little ode on st. anne's day

"You're growing up, and rain sort of remains, on the branches of a tree, that will someday rule the Earth. And that's good, that there's rain. It clears the month, of your sorry rainbow expressions, and clears the streets, of the silent armies, so we can dance."

—Little Ode On St. Anne's Day; Jim Carroll

hope is the thing with feathers

"Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all."

—Hope Is The Thing With Feathers; Emily Dickinson

foreign

"And she tucked herself away in a corner, quiet and foreign to the crowd around her, and all that kept racing through my head is that the best kind of beauty is the kind that is mostly ignored."

—Christopher Poindexter

nothing is missing

"we were all there

under the hot black sky         listening

so many shifting bodies like water

we felt words rise like steam

words like stars swimming in a black pool

it's hot there when it's hot

all our molecules were dancing like steam off a black starry pool

shifting bodies dancing into the night under stars

raining down from rooftops like falling

embers from the blackened night sky

hot bodies drenched in the universe falling from the sky

when words hit your skin it melted leaving only your clothes to

mark your passing

that night we were a body unquestioned

all our molecules were ecstatic fire."

—Nothing Is Missing; GR Keer

round, hopeful poem

"I'll match your

cold, lonely parts

with my honest skin

I can remind you."

—Round, Hopeful Poem; Reba Overkill

blessed are the wingless

"Blessed all the debris that waits inside of monuments."

—The Wingless; Cecilia Llompart

the dance

"Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.”

Rumi

white heron rises over blackwater

I wonder what it is that I will accomplish today
If anything can be called that marvelous word. 

It won't be
My kind of work, which is only putting words on a page,
The pencil
Haltingly calling up
The light of the world,
Yet nothing appearing on paper half as bright
As the mockingbird's verbal hilarity
In the still unleafed shrub in the churchyard—
Or the white heron rising over the swamp and the darkness,
His yellow eyes and broad wings wearing
The light of the world in the light of the world—
Ah yes, I see him.
He is exactly the poem I wanted to write. 

Mary Oliver

twoheaded and slayer

DRAWN OUT ALL THIS, THE

STRINGS I am creation without courage THAT

TAKE I am loving without look

liar to FOR MY LOVE STILL

others MUST

STAY bitter from all seeing

feeling stills

there is a certainty in rust

of the night drug

to hear it loudest above vanilla light

one friend of myself.

a quick little life

thick purple skies, swam crushed stag beetle

that makes me feel like the night hours on flight

some arc of clouds are the ghosts of lightning across

orange-gold-grey light, cold hair smoke

my blood's birthday, the melted fast of candles

warm gloves, or that is how it felt.

—Ian William L.

the moth sting

marker sweating on your cheek

hair slides honey through popcorn

scrunched

thick like a jump rope

your lip snags in the light

and eyes already held

a curious song



I breathe in a mass

fizzy and crackling

a little fire dance

the smudge of postal stamps

spilling

my hands all over

a warm year


Ian William L.

saw the graffiti

graffiti


(how we met, flashing paint to my lips, summer heat by numbers, all want and jarring)


rooftop


(I am moving through, swam by a lightness of your breath)


skyline


(the whole city knows this song, and listens warm)


sunlight


(are we not invisible in this?)

capturekiller

I am staring at the ceiling
without a camera to see
I am writing lines at the party
that swallow pills in lowercase

and, capture killer,
even so fucking pretty
a ghost on the couch
can't you haunt me?

I am stealing looks
through walls
I did not know...
cut your throat, and speak.

Ian William L.