“Eroica”

~ remembering Stanisław Barańczak & his poem “Eroica”
~ “…holding a flagstaff, pushing a pram…”
~ Ukraine

 

“To seize one’s fate by the throat”
(Beethoven). But also to
feel one’s throat seized by a “fate”
one must escape, for the sake
of the children. And yet an
invading “great” power has
swollen the blood-horrific
puppet show of soldiers. These
attackers dangling from fate-
ful puppet strings bring on hate-
ful havoc; defenders stand
on honest feet—men’s courage
and hopes float invisibly
above their helmets like brave
candle flames. And …

Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92

-after francine j. harris and with Eileen

 

The symphony was a straitjacket
I must’ve needed. Need being relative—
the organ pipes (silver) looked like missiles,
that bright and tipped. The blue …

August at Oceti, One Year Later

 

Standing Rock, 2017

Crawl beyond barbed wire. Stand in the place you stood,
    where you burned your fingers on the barely-live

embers of the Sacred Fire’s final night, looked
    at …

To ghost is to stay.

 

grieving gets its discipline done,
that’s who’s not gone’s abiding
rehearsal—biding’s ghost shit,
right? supernatch: cabinets,
corridors, doors soon rapped at;
chill heavy in grim, dim scenes;
bleak dispatches bleed …

July Poetry Curator CM Burroughs

Poets Are Record Keepers

CM Burroughs is associate professor of creative writing at Columbia College Chicago and author of The Vital System and Master Suffering, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and …

black and white photo of downtown Los Angeles' skyscrapers, with some clouds in the sky reflected back in an imposing manner.

City of

 

City of ghosts. City of dead cars. City of nah to the songs
that say blah, blah, blah. Is this what I get
when my father’s dead. Is this what …