TO CALLISTO, WHO WAS FIRST A GIRL, THEN A BEAR, THEN LATER THE BEAR CONSTELLATION
If I peel back the wallpaper of this world, Callisto, will I find
myself in your age? Will I be
closer to you? If the crows show as chips in a pale sky, does it mean
you still decorate the distance somewhere? I know here
holds my face like some motel’s portrait hung
in the lobby of each day, and the night’s room
has curtains I pull back to see if your slow gait in stars still
crosses my latest black window. Sometimes
I imagine us as the sole cast in Arcady – the gods unwritten,
without us. It is for spite that they spell our bodies
in animals, that they turn us to wonder
where we go beneath our coarse hides, our coats growing thicker
with each passing winter. And your groves grow odious,
my rooms in the city speak
as though they don’t know me, as we walk the freshly painted halls
of each year. But if I were a bear, Callisto –
you among poplars, myself nearby the populace –
how I would tear through this world to companion.
A.E. Watkins is a graduate of the MFA program at Saint Mary’s College of California and currently attends Purdue University’s Graduate English Program. His first collection of poetry, Dear, Companion, is forthcoming from Dream Horse Press in 2012. Individual poems can be found in Barrow Street, Copper Nickel, Denver Quarterly, Handsome, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Ninth Letter, Notre Dame Review, Verse Daily and elsewhere.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Christopher Kondrich
from CONTRAPUNTAL
That beautiful melody? It is already within us
Tim was sorting through his compositions
we need to find a way to bring it closer
to brush our end against its end, but we must remain
and regardless if I am satisfied with it
I have to abide by the metronome
I want to study piano because in doing so I will destroy
my discreteness. One is always concerned with one’s discreteness
this tiresome harangue of mine, would you believe me
just as I was reaching the terminus or whatever point
in the mind that receives it. Listen to this, Tim said
playing nothing. Do you hear what I hear
I would have to do it myself
with my own hands, Tim continued,
sometimes I am struck, my chair a closer
companion than anyone I know.
Christopher Kondrich is the author of Contrapuntal, forthcoming in the Free Verse Editions poetry series. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Denver.
That beautiful melody? It is already within us
Tim was sorting through his compositions
we need to find a way to bring it closer
to brush our end against its end, but we must remain
and regardless if I am satisfied with it
I have to abide by the metronome
I want to study piano because in doing so I will destroy
my discreteness. One is always concerned with one’s discreteness
this tiresome harangue of mine, would you believe me
just as I was reaching the terminus or whatever point
in the mind that receives it. Listen to this, Tim said
playing nothing. Do you hear what I hear
I would have to do it myself
with my own hands, Tim continued,
sometimes I am struck, my chair a closer
companion than anyone I know.
Christopher Kondrich is the author of Contrapuntal, forthcoming in the Free Verse Editions poetry series. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Denver.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
MRB Chelko [Part Two]
from M O T H E R M A Y I
have
something like a mystery to solve, not that
a floppy straw hat
to organize the light, it falls all over me like this isn't New York
you wouldn't understand, how darkly my sunglasses sit
on the ground arms folded
this concrete is sand
no parking sign a love letter
right? scrawled
in lipstick in blood
let's romanticize everything
glare like you want me
MRB Chelko is Assistant Editor of the unbound journal, Tuesday; An Art Project. She has poems in current or forthcoming issues of Indiana Review, POOL, Washington Square, Forklift, Ohio and Verse Daily among many others. Her second chapbook, The World after Czeslaw Milosz, is forthcoming from Dream Horse Press.
have
something like a mystery to solve, not that
a floppy straw hat
to organize the light, it falls all over me like this isn't New York
you wouldn't understand, how darkly my sunglasses sit
on the ground arms folded
this concrete is sand
no parking sign a love letter
right? scrawled
in lipstick in blood
let's romanticize everything
glare like you want me
MRB Chelko is Assistant Editor of the unbound journal, Tuesday; An Art Project. She has poems in current or forthcoming issues of Indiana Review, POOL, Washington Square, Forklift, Ohio and Verse Daily among many others. Her second chapbook, The World after Czeslaw Milosz, is forthcoming from Dream Horse Press.
Sunday, December 04, 2011
MRB Chelko
from THE MARCH
The airless blue
to wake alive
again
place no thought no finger on
that miracle
life
ha
to get one
and discover work
music
the snow melts
reveals it's been collecting
bones
death I tear from my dog's throat
the way we want to eat each other up
the way we lick our swollen lips
our chapped lips
I'm alive
I tell my shirt because I want to take it off
when I talk about love I mean
am I the only one
this will need to be revised
I will need to be forgiven
and locked inside for some time
to wake alive
to sit at the table
stare at an open kitchen drawer
and think
never close
MRB Chelko is Assistant Editor of the unbound journal, Tuesday; An Art Project. She has poems in current or forthcoming issues of Indiana Review, POOL, Washington Square, Forklift, Ohio and Verse Daily among many others. Her second chapbook, The World after Czeslaw Milosz, is forthcoming from Dream Horse Press.
The airless blue
to wake alive
again
place no thought no finger on
that miracle
life
ha
to get one
and discover work
music
the snow melts
reveals it's been collecting
bones
death I tear from my dog's throat
the way we want to eat each other up
the way we lick our swollen lips
our chapped lips
I'm alive
I tell my shirt because I want to take it off
when I talk about love I mean
am I the only one
this will need to be revised
I will need to be forgiven
and locked inside for some time
to wake alive
to sit at the table
stare at an open kitchen drawer
and think
never close
MRB Chelko is Assistant Editor of the unbound journal, Tuesday; An Art Project. She has poems in current or forthcoming issues of Indiana Review, POOL, Washington Square, Forklift, Ohio and Verse Daily among many others. Her second chapbook, The World after Czeslaw Milosz, is forthcoming from Dream Horse Press.
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