As a followup to Monday’s post, whereby we offered readers sample passages from our forthcoming fiction, we’re now presenting a poetry gallimaufry, as it were. AND we’ll make good on our subscription bonus till the end of this week. In short, if you subscribe today, tomorrow, or Friday, we’ll send you a gratis copy of our graphic play MOTH with your first issue of the journal.
FORTHCOMING IN CINCINNATI REVIEW 12.2
From “Not the Waves As They Make Their Way Forward” by Carl Phillips (Visiting UC in the spring!)
Like Virgil, Marcus Aurelius died believing that his triumphs,
when pitched against his failures, had come to very little.
I don’t know. Given the messiness of most lives (humble,
legendary, all the rest in between)—their interiors,
I mean—it’s hard to say he was wrong. Black night.
From “Necessity” by Allison Campbell
You can’t put a cold heart in the microwave for sixty seconds. It will not heat evenly. Some portions of the heart will still be cold, others much too hot. No, you cannot reheat the heart. The heart needs space.
From “Fresh Dante” by Donald Revell
Berries are nice, Lady.
Grishkin is nice, Lullay.
The soul of Toulouse rots through.
Creation is one way. Creation
Is the other way too.
From “April Incantation” by Maggie Dietz
Crack new bourns and boundaries
into parceled plots. Wreck even
the season that reared you: lick
the lilacs into sobbing heaps.
From “Reach for Your Inside Rain” by Emily Vizzo
How easy to be on my knees. My face on the bed.
Take whatever you want, I tell God. My buddy God
ignores me. Patience is his best trick
From “St. Louis Symphonic” by Philip Schaefer
A chorus of fingers
connected to a chorus of brain activities
which leads to a final chorus of breaths
on the other end of the street. A body
becoming a mural, a glowing coral reef.
From Translation series: part of a twelve-poem series “Lu Neza / Sobre el Camino” (“On the Road”) by Irma Pineda, trans. Wendy Call
The sea went deaf and tossed us
into the desert’s arms
The sea went deaf and hurled us
on a path to other places
From “Make No Bones About It” by Cindy Beebe
Make no bones that float. Or sink, either. Make hay, rather. Make barley, alfalfa, the cows will love you. The cows will bow to you in one smooth, synchronous plié. A little cow ballet.
From “Traveling Circus” by George David Clark
The stilts telescope. The big top folds and folds.
My shirt is the lion inside out, his canines for the cufflinks.
When I’ve vacuum-sealed the acrobats inside their leotards,
I use the high wire to tether the tent stakes.
From “Ant in Amber” by Ashley Keyser
Tiger-iris, me the pupil
learning history
is density. Bride, bare
your throat. You palaces
burning at the bottom of the sea,
fathom me.
