Last Bender

dyspeptic Caesars parry sword thrusts with their bellies

Thomas Hardy: At the War Office, London                           I Last year I called this world of gaingivings The darkest thinkable, and questioned sadly If my own land could heave its pulse less gladly, So charged it seemed with circumstance that brings                     The tragedy of things                         II Yet at that censured time no [...]

many friends beside tequila many ears without ice at the bottom many tongues that don’t fret and yet a drink doesn’t talk back shots have no sense they only remind me of what’s gone and good the drama of the stairs of the front door tragedies in gardens by the bent daffodils or single syllables [...]

St. Francis and the Angels out came the bottle and up went the skirt the thrust of these thoughts on a summer morning held for youth as coffee brewed a rain on Sunday soft enough to darken concrete the leaves develop like Polaroids first in light and then in rain the world, the fire, bloomed [...]

Untitled If my father calls I go Among strange letters of a foe I tread the ladder of his breath Ascend my son he says to rest I cannot hold the bird in place And see no throne or face A voice across the valley goes It startles flocks of crows A pack of ruffled [...]

The Jivin’ Ladybug is an exciting poetry journal I just came across via Silliman’s Blog. The link is to a poem by Will Alexander, and as always his hypnotic surreal jazz is compulsive, propulsive and explosive. i sometimes think Alexander is the only contemporary poet I can stand. He leaves theory shivering in its shorts.

1. lately collisions with walls. sharp touches sharp and soft on soft always what should be but not now nor ever really like that. sometimes sharp on soft collisions. sometimes hot like a stove not like: did you see him? i’ll take one of those; or hear about these collisions they have seen and paid [...]

Poem Day 8 Today I think Of the pregnant woman’s belly Like a bag of swag In a white T shirt And her swollen face She’s relaxed Letting go Because she might fart Any second And her heart Is harrowed with puke She leans back in her chair Like a boss But there’s that belly [...]

from the Paris Review Interview, 2005: GILBERT: “I think serious poems should make something happen that’s not correct or entertaining or clever. I want something that matters to my heart, and I don’t mean “Linda left me.” I don’t want that. I’ll write that poem, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about [...]

Poem Written in January I gather the sun from out of the blinds I gather the sun in my hands weaving the strands of light on the floor sunbeams like cobwebs of lion and lemon forsythia pale on the snow