screaming 7:55 Go outside for exercise with face mask and gloves 8:02 Accidentally step […]

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National Poetry Month: ‘Peaceful Waters’

by Paul Wilner

Posted on by Zack Ravas

Run deep. The people we know, or think we know, or wish we were, if only we could find a way outside the prison of selfishness. Unlikely. One hundred years—or more— of solitude can’t break these walls. But, you know, there we have it. Other people. Maybe they can save us, maybe they can ruin us, maybe we can find a way into a twangy heaven, where people weep, and weep, and say how much they love us. What is love? Who is he, and what is he to you? Black, brown, beige and battered, like an old suitcase draped […]

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National Poetry Month: ‘Northern California’

by Rage Hezekiah

Posted on by Zack Ravas

To celebrate National Poetry Month, we’ll be sharing a poem a week from our archives. The following poem, “Northern California” by Rage Hezekiah, is from Issue 116. You can read more poetry by Rage Hezekiah in the issue itself, which is currently available from our Store. You stood at the edge of the stone fruit orchard while I scaled the ladder, a picking basket against my belly, brimming with shiny-ripe plums. Father, you came to California willing to farm at my side, practiced shattered Spanish with the men I’d befriended. When I left after lunch to get high, you never said […]

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National Poetry Month: “Object Permanence”

by Luiza Flynn-Goodlett

Posted on by Zack Ravas

To celebrate National Poetry Month, we’ll be sharing a poem a week from our archives. The following poem, “Object Permanence” by Luiza Flynn-Goodlett, is from our recent Bay Area Issue. You can read more great work from local poets in the issue itself, which is currently available from our Store. Yes, the red-tail who swooped across our windshield didn’t actually vanish in the gulley, circles still. And when the alarm wakes you, I trust that soft nest of curls will be safely conveyed  to hover at a chalkboard, fall in your eyes. But the calls keep getting closer. So straighten your tie, […]

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National Poetry Month: ‘A Moment in Time’

by John Freeman

Posted on by Zack Ravas

The following is an excerpt from John Freeman’s forthcoming book of poetry The Park, out May 2020 from Copper Canyon Press. You can also read more of John Freeman’s poetry in Issue 115. On a windy day I come upon a woman crying to herself on a bench. The park has hidden her in its embrace and I must decide how to be, to stop or keep walking by, to pretend not to see? Or should I flinch at her pain, even as she, so dedicated to caroling her despair, does not. How pain does this, makes us its instruments. […]

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National Poetry Month: ‘We Californians’

by Meg Hurtado Bloom

Posted on by Zack Ravas

To celebrate National Poetry Month, we’ll be sharing a poem a week from our archives. The following poem, “We Californians” by Meg Hurtado Bloom, is from our recent Bay Area Issue. You can read more poetry from Meg Hurtado Bloom in the issue itself, which is currently available from our Store. We never admit we have a problem. We compress. We knead. We withdraw toxins. Sun-blind and blond-hearted, we hang around Valhalla, keeping old warriors alive. It’s all super-casual. Our host, the spectral Spanish king— whose every vein burned blue as winter wind, who left us names for every hillside— has betrothed […]

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