ALT THE MAD SCENE Again last night I dreamed the dream called Laundry. In it, the sheets and towels of a life we were going to share, The milk-stiff bibs, the shroud, each rag to be ever Trampled or soiled, bled on or groped for blindly, Came swooning out of an enormous willow hamper Onto moon-marbly boards. We had just met. I watched From outer darkness. I had dressed myself in clothes Of a new fiber that never stains or wrinkles, never Wears thin. The opera house sparkled with tiers And tiers of eyes, like mine enlarged by belladonna, Trained inward. There I saw the cloud-clot, gust by gust, Form, and the lightning bite, and the roan mane unloosen. Fingers were running in panic over the flute's nine gates. Why did I flinch? I loved you. And in the downpour laughed To have us wrung white, gnarled together, one Topmost mordent of wisteria, As the lean tree burst into grief. --JAMES MERRILL (1962)
ALT Vinegrowers BY PAUL CELAN TRANSLATED BY PIERRE JORIS Vinegrowers dig up dig under the darkhoured watch, depth for depth, you read, the invisible one commands the wind to stay in bounds, you read, the Open Ones carry the stone behind the eye, it recognizes you, on a Sabbath.
ALT This is the place they hoped before, Where I am hoping now The seed of disappointment grew Within a capsule gay Too distant to arrest the feet That walk this plank of balm, Before them lies escapeless sea The way is closed they came.
ALT A SHOWER IN JUNE Peeling a hard boiled egg the downpour curls my hair flick of shell into garbage can where does memory not intrude? Another June whose roses swung “stitched and gored,” the very words, across stone swallows this rain and birds’ broken song. Memory gorges every single thing who are we to forget so much?
ALT VAGUE MEMORY FROM CHILDHOOD It was the end of day- Vast far clouds In the zenith darkening At the end of day. The voices of my aunts Sounded through an open window. Birdspeech cantankerous in a high tree mingled With the voices of my aunts. I had been playing alone, Caught up in a sort of dream, With sticks and twigs pretending; Playing there alone In the dust. And a lamp came on indoors, Printing a frail gold geometry On the dust. Shadows came engulfing The great charmed sycamore. It was the end of day. Shadows came engulfing. -DONALD JUSTICE
ALT Screen capture of a post from Bluesky with the author's picture and details about her pub credits
ALT Could Hope inspect her Basis Her Craft were done - Has a fictitious Charter Or it is none - Balked in the vastest instance But to renew - Felled by but one assassin - Prosperity -
