I can’t stand when I have like one phrase in a poem that ruins the whole thing but I can’t possibly in any shape or form on any planet in any universe say it any differently. I’m so jealous of poets whose words just magically sound like windchimes when you read them. WHAT DO YOU DO WITH ALL THE PREPOSITIONS, HOW HAVE YOU CREATED A POEM-WORLD WHERE THEY ARE NOT NECESSARY
"He’s a little bit in love with every girl
he ever kissed. I keep waking up with dirt
under my fingernails: the grave
he dug won’t hold me. I’ll breathe again.
Claw my way up. All wound
and no dressing, a tricky burial. I’m a nightmare
with a mouth – I speak and speak
and stay through daybreak. I won’t leave easy
like the last girl. I would have walked on water for him
but he’d rather I drown."
he ever kissed. I keep waking up with dirt
under my fingernails: the grave
he dug won’t hold me. I’ll breathe again.
Claw my way up. All wound
and no dressing, a tricky burial. I’m a nightmare
with a mouth – I speak and speak
and stay through daybreak. I won’t leave easy
like the last girl. I would have walked on water for him
but he’d rather I drown."
“Dig,” Cassandra de Alba
"Go with the one who cries out for her tragic sisters
as she chops the winter’s wood, the one whose skin
triggers your heart into a heaven of blood waltzes."
as she chops the winter’s wood, the one whose skin
triggers your heart into a heaven of blood waltzes."
Rachel Mckibbens, “untitled”
"Last Love, every day without you was a life I crawled out of."
Rachel McKibbens, “untitled”
"My heaven is a snowglobe.
The blizzard will always be worth the touch of your hand."
The blizzard will always be worth the touch of your hand."
Andrea Gibson
Duotrope is becoming a pay service on January 1st. Life is fucking hard and I can’t handle it
ATTENTION TUMBLR:
There is a reason Tyler Knott Gregson has never been published in a literary magazine
have any of you ever read a poem before
"‘No justice,’ I said to myself, but then again, the world is all light, Jim, and just the memory of that lovely, slow puncture through the cornea is enough to make a blind man offer himself up for a deeper blindness."
Michael Delp
"Today, from a distance, I saw you
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea. An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, holding only
a handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering corn to her chickens looked up
for an instant. At the other side
of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the size of our own sun exploded
and vanished, leaving a small green spot
on the astronomer’s retina
as he stood in the great open dome
of my heart with no one to tell."
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea. An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, holding only
a handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering corn to her chickens looked up
for an instant. At the other side
of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the size of our own sun exploded
and vanished, leaving a small green spot
on the astronomer’s retina
as he stood in the great open dome
of my heart with no one to tell."
“After Years,” Ted Kooser
