Writings, Reviews, Cultural Criticism
You are the great what if of my life.I shared my hundred million possibilitiesbut none took hold. Not a single one!There remains only the dribble on the sheetsand the presumption of another time. Like arthritic lovers, you and I,we perform our coupling,seeking pleasure less than fleeing pain,melting in light less than groaning in shade,rolling back…
we the implicatedwe the intricatedwe the strand andbolt of fabricwoven tight likemother’s love andscreaming child we the wound andtightly boundembrace of love withlegs wrapped roundstab of hate frombrutal poundboth can occupy asingle space we the medianthe mean and limit casewe the x ofour equationnever puzzled tosolutionpoised across theequals sign isyou and you and you andso…
The ceiling fan above doesn’t turn.It waits on a switch that never trips.The snow outside sits cold and white.It waits on a sun that never shines.The world is a head with empty socketsspinning itself into nothing and nothingstirs me as I lie on my bed and see howthe ceiling fan above doesn’t turn. The laminated…
Do you wonder what I donow I’m gone away from you?Do you imagine how I livewith the freedom that you give?Do you stand alone and gazeat the brightly whorled hazefrom my spackled palette knifethat paints a lustrous life?Or do you look with clearer eyepast the colour-dappled lieto the worn concrete greysof my empty days?Or do…
Do not speakI cannot listenDo not beckonI cannot watchDo not summonI cannot answerDo not railI cannot wince I want only tocurl myself on the floorand feel my ribspressed to the tiles.I wish I had their hardness.I wish I was ceramic.
The thing about a pikethat makes it doubly cruelis the way its shaft can swaywhen it’s blown by ridicule. You ram a path from grointo top of shattered peak.You start a bloody chatterbetween organs that couldn’t speak. The rage that brought us herebegan in our desire.It was you atop the poleand I who thrust you…
My standard poodle ate Walt Whitman(Leaves of Grass in ropey coils on the lawn)I stoop and wrap my fingers aroundwarm Song-Of-My-Self turds.She winces at the stanzathat she squeezes from her anus.Do I constipate myself?Very well thenI constipate myself.I am large.I contain multitudes.And I wonder if Whitmanhad to work so hardto get his words outin the…
columbines betray last year’s scattering of seedby straying from the well-kept bed andspringing unruly from the lawni want to tear them out andbring order to my jealous yard maybe i should collect crystals andarrange them neatly on a shelf butthe suggestion prompts your laughterbursting through the spring air the columbines are beautiful withdowncast gaze and…
sometimes we desire what we cannot havebut unable to extinguish the desirewe fan ourselves into a roaring flame and so we rageand we flarebut consume nothing from thisgod utters forththe usual useless shit thenobedience comesnot from lovebut from its failure we draw on god’s teatlike sucklings on an ashen nub
Reviewing a collection of poems and short prose by Roo Borson is like reviewing a book of scripture. There is something in her voice that is spiritual, something that speaks, perhaps, beyond ordinary experience. And so a simple review is pointless, impossible even.
In her third volume of poetry, The Wanton Sublime, Anna Rabinowitz creates an extended meditation upon the Annunciation—the moment that starts everything in traditional Christian believing—the moment the angel Gabriel appears to a young Mary and tells her she’s going to be the mother of God.