By Terrance Hayes
You are pursuing a feeling like the dust
In the voice of Bob Kaufman plus the mud
Of the most fertile…
In the voice of Bob Kaufman plus the mud
Of the most fertile…
Explore Poems: Arts & Sciences
Showing 1-20 of 4,958 poems
- By Lesyk PanasiukTranslated By Katie Farris & Ilya KaminskyA Russian citizen
took to the streets
with a sign that read war.
The Russian police
shoved him into… - By Khadijah QueenA PBS documentary tells me
two thousand years ago in Babylon
astronomers notched eighteen years of eclipse… - By Aimee Nezhukumatathil
- By Adam GiannelliCertain words are still warm with your touch: stutter,
for instance. It always gives me trouble. Perhaps… - By Adam GiannelliThere’s so much of you that I don’t understand.
I have B-days. I have D-days. I’ll stutter on an M-word… - By Stanley MossA single word firstlast deserves to be
a word in life’s dictionary. Remember,
the firstlast. He’s first… - By Sara ElkamelI am pleased I will soon die and with me the pressing need to make a terrible, terribly poignant film…
- By Sara ElkamelThe dream came weeks after I visited The Beautiful Captive, a solo exhibition by an Alexandrian artist. In an installation exploring enactments of domesticity, two goldfish were meant to be floating mindlessly around a glass bowl but upon looking closely, I noticed one of them had stopped moving. When I inquired, I was told the fish had died unexpectedly that morning, and that the assistant curator was on her way to the gallery with a replacement. Can I make you some tea while the new fish gets here?A red velvet curtain hung inches above a fireplace with a beige marble mantel, a vase carrying two birds of paradise crowning one side, emptiness the other.In the hearth not fire, but a belly of glass.At his talk that evening, the artist did mention Magritte, but did not say the looping goldfish were stand-ins for fire. I might have read that later, in the curatorial statement.In an old photograph (Geneva, c. 1993?) not one but two bees are trapped in a glass cup turned upside down—how did my father manage that? It was a game we played after we ate, as the light packed its things. When I could no longer see their honey stripes, or my mother’s orange lips, I knew it was night.diary excerpts [weeks preceding dream]No noteworthy dreams.No punctuation.Notes for my obituary: Survived by dust. No cats. Green milk. She always unlocked the door with the wrong key first. Kept her skin on a hanger as she slept. She was two women. One bird of paradise. One ran out.Not again—the dream of wearing glass gloves I can’t take off. Nails painted red. Like flame in ice.Now I cannot clean the house.
- By Terrance HayesZora Neal Hurston spent time
in the low country
interviewing & filming
kids on corners & folk at work,
but… - By Lesyk PanasiukОдин російський громадянин
вийшов на вулицю
з плакатом война
російські міліціонери
запакували його в автозак
Інші росіяни
уважно спостерігали за цим
і знімали все на телефони
Одна російська громадянка
вийшла на вулицю
з плакатом мир
російські міліціонери
запакували її в автозак
Інші росіяни
почали ставати в чергу до автозака
з плакатами й без
Один російський солдат
почав читати роман
одного російського бороданя
далі обкладинки не пішов
бо й так усе ясно
читати між рядків
його навчили ще в школі - By E. Ethelbert MillerAfter reading my obituary
folks went to their local bookstores
looking for my books. For a few days… - By E. Ethelbert Milleronly language
can hold us together
i watch the women
bead their hair
each bead a word
braids becoming
sentences… - By E. Ethelbert Millerin the early twenties
a boat brought
my father to america
his first impressions
were spoken in spanish
years… - By Eileen MylesIsrael’s started
bombing
Gaza again
I don’t know
where to put it
in relation
to the ordinary
sadness… - By Myles C. Poydrasi touched my feet in pattern
to a sound and steady floor,
creating more of myself
in suspended leaps… - By Cate MarvinApparently, we are all lying here beside one
another in a darkened room around 2:00 am,
giddy as if… - By Victoria ChangThat two shells could be connected at their centers is a new thought I’ve never had. The way the canvas with its colors now turns into cubes. My life has been livid with itself for too long.
- By Abner Dormiendokung saan ako dinala ng aking mga paa,
latak ng alaalang nililigaw ako
na parang engkanto,
na parang…
