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ART & LETTERS I4 INTERNATIONAL YOUNGER POETS, PHILIP NIKOLAYEV ED. REVIEWED
Poetry today is crying out for criticism. There is hardly an honest word said about poetry since Ezra Pound said he didn’t like the Russians or Thomas Brady said he didn’t like the Red Wheel Barrow...
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DONNA
It is poetry’s duty to make sure beauty does not fade away,To join time and night, to make certainDonna enjoys pleasures before daySpreads the infinite colors on the curtain. Poetry will hunt down...
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COLLECTED POEMS OF DANIEL CHRISTOPHER RIFENBURGH REVIEWED
Paper Boats Collected Poems of Daniel Christopher RifenburghIntroduction by Richard WilburLazy Bayou Press 2021Houston TX166 pp Reviewing is a perilous occupation. Reading a book in private, we can...
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HURRICANE
When hurricanes kiss the northeast in September, making New England warmer than it’s supposed to be— I love this, the way John Keats loved poetry. Warmth and love, the refinement of verse, these had...
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THE MIND
The mind makes the involuntary sad. We attempt to change things and fail. Attempting to lose weight we end up as big as a whale— afloat in irreconcilable seas. We decide at once to explore why racists...
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YOU RESENTED
You resented their joy— why were they happy-go-lucky in the damn office? In the workplace of missing dreams, diets and cheap perfumes? They had no reason to be happy in those sterile rooms, and...
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IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE
If you don’t believe in the divine, all the better. It’s nothing like what you think it is, anyway. You don’t remember when you glimpsed perfection; perfection exists, but is never remembered. Memory...
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JUPITER
In that famous Frank Sinatra songa dactylic is required, and “Jupiter” is pretty strong.Poetry, I love you, because pop songs can be wrong. “Yesterday” was the only songTo ditch “scrambled eggs” and...
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HER GIFT
There is no way to give and receive properly; this is the great dilemma facing all. When I’m invited and I must pick a gift I feel defeated and sick. Any civil, obligated exchange makes me feel...
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POET GOES TO WOODS
The poet will ask the creatures of the wood: “Do you love her?” and their answers will be more proof that poems need not be written. “But do you love her?” chirps the busy wren. “Do I need to write...
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IT WAS ALREADY TRUE
She used to say, “love has an expiration date” and “love is finally as unreliable and uncharitable as hate.” What could I do? She believed it—so it was already true. I watched as the inevitable took...
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LOVE WILL LOVE
Don’t tell me what you want—Don’t tell me what you need.Love will love those who love—Until the indifferent fates intercede. You worry about education,The pills, the rumors, the weed,Love will love...
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BECAUSE NOBODY TALKS TO YOU
Because nobody talks to you without an agenda of their own, you listen to me, as I confess with a certain charm on the telephone. I prefer to walk down the street covered in trees and the sun above...
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THE END OF SUMMER
A great melancholy came about when one small cloud blocked the sun. Did I feel this melancholy— or was it felt by everyone? I may as well observe it was the end of a long weekend at the end of summer...
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THERE IS SOMETHING FAINTLY COMICAL
There is something faintly comicaland hopelessly masturbatory about love.Sex made me weary; it made me laugh.It’s difficult to make desire lastunless it cannot be.When I couldn’t have youyou made more...
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WHEN YOU REACH A CERTAIN AGE
When you reach a certain age you feel like you’ve died— even though you have not died. Life seems like an extremely well-made film with a subtle plot you have little interest in. It’s too highbrow for...
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A LANDSCAPE SEEN FROM A GREAT DISTANCE
The old woods have passed away.Cloudy domes, tall storms,Tower above the night sky—A strip of glowing horizonWhere a thousand cities lieIs all we see of our sky tonightLost in turgid, earthy...
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INSIDE MY CONTEMPLATIONS
Inside my contemplations I find the most wonderful things. Not songs [fools] But how singing sings. You told me a red wine you were drinking belonged to your novel, so I couldn’t have it. What was I...
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THE GREEN AND THE BLACK: DELMORE SCHWARTZ AND A TALE OF TWO CENTURIES
A narrator of an autobiographical tale pleads with his parents not to marry—their courtship is up on the screen in a documentary/romance. ‘Don’t have children,’ he yells at them, helplessly, ‘what are...
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THE LION
The lion was dying and the antelope, who suggested peace to her new friend, did not know why. “Peace is beautiful,” said the grass— the grass— as beautiful, in its collectivity, as any woman— and the...
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