Silent Spring

Reading by Jake Levine

 

The door is shut.

The road where flower petals fall
half on this side, half on that.
Of all the things that used to buzz about
no trace is left.

Joy, sadness,
weddings and funerals, they turn on their heels.
Not even God can step through the door
of destiny.

In a tank in the neighborhood seafood restaurant
a crowd of fish
swim weightlessly.
The youngest one stands still, belly up
dragging its face against the floor.

The door with an angry face that hides fear
keeps its mouth shut.
The …

From notes from the understory

 

notes from the understory (layer 20, direction one)

All of it begins. I’m soaked to the skin by a sudden downpour.
My gray silk blouse won’t come free from the skin …

February Poetry Curator Richard Greenfield

Poetry Doesn’t Let Us off the Hook

Richard Greenfield teaches creative writing at the Creative Media Institute at New Mexico State University. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently, Subterranean, and is one …

What Millennials Want

 

We want to weigh 150 tonnes
and be covered in grey-blue skin
smooth as oil. We want our lungs
to deflate into our chests
when we hunt
the midnight zone

A pile of white styrofoam heads

Contagion

 

When the arena of war shifted to the planet,
when we listened for the scrape of pangolin nails,
the black beat of rhinos, the crex of corncrakes
who would not …