about which
nothing new can be said.
The stars on a clear night
of a New England winter;
the soft air of the islands
along the old
Spanish Main;
pirate gold shining
in the palm;
the odor of roses
to the lover’s nose. . .
There is no more poetry
to be written
of these things.
The rainbow’s sudden revelation–
behold!
The cliché is true!
What can one say
but that?
So too
with you, little heart,
little miracle,
but you are
no less miracle
for being ordinary.
For centuries, the air was full of witchesWhistling up chimneyson their spiky broomscackling or singing more sweetly than Circe,as they flew over rooftopsblessing & cursing theirkind.We banished & burned themmaking them smoke in the throat of god;we declared ourselves‘enlightened.’‘The dark age of horrors is past,’said my mother to me in 1952,seven years after our people…
The man who waits for my floating bare footThe man who is silent as dustballs riding the darknessThe man whose breath is the breathing of small white butterfliesThe man whose breathing I hear when I pick up the phoneThe man in the mirror whose breath blackens silverThe boneman in closets who rattles the mothballsThe man…
what are you searching forin poetry,in meditation?The mother you never had?The child in youthat you did not conceive?Death?Ease from fear of death?Revelation?Dwelling in the house of cloudswhere you imagineyou once lived?‘Born alone,we depart alone.’Someone said thatduring meditation& I nearly wept.Oh melancholy ladybehind your clown face,behind your wisecracks-how heady it isto let the ideas rush to…
— Naomi LazardMy friends are tired.The ones who are married are tiredof being married.The ones who are single are tiredof being single.They look at their wrinkles.The ones who are single attribute their wrinklesto being single.The ones who are married attribute their wrinklesto being married.They have very few wrinkles.Even taken together,they have very few wrinkles.But I…
She looks He looks awayHe is snow-blindfrom staring at her breastsThey make loveThis is marked by asterisksthose gapsdisguised as stars***He thinks the future is a mouthShe invites himinto her apple
the crystal, the clouds, the water lapping the rocks,the snow breaking under our boots like skin,& the long mornings in bed. . .After the tangos in the kitchen,& our eyes fixed on each other at dinner,as if we would eat with our lids,as if we would swallow each other. . .I find you stillhere beside…
