Friday, March 29, 2024

September 2019

11 243 Meters, Purple Mediterranean                                                  The airplane wings draw new summer fragrances in the fogs they’re expected by tomorrow's smiles like a dawn or maybe a dusk with a calm, lazy eyes the day can witness the providence through all the blue truths the winds lose their hearing with the speed of a fatal...
Title: The Low Passions: Poems Writer: Anders Carlson-Wee Publisher: W.W. Norton and Company ISBN: 978-0393652383 Language: English Reviewed by: Dustin Pickering Anders Carlson-Wee is a National Endowment of the Arts fellow. Dorianne Laux calls The Low Passions “an ode to America, the distances between place and people, the desire to quiet the self in order...
"Publishing is a small pond but it is full of Pirhanas" Jhilam Chattaraj: Congratulations on receiving the Pushcart Prize nomination. How important are such honours in a poet’s life?  Dustin Pickering: Thank you, Jhilam! Awards can bring underrated writers to the spotlight and offer them opportunities. An award can also encourage...
Heirloom When your mother raises her hand; earthy brown, skin cracked open— sun parched field— iron hot temper and hits you the pain melts your flesh, bones, marrow. When your mother raises her hand to strike you the pain bites (your pet rabid dog). She throws the foliage of her swallowed dreams— barren land that was hers and her mother’s and her mother’s mother who couldn’t...
Paradise lonely feet on a subway train at half past midnight she misses paradise where every day she would collect a pocket full of shells why not give her home away for another trip to the coastline without a name our lady train rider flashes back to the nights where she would stumble drunkenly with another girl who split...
On Reflection a silent tree frog clings to broken shelves of stone rippled by the breeze water colors blend and blur illusions of perfection   Beads clusters of black pearls press into the palms of clouds— a broken necklace that slips between my fingers rains upon this garden path
On the Crossroads O’ father, hold my fingers in your firm grip and help me cross the road.   Suspicion I’ve burnt myself half, fortuitously. And deliberately, left the rest unburned.   Bike Accident Helmet transforms into a skull. The road runs as usual.   Insomnia Night burns into an ashtray. I fly to you with the wings of ashes.

Poems by Anirban Dam

Language this noise binds us in peculiar ways as if it knows the frequency at which we resonate I can predict the weather by the lilt in your voice and you can pinpoint my location by the clamor on the streets. evening is when the suburb breaks down into episodes, but all I can think of is the time...

The Indoor Aviator

Pia Donovan I sit on the floor in front of the old, low, brown bookcase in the dining room. People walk back and forth behind me in a silent rush, going nowhere in the small empty house. Now everyone that lived there is gone leaving two tiny empty bedrooms, his...
universe ants working underground not understanding world beyond earth   computer magic inside god box angels wildly dancing google and amazon music   on hold commuter gridlock sea of stationary cars anxious egos idling
NOSTALGIA OF A WORKNIGHT She’s weary as an unused toy—unwrapped, not touched. She’s not hidden but by herself in back of a toybox, under the snapped off arm of her last doll. She thinks a shelf might be nice. She’d like to hear the soft click as her nightlight went dark and slipped into a sleep...
The Work of Art It is just another day To be proud Happy with who I am With high self Esteem And the old broom and Mop at hand.   At the Doctor Trust, to care about Who I am As if to let me have My say Pad and pen the end Or give me a couple Words as a pathway.