Today’s choice
Previous poems
Genna Gardini
When we die, do we
go back, small cell, atom
slit by light. It takes up
space, an ocean, a planet, a
god. Too large to understand
the scale, although we accept
the concept. Constellations,
tongues of vibration. Unlearnable
logic between us. Our sameness, our
strangeness, lows deep and seismic.
A language translated. Thin whistle.
If we could speak it, we would
crumble. Above us,
a black and wet sheet is washing
forever. Clockless expanse, science
in darkness, the moon’s clean conduction
of time. Satellites, submarines, sink
and climb, and can’t find what’s there, and
what’s there? Listen
to me, carefully. One day
you’ll ask the right question,
and that’s when you’ll see it.
Look! That’s when
I’ll tell you—
Wait—
Genna Gardini is a writer, theatre-maker, and educator. Her poetry has been published widely, most recently in Prairie Schooner, The Amsterdam Review, and New Contrast. You can see more about her work at www.gennagardini.com.
Sheila Saunders
Which is the subject?
Limp-leaved yucca
reluctantly dying,
the foreground figure
in its stony pot?
Trelawney
What is holding you back from building your wormery?
You can’t say there isn’t the time. Everyone has the time
when it comes to a wormery. Born with the right tools to hand.
David Van-Cauter
…4am and the birdsong begins, a wet January in a new city and I’m alone watching a man in Minnesota, murdered for protecting a woman from a fascist hit squad. . .
Tim Dwyer
Unexpectedly
My neighbour
opens her window
for fresh salty air
Paul Moclair
Their shore leave over,
. . . the spirits of the dead are bid farewell
until that time next year, when ritual
grants them reprieve again.
Susan Elizabeth Hale
Sometimes words are the only thing
that get you through,
But not the words you think,
not a word like love or hope
those are imprecise.
Seán Street
We lit a candle for you
that day in Sacre Coeur,
under its white-flame dome
as high as Paris could go
Marjory Woodfield
On Kinley’s Lane, quince tree, wild blackberries, branches of feijoa reaching over a fence, fallen fruit.
Ian Seed
What was the Welsh for ‘hedgehog’? That was what he wanted to know.